)
* Ann' is bewitchingly played by Miss
Renée Kelly, we should be hard put to it
to find anything to praise in Mr.
* Ann' is bewitchingly played by Miss
Renée Kelly, we should be hard put to it
to find anything to praise in Mr.
Athenaeum - London - 1912a
30, Æolian Hall,
Lella Doubleday's Violin Recital, 8. 15, Bechstein Hall.
Joset Lhevinde's Orchestral Concert, 8. 15, Queen's Hall.
WED. Iouiso Dale's Morning Concert, 3, Bechstein
Hall.
Reginald D'Arcy's Pianoforte Recital, 3, Steinway Hall.
Arnold Trowell's 'Cello Recital, 8. 15, Bechstein Hall.
Taurs. Haudel Festival, Selection Day, 2. 30, Crystal Palace,
Grand Concert in aid of the Italian Hospital, 3, Queen's Hall
Lillian Macdonald's Voost Recital, 3. Bechstein Hall.
Katharine Jones's Vocal Recital, 330, Rolian Hall,
Isoline Harvey's Violin Recital, 8 30, Bechstein Hall
Hon. Norah Jobnston's Orchestral Concert, 8. 30, Queen's Hall.
FRI Yvetto Guilbert's Recital, 3. 16, Bechstein Hall.
Biloon Nicoll's Tocal Recital, 3. 30, Bolian Hall.
Myaz-Gmelder and Huberman's Recital, 8 15, Queen's Hall,
Max Darowski's Pianoforte Recital, 8. 30, Bechstein Hall.
Ball,
LIITILISI IIIIII
## p. 715 (#537) ############################################
No. 4417, JUNE 22, 1912
THE ATHENÆUM
715
6
one
roviow. )
AND
OF
THE
net.
an
On the same evening Lady Gregory's | Doul, and might have leavened it with
FOUR IRISH PLAYS.
whimsical comedy The Rising of the advantage.
MR. ERVINE's humane and pointed trea-
Moon' was given, with Mr. Sinclair as the
On the same evening Lady Gregory's
tise-play“ Mixed Marriage,” played at the sergeant of police, and Mr. Kerrigan as
Spreading the News
the escaped prisoner. The piece was captivating éclat. It is pure farce, bril-
was acted with
Court Theatre, by the Irish players on the carried through with refreshing actuality, liant and forced in turn, and the whole
13th, is necessarily of a localized interest, Mr. Sinclair finding a congenial medium
since, with us in England, religious intoler for his rich vein of comic suggestion.
company flung themselves into it with
ance and vendetta are“ old, unhappy, far-
relish. Both Miss Sara Allgood and
off things. " To Belfast, especially some
On Monday evening The Well of tainment. The latter is
Mr. Sinclair gave the house rare enter-
years ago, it would have an intense and
of the
penetrating appeal. To those for whom the Saints, the second of Synge's plays drollest comic actors it has been our
bigotry is remote and merely legitimate produced by the company this season, pleasure to see.
grist for the historian, the subject is sub-
was acted, with Mr. Sinclair and Miss
ordinate to its treatment. They will
Sara Allgood as the blind old man and
concentrate their appreciation on the his blind wife. Remembering the misin-
gentle, effortless satire, the touches of terpretation of 'The Playboy, we watched
NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS.
Trumanity, the shafts of wit, blunted by Well
of the Saints' is an early venture of
the acting with some trepidation. The
(Notico in these columns does not preclude longer
kindliness, and, above all, on the delicate
figure of Mrs. Rainey, the infinitely patient Synge's, and, except Riders to the
mother and wife, who epitomizes the in- Sea,' the most perfect of all, the nearest Browning (Robert), WORKS, with Intro-
ductions by F. G. Kenyon: Vol. II.
feriority of men to women in their realiza- approach to symbolism he made. In it
STRAFFORD, PIPPA PASSES, KING VICTOR
tion of the human and concrete issues of he demonstrated the world-old aphorism
KING CHARLES, THE RETURN
life. The story of Tom Rainey and the which the artist is never weary of
express-
THE DRUSES, A BLOT IN
disaster he brings on his house, through ing--the reality of illusion and the dis-
'SOUTCHEON, COLOMBE'S BIRTHDAY, 10/6
Smith & Elder
the insuperable obstinacy of his religious illusion of reality. He joined issue with
bitternessis too familiar to need repeti- Blake in realizing the artistic criterion
The second volume in this fine edition
tion. The question
of its dramatic adapta- of the supremacy of the imagination. has as frontispiece a portrait of Browning
bility is different : as drama it is not well The story of the two old people whose at 46 by Leighton. Dr. Kenyon make
constructed. The didactic motive, directed sight is restored by one of the peripatetic interesting story of the fortunes, or rather
against didacticism, is too prominent, and anchorites of Ireland, and whose subse- misfortunes, of Browning's dramatic work.
the dramatis persone are pigeon-holed quent disgust at the drabness of the not all the enthusiasm of his friend Dickens
into their several recesses to enforce it. world and the visual evidence of their could induce him to be keen about A Blot
They do not live for themselves, but for
own ugliness is relieved by the merciful in the 'Scutcheon,' a really fine play, which
principles ; which is good morality, but not, dispensation of a second blindness, has, deserved success. Finally Browning had
as a rule, good drama. In Ibsen, for indeed, the pristine spirituality and direct it hastily printed to defeat an attempt by
instance, the characters are thinkers, ness of an old English or French para ble. Macready at rewriting it. The autograph
puzzled inevitably about life
because they The odorous mists of fancy, again roll Mr. Buxton Forman, who, as is noted, wrote
over Martin Doul and his wife, and they on it in our own columns on September 1st
are human beings. In much of the
sincere renaissance of modern drama a
pass southward thronged with visionary and 15th, 1894.
propagandist idea is patterned into a
forms of beauty bestowed upon them by
play owing to a mistaken interpretation the “inward eye,” and moving the pail Rich's ' Apolonius and Silla,' AN ORIGINAL
OF SHAKESPEARE'S "TWELFTH NIGHT,'
of the Ibsenite tradition. Spontaneity of from their dark spirits. Such a dramatic
edited by Morton Luce, 2/6 not.
action suffers from these restrictions in conte rather than a drama exercises the
Chatto & Windus
‘Mixed Marriage. ' The first three acts
same kind of appeal as 'Aucassin et
unfold
A suggestive little book on Shakespeare's
the
Nicolette. ' It is the revelation of a Quellen, though Mr. Luce is apt to be dis-
the
argument;
fourth
plunges into sheer, wilful melodrama. peculiar quest of the human spirit. This cursive and to overdo
the pursuit of literary
The salience of 'Mixed Marriage' lies in
theme Synge has clothed with the wild, parallels. The same sentiment and phrase-
the mild radiance and sanity of its philo- irregular, forcibly concrete poetry which ology may easily occur to two authors
sophy.
he rediscovered for literature in the West writing independently of each other, and
of Ireland and forged into artistic
we have noted remarkable instances of this
The Abbey Theatre company appeared shapeliness.
in our own day. We think that the Italian
to feel its non-dramatic elements, but gave
hints from the play Gl Ingannati,' acted
it what visualization their sensitive art
The play is mystical in conception as early as 1531, are the most interesting.
could impart. Mr. Sinclair was obviously and execution, and quite unlike the un- Mr. Luce adopts Mr. Hewlett's suggestion
more tho, acolyte of the
comic than the compromising delineation in “The Play- that Malvolio is coined from " mala voglia
tragic muse, but he saved Tom Rainey by boy. The cast, therefore, had an exacting thirty-sixth Novella of Bandello, and traces
his humour from appearing more of a pur: lacked buoyancy and colour. Their sensi- of Gl Ingannati. The book forms part
As a whole they
Aguecheek” to Malevolti in the Induction
blind dolt than he actually is. Mr. Wright tiveness to atmosphere appeared to weigh of the Shakespeare Classics.
