2. Cuttings
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Akrnok Schwirzuek's Daamarie Wonk 299
tracted by the thing he fears more than anything else in the
world. For Schnitzler belongs both racially and by environ¬
ment to the languid and life-loving South rather than to the
could and fearless North; and we way expect to find bis
kindred spirit in the mysticism of the Slav and the impres¬
sionism of the Latin. Schnitzler, as I have said before, has
been hailed as the perfect Viennese just as Anatole France
is the perfect Parisian“, and Edwin Bjorkman has said of
Vienna thatit is ihe mecting place not only of South and
North, but also of Past and Present“. He continnes:
Like all cities sharply divided within itself and living above a
volcano of half-suppressed emotions, Vienna tends to seek in aban¬
doned gaiety, in a frank surrender to the senses, that forgetfulness
without which suicide would seem the only remaining alternative.“
And so it is that, in studying Sehnitzler, we cannot hope to
arrive at an understanding and appreciation of his genius
unless we consider these salient facts of his life which have
left their impress on his work—in the first place, that he is
a Hebrew and is possessed of all the passionate fire and
melancholy mysticism of his race; in the sccond place, that
his experience as a practieing physician has led him into the
half-world of poverty and suffering and brought him into
contact with death in a thousand shapes; and, in the third
place, that all his life has been spent in the free and sensuons
atmosphere of ihe city of Vienna. These three factors, 1
think, may be made to acconnt for everything in Schnitzler
that scems to us morbid, revolutionary, and immoral, while
the artist in him will acconnt for everything that is fine,
delicate, and attractive.
I have said that the scope of Schnitzler’s art is limited,
and, from the standpoint of the materialist, this is true; but
in 80 far as the passions of desire and pity may touch the
heart of mankind, there is no limit to Schnitzler’s appeal.
The mystery of love and death is everywhere his theme. The
tragedy of love—for love, as life, by reason of its very tran¬
sieney, must have something of the tragie in it—and the
box 37/7
Akrnok Schwirzuek's Daamarie Wonk 299
tracted by the thing he fears more than anything else in the
world. For Schnitzler belongs both racially and by environ¬
ment to the languid and life-loving South rather than to the
could and fearless North; and we way expect to find bis
kindred spirit in the mysticism of the Slav and the impres¬
sionism of the Latin. Schnitzler, as I have said before, has
been hailed as the perfect Viennese just as Anatole France
is the perfect Parisian“, and Edwin Bjorkman has said of
Vienna thatit is ihe mecting place not only of South and
North, but also of Past and Present“. He continnes:
Like all cities sharply divided within itself and living above a
volcano of half-suppressed emotions, Vienna tends to seek in aban¬
doned gaiety, in a frank surrender to the senses, that forgetfulness
without which suicide would seem the only remaining alternative.“
And so it is that, in studying Sehnitzler, we cannot hope to
arrive at an understanding and appreciation of his genius
unless we consider these salient facts of his life which have
left their impress on his work—in the first place, that he is
a Hebrew and is possessed of all the passionate fire and
melancholy mysticism of his race; in the sccond place, that
his experience as a practieing physician has led him into the
half-world of poverty and suffering and brought him into
contact with death in a thousand shapes; and, in the third
place, that all his life has been spent in the free and sensuons
atmosphere of ihe city of Vienna. These three factors, 1
think, may be made to acconnt for everything in Schnitzler
that scems to us morbid, revolutionary, and immoral, while
the artist in him will acconnt for everything that is fine,
delicate, and attractive.
I have said that the scope of Schnitzler’s art is limited,
and, from the standpoint of the materialist, this is true; but
in 80 far as the passions of desire and pity may touch the
heart of mankind, there is no limit to Schnitzler’s appeal.
The mystery of love and death is everywhere his theme. The
tragedy of love—for love, as life, by reason of its very tran¬
sieney, must have something of the tragie in it—and the