and Mr. Kerrigan gave convincing render- them down,
and to blunt the faculty of
ings of the two sons, and Miss Eithne
Magee a lovable picture of the betrothed sharp, intuitive impressionism which they Shakespeare, Love's LABOUR Lost, edited
by James F. Royster, 1/ not.
of Hugh Rainey. The subtlety
and finesse have displayed to a high pitch in other
Macmillan
of Miss Sara Allgood, her faculty of plays. Their rendering was too palpably
in a grey monotone of subdued effects. American edition, which is similar in scope
Tudor Edition. Another issue of this
pitching the emotional key with inevitable
exactitude, were as delicate as in her ) this criticism. He vivified the inspired,
Mr. Sinclair must be exempted from and character to its numerous predecessors.
previous performances. She is a great dolorous, laughable, and acute craving Shakespeare, KING JOHN, edited by C. W,
actress, because of her disdain of com-
Crook.
monplace tricks and her fidelity to
for beauty which is the key-note of the
Ralph & Holland
character. He illustrated with remark-
her art. She gave an even more vital able aptitude the old man's quickness of the student. The Introduction, Text and
A capable edition, abounding in help for
and electrical meaning to Mrs. Rainey than mood, his philosophic insight, his humour, Notes, Glossary, Examination Questions,
the author has done.
his tragic feeling, and his devotion to the and Index to Notes supply all that can
Mixed Marriage. By St. John G. Ervine.
values of life as he interpreted them. possibly be required. In addition the
It was a study full of fine shades. Miss has made good use of the labours of his pre-
pages of text are interleaved. Mr. Crook
The Rising of the Moon. By Lady Gregory. Sara Allgood hardly satisfied our sanguine decessors, and, we are glad to see, includes
The Well of the Saints. By J. M. Synge. expectations. She throw a kind of crepus- derivations in his Glossary, mostly derived
Spreading the News. By Lady Gregory. cular melancholy over the figure of Mary from Prof. Skeat.
## p. 716 (#538) ############################################
716
THE ATHENÆUM
No. 4417, JUNE 22, 1912
rooms
a
man
which he proudly displays—instead of a enough ; and Mr. Dion Boucicault galvanized
Bramatic Gossip.
nightshirt, at the suggestion of his other a somewhat conventional comic Frenchman
lady pursuer, though he is only scandalized into a semblance of reality.
WITHOUT claiming any great merit for by her when she is seen with her hair down
Mr. Charles Klein's Find the Woman,' and in night attire.
IT is difficult to believe that 'Mrs.
produced at the Garrick last Monday, we
Warren's Profession,' so ably performed last
The other characters consist of a dean Tuesday by the Pioneer Players, is one of
nevertheless can congratulate Mr. Bourchier (Mr. Holman Clark) who reads aloud the Mr. Shaw's early works. Its depth and
on being in a piece more worthy of his
finished acting than 'Improper Peter. ' tion he inflicts
review of his son's work with the intona concentration of feeling, its ruthless courage
on his
As in other plays written with a purpose, the
congregation; and sincerity, mark it as a play of far
dramatist has concentrated his attention
his wife (Miss Fay Davis), who apparently greater worth than many of his more recent
does not much mind who marries her dramas. Mr. Shaw has seldom been more
rather on delivering his message than pro- son as long as some one does; and a friend in earnest, less ready to sacrifice the value
ducing, something which will bear acuto (Mr. Hylton Allen), whose greatest service of a good play to his incorrigible love of
analysis. Like Brieux's 'La Robe Rouge
to all concerned consists in drawing every- fooling. He is more than usually courageous
and Dostoieffsky's 'Crime and Punishment,' body's attention to the fact that he has in his unsparing attack on modern society
adapted respectively in English as The Arm found a lady's shoe in his friend's room.
of the Law and The Unwritten Law,' the
and the hypocrisy of social respectability.
We can only hope that the captivating One may shrink a little at such scenes
present production is intended to expose American actress may have an early oppor- as that in which the flâneur seeks to tempt
the system of mental torture which may be tunity of revealing her talents in something Vivie into marriage with the money heaped
applied to a suspected person to force a
confession.
better than a mechanical jeu d'esprit of this up from profitable investments in Conti-
The illustration which
the
sort.
playwright offers is the case of a drunken
nental hotels of malodorous reputation,
lad found in the
of
It is not unlikely that Sir Arthur Pinero's in the profits of which her mother, as the
who has committed suicide, and sub- farce 'The Amazons' will enjoy, at the able manageress of such institutions, has
a goodly share ; yet no one can doubt the
jected to such an ordeal, and is worked up Duke of York's a longer run than it did at
to a telling climax. Indeed, Mr. Klein
the Court, where it was produced in 1893. honesty of Mr. Shaw's purpose. His un-
rarely fails to contrive effective scenes, and The enthusiasm with which it was received sparing irony is directed more savagely
he can also handle cleverly combats of will. yesterday week was due in great measure against the hypocrisy and wilful blindness
One of his most diverting passages is that
to the popularity of the three young to such a blot on our social life than against
in which the hero's plucky young wife
actresses who play the three girls brought the system itself. It is brought home to us
besieges a lawyer with quiet persistence till up by a disappointed mother as boys. All again and again, and nowhere more poign-
he consents to take up the boy's defence goes well until the boys ” grow up and antly than in Vivie's realization that her
In these two parts Miss Vanbrugh and Mr.
fall in love, when their assumed masculinity own moral integrity is built up on the
Bourchier once again make us so long as
vanishes. There is nothing real about the corruption and disease of such a system.
The acting was uniformly good. Miss
they hold the stage--forget the play's writing, the high spirits of the “ Amazons," Kingston gave a remarkably clever study
deficiencies. As far as ingenuity is con-
cerned Mr. Klein has not much to learn in
and, above all, the consummate acting of of the disreputable mother, with her shame.
the way of stagecraft; he has an obvious
Mr. Weedon Grossmith as the flabby Lordlessness, her lack of all fine feeling, and her
talent for plot-making: But with the gift lui. It is questionable whether there is any pathetic honesty and shrewd knowledge of
Tweenwayes, capture the critic, malgré ignorance, and, on the other hand, her
is not combined in this case the knack of
being plausible. There is an element of
one else on the stage to-day who can look life as it is stripped of all pretence of decency.
unreality about his whole story which is supremely ridiculous with such an air of Miss O'Malley proved an able exponent of
the more annoying because a little thought naturally
played by Miss Ellis Joffreys) too self-possessed. But she made the best
sidered solely as
à piece of dramatic gives a somewhat reluctant consent to her of her rare opportunities to show great feeling
daughters' engagements, chiefly owing to and depth. Mr. Maude was an attractive
craftsmanship, the play affords in itself a
striking example
of the skilful intermingling her discovery that the muscles of one of boyish lover.
of realism, humour, and pathos with the
the prospective bridegrooms resemble those
TO CORRESPONDENTS.
her Jack. ” The three Amazons, Miss J. B. H. --Received.
- H. W. -R. W. C. -N. W. H. -
of
essential quality of culmination which
S. H. -Not suitable for us.
tends to enlist both the sympathy and the Phyllis Neilson-Terry, Miss Pauline Chase,
attention of the audience throughout.
No notice can be taken of anonymous communications.
and Miss Marie Löhr, acted with charm and
We cannot undertake to reply to inquiries concerning the
The company and the staging of the piece competence. Mr, Godfrey. Tearle was not appearance of reviews of books!
are worthy of the occasion.
We do not undertake to give the value of books, china,
entirely successful in subduing his American
pictures, &c.
accent and manner, and seemed incongruous
If it were not that in the title - part as an English lord, but his acting was well (For Index to Advertisers see p. 718.
)
* Ann' is bewitchingly played by Miss
Renée Kelly, we should be hard put to it
to find anything to praise in Mr. Lochmere
Worrall's latest Criterion production. As it A SELF
is, that actress deserves great commendation
for avoiding vulgarity and imbecility. Falling
into the Thames to obtain an introduction to EVIDENT
a man, and cultivating further acquaintance
by gaining entrance to his room late at
night by means of a fire escape, certainly
offer many opportunities for both. In the
second act this lady routs her rival by
surreptitiously leaving articles of her apparel
--including shoes and stockings and a
nightdress—in the young man's sitting-
room, and rounds off her triumph by being
found there feigning sleep attired in the said
nightdress.
The object of her quest, played by Mr.
Basil Hailam, is a novelist who has just
The most valuable and useful Life
been successful in getting a publisher to
Policy is that which yields the
put his imprint to a novel, and is so anxious
largest return for the Premiums
to induce (? bribe) other publishers to
paid. This is simply and clearly
follow suit that he insists on giving, such
shown in the Prospectus just
business procedence to seeing the girl he
has proposed to, and been accepted by, over
issued by the Scottish Widows'
the telep one. Incidentally, we found our-
Fund, of 9, St. Andrew Square,
selves wishing that the torms of authors and
Edinburgh; 28, Cornhill, E. C. ; and
publishers' contracts could be made public, as
5, Waterloo Place, S. W. , London.
this would save reviewers from perusing much
A copy will be sent post free
fustian. The young man, having got engaged to
anywhere.
please his mother, puts scent on his hair, adds
à comb to his brush, and adopts pyjamas
PROPOSITION.
## p. 725 (#539) ############################################
No. 4418, JUNE 29, 1912
THE ATHENÆUM
725
PAGE
726
. .
727
728
. .
730
731-734
DID THUCYDIDES WRITE NUMBERS?
734-736
736
736
. .
MEETINGS NEXT WEEK; GOSSIP
career.
L. ALMA TADEMA; THE COOPERS AND JOHN
. .
ANCES NEXT WEEK
DRAMA
BOOKS
Nearly everything important concerning We are, in fact, content to rest upon
SATURDAY, JUNE 29, 1912. Nietzsche is now accessible to English Nietzsche's own words.
readers, and in recasting a part of the Ecce Homo,' therefore, seems to us
large life of her brother into a history of worth more than everything the world
CONTENTS.
his early years, Frau Förster-Nietzsche has said of Nietzsche. It requires, indeed,
NIETZSCHE (The Young Nietzsche; The Complete adds very little to our previous knowledge. a Milton to inform Smectymnuus that the
Works of Nietzsche)
Yet The
Young Nietzsche' is
SYNGE AND THE THEATRE
726
& troubles which make the poet “ leave a
pleasant picture. "The Lonely Nietzsche' calm and pleasant solitariness, to embark
RECOLLECTIONS OF GUY DE MAUPASSANT
is to be the title of a succeeding volume. in a troubled sea of noises and harsh
AMERICANISMS (An American Glossary)
The year 1876 and the disgusted de- disputes," are merely an impediment to
AUSTRALIA AND GUIANA (Across Australia; Guiana,
British, Dutch, and French)
729 parture from Bayreuth are justly taken the divine epic which he has in mind, or
BERNARD SHAW ET SON EUVRE
as the end of “the happy prince," as
a Nietzsche to set down with all delibera-
BOOK SALES
731 Nietzsche once called himself, and of tion, Why I am so wise,' Why I am
NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS (Theology - Poetry, 731 ; "the life which has been somewhat so clever," " Why I write such excellent
Bibliography-History and Biography-Geography
and Travel-Sociology--Political Economy-Edu. plentifully sown with happy accidents. ”
books," at the headings of his chapters.
cation, 732; Philology-Fiction, 733; General- He had once thought that he could But in each case truth is the excuse, and
Foreign, 734)
have friends and comrades in his war ; frankness makes Nietzsche his own best
PROF. W. W. GOODWIN; NOTES FROM OXFORD;
THE ENGLISH BOOK • TRADE, 1497-1800; How he had dreamed of “a society of biographer.
NEXT MONTH'S MAGAZINES . .
strangers to the age,” whose thoughts
would be out of season,” and so for all from any other precocious youth who
His early life hardly distinguishes him
LITERARY GOSSIP
SCIENCE-DISEASE AND THE COMMON FLY; SOCIETIES;
737—738 ' .
tions. In 1873 he and his sister almost drifts naturally into a successful university
But when he chose the profession
FINE ARTS — MEMORIES OF J. M. WHISTLER; SIR bought an ancient castle where “an of a philologist, Greece was to him an
HOSKINS; SALES ; GOSSIP
738—739 association of men who would be free inspiration which implied a definite atti-
MUSIC-NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS; GOSSIP; PERFORM-
from all compromise, who would repudiate tude to life. He was attracted by the
740-741
all tender forbearance, and would call Pre-Socratics, the tragedians, and the
· THE IRISH DRAMA; NOTICES OF NEW
741–742 themselves Destroyers,' might live a
aristocrats, and a study of Theognis was
INDEX TO ADVERTISERS
742 common life.
There was a long lawn for his earliest work. At the same time he
physical exercise, and a cloister for peri-
abhorred
patetic instruction was to be built along the scholar's impersonality. His sister, de-
LITERATURE
it distinguishes the early Nietzsche from ploring the fact that Nietzsche never
it distinguishes the early Nietzsche from wrote his great book on Greece, is right
the solitary man who said, “ I attack only in saying that from it we should have had
those things against which I find no allies,
“a complete idea of what the Greeks
against which I stand alone. ” The merit
NIETZSCHE.
of this biography is that it makes clear meant to my brother, the starting-point
to us this and the other ideals on the ruins tific problems of his life. ” We should
to many of the psychological and scien-
SURELY one of the most engaging qualities of which Nietzsche built his most en-
of genius is a frank appreciation of its during work.
not have learnt very much about Greece.
own merits. “One day it will be said of
The academic spirit he hated with that
One of the earliest of them went with full hatred which he lavished on every-
Heine and me that we were by far the out a struggle. The son of a Protestant thing which blocked the road half-way
greatest artists of the German language pastor, he was a religious child, but to fullness of culture and the artist-life.
that have ever existed. ” These are Schopenhauer and lapse of time prepared Even in 1874 he made a pleasant tabular
Nietzsche's own words. Now we care the way for the passionate antichrist comparison between the Greeks, who
very little whether Nietzsche was mad or who quarrelled with his friend Romundt render homage to beauty, speak clearly,
not, but we do care for the distinction
between origin and validity, and we Church, and saw in . Parsifal’ the extinc- men, can look out innocently on the world,
on account of a passing attraction to the
are in full possession of their freedom as
believe that the bludgeon is not the only tion of the Wagner of his early love. and the philologists who are babblers and
organ of criticism. But we admit that this transformation was painless, for he triflers, filthy pedants, ardent slaves of
there is reasonable truth in the dictum, tells us he had no sense of sin.
the State, and Christians in disguise.
and admit thereby that the translators
of Nietzsche have set themselves an almost
His later ideals were less easy to dis-
His view of philosophy was no less
impossible task. They have performed lodge. He had once believed that, with individual. He had no 'taste for the
it with fidelity, and, if the verse transla- Greece, Wagner, and Schopenhauer, he game of metaphysics, and saw in the
tions be excepted, in a manner which is might stir the waters of Acheron ; and, Socratic ideal only a symptom of decay.
when two of his three pillars crumbled"I have never pondered over questions
sometimes not unworthy of the original.
away, the intensity of the crisis was greater that are not questions,” he said, and
The Young Nietzsche. By Elizabeth Förster because the narrowness of Nietzsche's life turned to the
more ancient Greeks.
Nietzsche. Translated by A. M. Ludo confined the conflict within a purely intel- When he sought in philosophy for the
vici. (Heinemann. )
lectual radius.
Dionysian element,
The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche, We may learn such things as these from
edited by Dr. Oscar Levy: Vol. II. Early Frau Förster-Nietzsche's work, but we are
“ the saying of yea to life, and even to its
weirdest and most difficult problems, the
Greek Philosophy, and Other Essays, trans- sometimes doubtful of her interpretation will to life rejoicing at its own infinite
lated by Maximilian A. Mügge. Vol. VII. of her brother's mind.
vitality in the sacrifice of its highest types,"
Human, All-too-Human, Part II. , trans-
lated by Paul V. Cohn. Vol. VIII. I. “Frau von Meyserbug (she writes] will he found only one to dispute his claim
The Case of Wagner; II. Nietzsche contra certainly remember his having said to her to be the first tragic philosopher-Hera-
Wagner; III. Selected Aphorisms, trans- on one occasion that if one really wished to clitus,
lated by Anthony M. Ludovici, Third know exactly what Nietzsche thought and
Edition; IV. We Philologists, translated felt, one should ask his sister. ”
“in whose presence I felt warmer and more
by J. M. Kennedy, Vol. IX. The Dawn
at ease than anywhere else. The yea-saying
of Day, translated by J. M. Kennedy. It may be so; but we remember that, if to contradiction and war, the postulation of
Vol. XVI. The Twilight of the Idols, or, we are interested in Socrates, we need the Becoming, together with the radical rejec-
The Antichrist, Notes to Zarathustra, and bilia' and show us that the Dæmon was
How to Philosophise with the Hammer Socratic
dialogues to correct the Memora- tion even of the concept Being--in all these
things I must recognise him who has come
Eternal Recurrence, translated by Anthony
M. Ludovici.
Vol. XVII. Ecce Homo nearer to “the demigod within the nearest to me hitherto. ”
(Nietzsche's Autobiography), translated by breast” than to the voices which Jeanne No other influence was so strong as this
Anthony W. Ludovici. (T. N. Foulis. ) d'Arc heard in the woods of Domremy. ' ideal Greece. Wagner called forth his
## p. 726 (#540) ############################################
726
THE ATHENÆUM
No. 4418, JUNE 29, 1912
early works, but his power lay chiefly in triumphant, and everything that is false But when he goes on to argue that“ Dublin
Nietzsche's identification of Wagnerian and misbegotten; with resignation, which is a good deal nearer to Periclean Athens
music with the Dionysian spirit. Nietzsche is Christianity; or mediocrity, which is or Elizabethan London than to modern
was never content to be a trumpeter of the refuge of the herd.
London or modern Paris," and that it is
Wagner's fame, and of the essay “Wagner We do not, indeed, pretend that the not by accident that Ireland came by a
in Bayreuth' he says, “I am the only wonderful fertility which packs into an
dramatist,” or that Synge "shaped his
person concerned-you may read my aphorism the substance of a treatise can plays for the Dublin stage,” he is not, we
name or the word Zarathustra wherever be summed up in a paragraph. It is think, distinguishing exactly between the
the text contains the name of Wagner. ” apparently the fashion to set off Whitman set of factors that may help good drama
Schopenhauer was more vital, perhaps, by a reference to Nietzsche. A com- into birth and that which stifles it in the
but at bottom it is Nietzsche as Educator, parison of their aims is as unfruitful as
womb or strangles it in the cradle. The
and not Schopenhauer as Educator, who would be a comparison of life in the eighteenth-century English stage was pre-
speaks his sentiments in 'Thoughts out England of News from Nowhere with judiced and hidebound; but, as Mr.
of Season. '. In 1880 he wrote, " When I that of the Platonic republic. The reviewer Montague in his · Dramatic Values' has
honoured Schopenhauer as my educator, prefers the former, while considering observed, no stage ever witnessed before
I forgot that already for some time not the question a matter of taste, and not so triumphant a carnival of vulgar falsity
one of his dogmas had succeeded in resist-
a subject for moral reflections. But and insincerity as the nineteenth-century
ing my suspicion. ". Even in 1870 he was Nietzsche and Whitman are at least theatre. One system encourages the arts,
convinced that the highest Will to life does alike in their vastness and complexity. another debases them. In Russian villages
not find expression in a miserable struggle They elude our formulæ with the same to-day you may see the æsthetically satis-
for existence, but in a Will to War, a
refusal of abundance and energy to be fying products of the peasant handicrafts
Will to Power, a Will to Overpower. fitted into common moulds. The daily side by side with the products of the
His idea of a philosopher as a terrible categories of criticism leave them unex- factories, fabricated by the same hands.
explosive in whose presence everything is plained.
By an extraordinary piece of luck, Synge's
in danger made him recoil from the
appearance synchronized with the arrival
academic ruminators. Instead of deliver- I charge you too, for ever, reject those who would of those modest patrons and workers
ing metaphysical comfort to the world, I charge you that there can be no theory or school Lady Gregory and Mr. W. B. Yeats,
his message was,
founded out of me.
intent on the same object, and inspired
I charge you to leave all free, as I have left all free. by the same spirit of "the older life
of
"Lift up your hearts, my brethren, high; There is another similarity which goes Ireland. Every district in the United
higher.
Lift up also your legs, ye good dancers, to the very root of both :-
Kingdom, indeed, might establish an
and better still if ye stand also on your
“Abbey Theatre and produce good, if
heads”;
"When I try to picture the character not great drama to-morrow, if the propor
of a perfect reader, I always imagine a
leaders with a little money and a great
monster of suppleness, cunning, and
and, again :
pru.
dence-in short, a born adventurer and deal of enthusiasm could be found. The
“This crown of Laughter, this rose. explorer. ”
problem is simply to bring into touch a
garlanded crown, to you, my brethren, do
sufficient number of people who respond
Î cast this crown! Laughing have I It is not far from this to Whitman and to those ideals of taste and sincerity which
consecrated; ye higher men, learn I pray his “ pioneers,”
have always governed the production of
you to laugh. "
Conquering, holding, daring, venturing as we go art worthy of the name. The drama is no
But the learned mistake for laughter a the unknown ways.
exception to this rule ; but, since its appeal
feeble cachinnation, and the standard of
is to the crowd, it, of all the arts, has been
their terpsichorean accomplishments is
most exploited in our commercialized
deplorably low.
communities.
SYNGE AND THE THEATRE.
Nietzsche, then, refuses to be classified
Mr. Howe's critical exposition of Synge's
among philosophers, philologists, or others PROF. SAINTSBURY somewhere remarks plays and individual genius leaves little
to whom he has some partial likeness, that history shows that the drama has to be desired. His analysis is clear and
and his gospel can be reduced to no single often little or nothing to do with litera- stimulating, and, though it is not marked
catchword. It is not megalomania nor ture. The aspect of truth in the conten- by the brilliance of Mr. Montague's short
brute force. “What is it that I have tion veils, however, a cardinal heresy. essay, it is felicitous as well as painstaking.
never forgiven Wagner ? ” he asked. Internecine warfare has, indeed, been Our confidence in Mr. Howe is early
“The fact that he became a German waged between the drama and the theatre established by his handling“ of the
Imperialist. " Germany for him, under ever since mediæval days, when the structural defect in ‘Riders to the Sea,'”
the pompous pretence of empire-founding, audiences of the Mystery plays clamoured whereas Synge's critics have failed to
had passed over into mediocrity. He for their cup to be brimmed over with the point out that the crowding of the
repudiates Darwinism and the hero-cult violent pantomime of tortured sinners action of the play into half an hour
with equal emphasis. There are Puritan and exultant fiends. Debased, mere involves a congestion of tragic incident
elements in him, the doctrine of election tricious, or spectacular drama is always which is jarringly unreal on the stage.
and the striving of the elect against the in favour with the majority, and, since Mr. Howe, perhaps, gives more praise
world; but a man's own self, and not a the Elizabethan constellation set, only to ‘Riders to the Sea' than the piece
deity, is to be the agent of insurance. a few stars-a Congreve, a Sheridan, a deserves. He has not observed that
Nor was his individualism and exclusion Synge-here and there have risen over its “marvellous intensity” and “flaming
of his fellow-men merely a passionate the flat mediocrity of our stage. Sta- momentum ” are obtained by the sacrifice
pleasure in the contrast, like Montaigne's tistics, indeed, more than justify Prof. of dramatic contrast, relief
, and pause,
pleasure in being awakened from sleep Saintsbury's dictum. Mr. Howe" rightly which are inherent in tragic situations in
* that he might the better and more says :
life, and that the tragedy itself becomes
sensibly relish it. " Pure exclusion is
equally impossible. “To have prickles portions of a city, has produced no great fact that it has gained its place in the
“ London, since it outgrew the just pro- thereby somewhat artificial. The mere
amounts to a squandering of strength,” | drama. Paris does not produce great drama, theatre from Melbourne to Buda-Pesth"
which is a sin against life, and Nietzsche's No great drama has come out of the United is not, indeed, the highest testimony to
loathing is of the kind which forges States of America, where the life is young, its quality. In his remarks on
wings and
the strength to scent fountains and its sudden expansion such as should have Playboy of the
Western World 'Mr. Howe
afar off. ” The end, as he conceives it, moved men powerfully to express themselves does full justice to that masterpiece.
in the stronger arts.
is a positive state, free from the ana-
He happily defines its atmosphere as
chronism of conscience or a sense of sin, J. M. Synge : a Critical Study.
Lella Doubleday's Violin Recital, 8. 15, Bechstein Hall.
Joset Lhevinde's Orchestral Concert, 8. 15, Queen's Hall.
WED. Iouiso Dale's Morning Concert, 3, Bechstein
Hall.
Reginald D'Arcy's Pianoforte Recital, 3, Steinway Hall.
Arnold Trowell's 'Cello Recital, 8. 15, Bechstein Hall.
Taurs. Haudel Festival, Selection Day, 2. 30, Crystal Palace,
Grand Concert in aid of the Italian Hospital, 3, Queen's Hall
Lillian Macdonald's Voost Recital, 3. Bechstein Hall.
Katharine Jones's Vocal Recital, 330, Rolian Hall,
Isoline Harvey's Violin Recital, 8 30, Bechstein Hall
Hon. Norah Jobnston's Orchestral Concert, 8. 30, Queen's Hall.
FRI Yvetto Guilbert's Recital, 3. 16, Bechstein Hall.
Biloon Nicoll's Tocal Recital, 3. 30, Bolian Hall.
Myaz-Gmelder and Huberman's Recital, 8 15, Queen's Hall,
Max Darowski's Pianoforte Recital, 8. 30, Bechstein Hall.
Ball,
LIITILISI IIIIII
## p. 715 (#537) ############################################
No. 4417, JUNE 22, 1912
THE ATHENÆUM
715
6
one
roviow. )
AND
OF
THE
net.
an
On the same evening Lady Gregory's | Doul, and might have leavened it with
FOUR IRISH PLAYS.
whimsical comedy The Rising of the advantage.
MR. ERVINE's humane and pointed trea-
Moon' was given, with Mr. Sinclair as the
On the same evening Lady Gregory's
tise-play“ Mixed Marriage,” played at the sergeant of police, and Mr. Kerrigan as
Spreading the News
the escaped prisoner. The piece was captivating éclat. It is pure farce, bril-
was acted with
Court Theatre, by the Irish players on the carried through with refreshing actuality, liant and forced in turn, and the whole
13th, is necessarily of a localized interest, Mr. Sinclair finding a congenial medium
since, with us in England, religious intoler for his rich vein of comic suggestion.
company flung themselves into it with
ance and vendetta are“ old, unhappy, far-
relish. Both Miss Sara Allgood and
off things. " To Belfast, especially some
On Monday evening The Well of tainment. The latter is
Mr. Sinclair gave the house rare enter-
years ago, it would have an intense and
of the
penetrating appeal. To those for whom the Saints, the second of Synge's plays drollest comic actors it has been our
bigotry is remote and merely legitimate produced by the company this season, pleasure to see.
grist for the historian, the subject is sub-
was acted, with Mr. Sinclair and Miss
ordinate to its treatment. They will
Sara Allgood as the blind old man and
concentrate their appreciation on the his blind wife. Remembering the misin-
gentle, effortless satire, the touches of terpretation of 'The Playboy, we watched
NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS.
Trumanity, the shafts of wit, blunted by Well
of the Saints' is an early venture of
the acting with some trepidation. The
(Notico in these columns does not preclude longer
kindliness, and, above all, on the delicate
figure of Mrs. Rainey, the infinitely patient Synge's, and, except Riders to the
mother and wife, who epitomizes the in- Sea,' the most perfect of all, the nearest Browning (Robert), WORKS, with Intro-
ductions by F. G. Kenyon: Vol. II.
feriority of men to women in their realiza- approach to symbolism he made. In it
STRAFFORD, PIPPA PASSES, KING VICTOR
tion of the human and concrete issues of he demonstrated the world-old aphorism
KING CHARLES, THE RETURN
life. The story of Tom Rainey and the which the artist is never weary of
express-
THE DRUSES, A BLOT IN
disaster he brings on his house, through ing--the reality of illusion and the dis-
'SOUTCHEON, COLOMBE'S BIRTHDAY, 10/6
Smith & Elder
the insuperable obstinacy of his religious illusion of reality. He joined issue with
bitternessis too familiar to need repeti- Blake in realizing the artistic criterion
The second volume in this fine edition
tion. The question
of its dramatic adapta- of the supremacy of the imagination. has as frontispiece a portrait of Browning
bility is different : as drama it is not well The story of the two old people whose at 46 by Leighton. Dr. Kenyon make
constructed. The didactic motive, directed sight is restored by one of the peripatetic interesting story of the fortunes, or rather
against didacticism, is too prominent, and anchorites of Ireland, and whose subse- misfortunes, of Browning's dramatic work.
the dramatis persone are pigeon-holed quent disgust at the drabness of the not all the enthusiasm of his friend Dickens
into their several recesses to enforce it. world and the visual evidence of their could induce him to be keen about A Blot
They do not live for themselves, but for
own ugliness is relieved by the merciful in the 'Scutcheon,' a really fine play, which
principles ; which is good morality, but not, dispensation of a second blindness, has, deserved success. Finally Browning had
as a rule, good drama. In Ibsen, for indeed, the pristine spirituality and direct it hastily printed to defeat an attempt by
instance, the characters are thinkers, ness of an old English or French para ble. Macready at rewriting it. The autograph
puzzled inevitably about life
because they The odorous mists of fancy, again roll Mr. Buxton Forman, who, as is noted, wrote
over Martin Doul and his wife, and they on it in our own columns on September 1st
are human beings. In much of the
sincere renaissance of modern drama a
pass southward thronged with visionary and 15th, 1894.
propagandist idea is patterned into a
forms of beauty bestowed upon them by
play owing to a mistaken interpretation the “inward eye,” and moving the pail Rich's ' Apolonius and Silla,' AN ORIGINAL
OF SHAKESPEARE'S "TWELFTH NIGHT,'
of the Ibsenite tradition. Spontaneity of from their dark spirits. Such a dramatic
edited by Morton Luce, 2/6 not.
action suffers from these restrictions in conte rather than a drama exercises the
Chatto & Windus
‘Mixed Marriage. ' The first three acts
same kind of appeal as 'Aucassin et
unfold
A suggestive little book on Shakespeare's
the
Nicolette. ' It is the revelation of a Quellen, though Mr. Luce is apt to be dis-
the
argument;
fourth
plunges into sheer, wilful melodrama. peculiar quest of the human spirit. This cursive and to overdo
the pursuit of literary
The salience of 'Mixed Marriage' lies in
theme Synge has clothed with the wild, parallels. The same sentiment and phrase-
the mild radiance and sanity of its philo- irregular, forcibly concrete poetry which ology may easily occur to two authors
sophy.
he rediscovered for literature in the West writing independently of each other, and
of Ireland and forged into artistic
we have noted remarkable instances of this
The Abbey Theatre company appeared shapeliness.
in our own day. We think that the Italian
to feel its non-dramatic elements, but gave
hints from the play Gl Ingannati,' acted
it what visualization their sensitive art
The play is mystical in conception as early as 1531, are the most interesting.
could impart. Mr. Sinclair was obviously and execution, and quite unlike the un- Mr. Luce adopts Mr. Hewlett's suggestion
more tho, acolyte of the
comic than the compromising delineation in “The Play- that Malvolio is coined from " mala voglia
tragic muse, but he saved Tom Rainey by boy. The cast, therefore, had an exacting thirty-sixth Novella of Bandello, and traces
his humour from appearing more of a pur: lacked buoyancy and colour. Their sensi- of Gl Ingannati. The book forms part
As a whole they
Aguecheek” to Malevolti in the Induction
blind dolt than he actually is. Mr. Wright tiveness to atmosphere appeared to weigh of the Shakespeare Classics.
and Mr. Kerrigan gave convincing render- them down,
and to blunt the faculty of
ings of the two sons, and Miss Eithne
Magee a lovable picture of the betrothed sharp, intuitive impressionism which they Shakespeare, Love's LABOUR Lost, edited
by James F. Royster, 1/ not.
of Hugh Rainey. The subtlety
and finesse have displayed to a high pitch in other
Macmillan
of Miss Sara Allgood, her faculty of plays. Their rendering was too palpably
in a grey monotone of subdued effects. American edition, which is similar in scope
Tudor Edition. Another issue of this
pitching the emotional key with inevitable
exactitude, were as delicate as in her ) this criticism. He vivified the inspired,
Mr. Sinclair must be exempted from and character to its numerous predecessors.
previous performances. She is a great dolorous, laughable, and acute craving Shakespeare, KING JOHN, edited by C. W,
actress, because of her disdain of com-
Crook.
monplace tricks and her fidelity to
for beauty which is the key-note of the
Ralph & Holland
character. He illustrated with remark-
her art. She gave an even more vital able aptitude the old man's quickness of the student. The Introduction, Text and
A capable edition, abounding in help for
and electrical meaning to Mrs. Rainey than mood, his philosophic insight, his humour, Notes, Glossary, Examination Questions,
the author has done.
his tragic feeling, and his devotion to the and Index to Notes supply all that can
Mixed Marriage. By St. John G. Ervine.
values of life as he interpreted them. possibly be required. In addition the
It was a study full of fine shades. Miss has made good use of the labours of his pre-
pages of text are interleaved. Mr. Crook
The Rising of the Moon. By Lady Gregory. Sara Allgood hardly satisfied our sanguine decessors, and, we are glad to see, includes
The Well of the Saints. By J. M. Synge. expectations. She throw a kind of crepus- derivations in his Glossary, mostly derived
Spreading the News. By Lady Gregory. cular melancholy over the figure of Mary from Prof. Skeat.
## p. 716 (#538) ############################################
716
THE ATHENÆUM
No. 4417, JUNE 22, 1912
rooms
a
man
which he proudly displays—instead of a enough ; and Mr. Dion Boucicault galvanized
Bramatic Gossip.
nightshirt, at the suggestion of his other a somewhat conventional comic Frenchman
lady pursuer, though he is only scandalized into a semblance of reality.
WITHOUT claiming any great merit for by her when she is seen with her hair down
Mr. Charles Klein's Find the Woman,' and in night attire.
IT is difficult to believe that 'Mrs.
produced at the Garrick last Monday, we
Warren's Profession,' so ably performed last
The other characters consist of a dean Tuesday by the Pioneer Players, is one of
nevertheless can congratulate Mr. Bourchier (Mr. Holman Clark) who reads aloud the Mr. Shaw's early works. Its depth and
on being in a piece more worthy of his
finished acting than 'Improper Peter. ' tion he inflicts
review of his son's work with the intona concentration of feeling, its ruthless courage
on his
As in other plays written with a purpose, the
congregation; and sincerity, mark it as a play of far
dramatist has concentrated his attention
his wife (Miss Fay Davis), who apparently greater worth than many of his more recent
does not much mind who marries her dramas. Mr. Shaw has seldom been more
rather on delivering his message than pro- son as long as some one does; and a friend in earnest, less ready to sacrifice the value
ducing, something which will bear acuto (Mr. Hylton Allen), whose greatest service of a good play to his incorrigible love of
analysis. Like Brieux's 'La Robe Rouge
to all concerned consists in drawing every- fooling. He is more than usually courageous
and Dostoieffsky's 'Crime and Punishment,' body's attention to the fact that he has in his unsparing attack on modern society
adapted respectively in English as The Arm found a lady's shoe in his friend's room.
of the Law and The Unwritten Law,' the
and the hypocrisy of social respectability.
We can only hope that the captivating One may shrink a little at such scenes
present production is intended to expose American actress may have an early oppor- as that in which the flâneur seeks to tempt
the system of mental torture which may be tunity of revealing her talents in something Vivie into marriage with the money heaped
applied to a suspected person to force a
confession.
better than a mechanical jeu d'esprit of this up from profitable investments in Conti-
The illustration which
the
sort.
playwright offers is the case of a drunken
nental hotels of malodorous reputation,
lad found in the
of
It is not unlikely that Sir Arthur Pinero's in the profits of which her mother, as the
who has committed suicide, and sub- farce 'The Amazons' will enjoy, at the able manageress of such institutions, has
a goodly share ; yet no one can doubt the
jected to such an ordeal, and is worked up Duke of York's a longer run than it did at
to a telling climax. Indeed, Mr. Klein
the Court, where it was produced in 1893. honesty of Mr. Shaw's purpose. His un-
rarely fails to contrive effective scenes, and The enthusiasm with which it was received sparing irony is directed more savagely
he can also handle cleverly combats of will. yesterday week was due in great measure against the hypocrisy and wilful blindness
One of his most diverting passages is that
to the popularity of the three young to such a blot on our social life than against
in which the hero's plucky young wife
actresses who play the three girls brought the system itself. It is brought home to us
besieges a lawyer with quiet persistence till up by a disappointed mother as boys. All again and again, and nowhere more poign-
he consents to take up the boy's defence goes well until the boys ” grow up and antly than in Vivie's realization that her
In these two parts Miss Vanbrugh and Mr.
fall in love, when their assumed masculinity own moral integrity is built up on the
Bourchier once again make us so long as
vanishes. There is nothing real about the corruption and disease of such a system.
The acting was uniformly good. Miss
they hold the stage--forget the play's writing, the high spirits of the “ Amazons," Kingston gave a remarkably clever study
deficiencies. As far as ingenuity is con-
cerned Mr. Klein has not much to learn in
and, above all, the consummate acting of of the disreputable mother, with her shame.
the way of stagecraft; he has an obvious
Mr. Weedon Grossmith as the flabby Lordlessness, her lack of all fine feeling, and her
talent for plot-making: But with the gift lui. It is questionable whether there is any pathetic honesty and shrewd knowledge of
Tweenwayes, capture the critic, malgré ignorance, and, on the other hand, her
is not combined in this case the knack of
being plausible. There is an element of
one else on the stage to-day who can look life as it is stripped of all pretence of decency.
unreality about his whole story which is supremely ridiculous with such an air of Miss O'Malley proved an able exponent of
the more annoying because a little thought naturally
played by Miss Ellis Joffreys) too self-possessed. But she made the best
sidered solely as
à piece of dramatic gives a somewhat reluctant consent to her of her rare opportunities to show great feeling
daughters' engagements, chiefly owing to and depth. Mr. Maude was an attractive
craftsmanship, the play affords in itself a
striking example
of the skilful intermingling her discovery that the muscles of one of boyish lover.
of realism, humour, and pathos with the
the prospective bridegrooms resemble those
TO CORRESPONDENTS.
her Jack. ” The three Amazons, Miss J. B. H. --Received.
- H. W. -R. W. C. -N. W. H. -
of
essential quality of culmination which
S. H. -Not suitable for us.
tends to enlist both the sympathy and the Phyllis Neilson-Terry, Miss Pauline Chase,
attention of the audience throughout.
No notice can be taken of anonymous communications.
and Miss Marie Löhr, acted with charm and
We cannot undertake to reply to inquiries concerning the
The company and the staging of the piece competence. Mr, Godfrey. Tearle was not appearance of reviews of books!
are worthy of the occasion.
We do not undertake to give the value of books, china,
entirely successful in subduing his American
pictures, &c.
accent and manner, and seemed incongruous
If it were not that in the title - part as an English lord, but his acting was well (For Index to Advertisers see p. 718.
)
* Ann' is bewitchingly played by Miss
Renée Kelly, we should be hard put to it
to find anything to praise in Mr. Lochmere
Worrall's latest Criterion production. As it A SELF
is, that actress deserves great commendation
for avoiding vulgarity and imbecility. Falling
into the Thames to obtain an introduction to EVIDENT
a man, and cultivating further acquaintance
by gaining entrance to his room late at
night by means of a fire escape, certainly
offer many opportunities for both. In the
second act this lady routs her rival by
surreptitiously leaving articles of her apparel
--including shoes and stockings and a
nightdress—in the young man's sitting-
room, and rounds off her triumph by being
found there feigning sleep attired in the said
nightdress.
The object of her quest, played by Mr.
Basil Hailam, is a novelist who has just
The most valuable and useful Life
been successful in getting a publisher to
Policy is that which yields the
put his imprint to a novel, and is so anxious
largest return for the Premiums
to induce (? bribe) other publishers to
paid. This is simply and clearly
follow suit that he insists on giving, such
shown in the Prospectus just
business procedence to seeing the girl he
has proposed to, and been accepted by, over
issued by the Scottish Widows'
the telep one. Incidentally, we found our-
Fund, of 9, St. Andrew Square,
selves wishing that the torms of authors and
Edinburgh; 28, Cornhill, E. C. ; and
publishers' contracts could be made public, as
5, Waterloo Place, S. W. , London.
this would save reviewers from perusing much
A copy will be sent post free
fustian. The young man, having got engaged to
anywhere.
please his mother, puts scent on his hair, adds
à comb to his brush, and adopts pyjamas
PROPOSITION.
## p. 725 (#539) ############################################
No. 4418, JUNE 29, 1912
THE ATHENÆUM
725
PAGE
726
. .
727
728
. .
730
731-734
DID THUCYDIDES WRITE NUMBERS?
734-736
736
736
. .
MEETINGS NEXT WEEK; GOSSIP
career.
L. ALMA TADEMA; THE COOPERS AND JOHN
. .
ANCES NEXT WEEK
DRAMA
BOOKS
Nearly everything important concerning We are, in fact, content to rest upon
SATURDAY, JUNE 29, 1912. Nietzsche is now accessible to English Nietzsche's own words.
readers, and in recasting a part of the Ecce Homo,' therefore, seems to us
large life of her brother into a history of worth more than everything the world
CONTENTS.
his early years, Frau Förster-Nietzsche has said of Nietzsche. It requires, indeed,
NIETZSCHE (The Young Nietzsche; The Complete adds very little to our previous knowledge. a Milton to inform Smectymnuus that the
Works of Nietzsche)
Yet The
Young Nietzsche' is
SYNGE AND THE THEATRE
726
& troubles which make the poet “ leave a
pleasant picture. "The Lonely Nietzsche' calm and pleasant solitariness, to embark
RECOLLECTIONS OF GUY DE MAUPASSANT
is to be the title of a succeeding volume. in a troubled sea of noises and harsh
AMERICANISMS (An American Glossary)
The year 1876 and the disgusted de- disputes," are merely an impediment to
AUSTRALIA AND GUIANA (Across Australia; Guiana,
British, Dutch, and French)
729 parture from Bayreuth are justly taken the divine epic which he has in mind, or
BERNARD SHAW ET SON EUVRE
as the end of “the happy prince," as
a Nietzsche to set down with all delibera-
BOOK SALES
731 Nietzsche once called himself, and of tion, Why I am so wise,' Why I am
NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS (Theology - Poetry, 731 ; "the life which has been somewhat so clever," " Why I write such excellent
Bibliography-History and Biography-Geography
and Travel-Sociology--Political Economy-Edu. plentifully sown with happy accidents. ”
books," at the headings of his chapters.
cation, 732; Philology-Fiction, 733; General- He had once thought that he could But in each case truth is the excuse, and
Foreign, 734)
have friends and comrades in his war ; frankness makes Nietzsche his own best
PROF. W. W. GOODWIN; NOTES FROM OXFORD;
THE ENGLISH BOOK • TRADE, 1497-1800; How he had dreamed of “a society of biographer.
NEXT MONTH'S MAGAZINES . .
strangers to the age,” whose thoughts
would be out of season,” and so for all from any other precocious youth who
His early life hardly distinguishes him
LITERARY GOSSIP
SCIENCE-DISEASE AND THE COMMON FLY; SOCIETIES;
737—738 ' .
tions. In 1873 he and his sister almost drifts naturally into a successful university
But when he chose the profession
FINE ARTS — MEMORIES OF J. M. WHISTLER; SIR bought an ancient castle where “an of a philologist, Greece was to him an
HOSKINS; SALES ; GOSSIP
738—739 association of men who would be free inspiration which implied a definite atti-
MUSIC-NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS; GOSSIP; PERFORM-
from all compromise, who would repudiate tude to life. He was attracted by the
740-741
all tender forbearance, and would call Pre-Socratics, the tragedians, and the
· THE IRISH DRAMA; NOTICES OF NEW
741–742 themselves Destroyers,' might live a
aristocrats, and a study of Theognis was
INDEX TO ADVERTISERS
742 common life.
There was a long lawn for his earliest work. At the same time he
physical exercise, and a cloister for peri-
abhorred
patetic instruction was to be built along the scholar's impersonality. His sister, de-
LITERATURE
it distinguishes the early Nietzsche from ploring the fact that Nietzsche never
it distinguishes the early Nietzsche from wrote his great book on Greece, is right
the solitary man who said, “ I attack only in saying that from it we should have had
those things against which I find no allies,
“a complete idea of what the Greeks
against which I stand alone. ” The merit
NIETZSCHE.
of this biography is that it makes clear meant to my brother, the starting-point
to us this and the other ideals on the ruins tific problems of his life. ” We should
to many of the psychological and scien-
SURELY one of the most engaging qualities of which Nietzsche built his most en-
of genius is a frank appreciation of its during work.
not have learnt very much about Greece.
own merits. “One day it will be said of
The academic spirit he hated with that
One of the earliest of them went with full hatred which he lavished on every-
Heine and me that we were by far the out a struggle. The son of a Protestant thing which blocked the road half-way
greatest artists of the German language pastor, he was a religious child, but to fullness of culture and the artist-life.
that have ever existed. ” These are Schopenhauer and lapse of time prepared Even in 1874 he made a pleasant tabular
Nietzsche's own words. Now we care the way for the passionate antichrist comparison between the Greeks, who
very little whether Nietzsche was mad or who quarrelled with his friend Romundt render homage to beauty, speak clearly,
not, but we do care for the distinction
between origin and validity, and we Church, and saw in . Parsifal’ the extinc- men, can look out innocently on the world,
on account of a passing attraction to the
are in full possession of their freedom as
believe that the bludgeon is not the only tion of the Wagner of his early love. and the philologists who are babblers and
organ of criticism. But we admit that this transformation was painless, for he triflers, filthy pedants, ardent slaves of
there is reasonable truth in the dictum, tells us he had no sense of sin.
the State, and Christians in disguise.
and admit thereby that the translators
of Nietzsche have set themselves an almost
His later ideals were less easy to dis-
His view of philosophy was no less
impossible task. They have performed lodge. He had once believed that, with individual. He had no 'taste for the
it with fidelity, and, if the verse transla- Greece, Wagner, and Schopenhauer, he game of metaphysics, and saw in the
tions be excepted, in a manner which is might stir the waters of Acheron ; and, Socratic ideal only a symptom of decay.
when two of his three pillars crumbled"I have never pondered over questions
sometimes not unworthy of the original.
away, the intensity of the crisis was greater that are not questions,” he said, and
The Young Nietzsche. By Elizabeth Förster because the narrowness of Nietzsche's life turned to the
more ancient Greeks.
Nietzsche. Translated by A. M. Ludo confined the conflict within a purely intel- When he sought in philosophy for the
vici. (Heinemann. )
lectual radius.
Dionysian element,
The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche, We may learn such things as these from
edited by Dr. Oscar Levy: Vol. II. Early Frau Förster-Nietzsche's work, but we are
“ the saying of yea to life, and even to its
weirdest and most difficult problems, the
Greek Philosophy, and Other Essays, trans- sometimes doubtful of her interpretation will to life rejoicing at its own infinite
lated by Maximilian A. Mügge. Vol. VII. of her brother's mind.
vitality in the sacrifice of its highest types,"
Human, All-too-Human, Part II. , trans-
lated by Paul V. Cohn. Vol. VIII. I. “Frau von Meyserbug (she writes] will he found only one to dispute his claim
The Case of Wagner; II. Nietzsche contra certainly remember his having said to her to be the first tragic philosopher-Hera-
Wagner; III. Selected Aphorisms, trans- on one occasion that if one really wished to clitus,
lated by Anthony M. Ludovici, Third know exactly what Nietzsche thought and
Edition; IV. We Philologists, translated felt, one should ask his sister. ”
“in whose presence I felt warmer and more
by J. M. Kennedy, Vol. IX. The Dawn
at ease than anywhere else. The yea-saying
of Day, translated by J. M. Kennedy. It may be so; but we remember that, if to contradiction and war, the postulation of
Vol. XVI. The Twilight of the Idols, or, we are interested in Socrates, we need the Becoming, together with the radical rejec-
The Antichrist, Notes to Zarathustra, and bilia' and show us that the Dæmon was
How to Philosophise with the Hammer Socratic
dialogues to correct the Memora- tion even of the concept Being--in all these
things I must recognise him who has come
Eternal Recurrence, translated by Anthony
M. Ludovici.
Vol. XVII. Ecce Homo nearer to “the demigod within the nearest to me hitherto. ”
(Nietzsche's Autobiography), translated by breast” than to the voices which Jeanne No other influence was so strong as this
Anthony W. Ludovici. (T. N. Foulis. ) d'Arc heard in the woods of Domremy. ' ideal Greece. Wagner called forth his
## p. 726 (#540) ############################################
726
THE ATHENÆUM
No. 4418, JUNE 29, 1912
early works, but his power lay chiefly in triumphant, and everything that is false But when he goes on to argue that“ Dublin
Nietzsche's identification of Wagnerian and misbegotten; with resignation, which is a good deal nearer to Periclean Athens
music with the Dionysian spirit. Nietzsche is Christianity; or mediocrity, which is or Elizabethan London than to modern
was never content to be a trumpeter of the refuge of the herd.
London or modern Paris," and that it is
Wagner's fame, and of the essay “Wagner We do not, indeed, pretend that the not by accident that Ireland came by a
in Bayreuth' he says, “I am the only wonderful fertility which packs into an
dramatist,” or that Synge "shaped his
person concerned-you may read my aphorism the substance of a treatise can plays for the Dublin stage,” he is not, we
name or the word Zarathustra wherever be summed up in a paragraph. It is think, distinguishing exactly between the
the text contains the name of Wagner. ” apparently the fashion to set off Whitman set of factors that may help good drama
Schopenhauer was more vital, perhaps, by a reference to Nietzsche. A com- into birth and that which stifles it in the
but at bottom it is Nietzsche as Educator, parison of their aims is as unfruitful as
womb or strangles it in the cradle. The
and not Schopenhauer as Educator, who would be a comparison of life in the eighteenth-century English stage was pre-
speaks his sentiments in 'Thoughts out England of News from Nowhere with judiced and hidebound; but, as Mr.
of Season. '. In 1880 he wrote, " When I that of the Platonic republic. The reviewer Montague in his · Dramatic Values' has
honoured Schopenhauer as my educator, prefers the former, while considering observed, no stage ever witnessed before
I forgot that already for some time not the question a matter of taste, and not so triumphant a carnival of vulgar falsity
one of his dogmas had succeeded in resist-
a subject for moral reflections. But and insincerity as the nineteenth-century
ing my suspicion. ". Even in 1870 he was Nietzsche and Whitman are at least theatre. One system encourages the arts,
convinced that the highest Will to life does alike in their vastness and complexity. another debases them. In Russian villages
not find expression in a miserable struggle They elude our formulæ with the same to-day you may see the æsthetically satis-
for existence, but in a Will to War, a
refusal of abundance and energy to be fying products of the peasant handicrafts
Will to Power, a Will to Overpower. fitted into common moulds. The daily side by side with the products of the
His idea of a philosopher as a terrible categories of criticism leave them unex- factories, fabricated by the same hands.
explosive in whose presence everything is plained.
By an extraordinary piece of luck, Synge's
in danger made him recoil from the
appearance synchronized with the arrival
academic ruminators. Instead of deliver- I charge you too, for ever, reject those who would of those modest patrons and workers
ing metaphysical comfort to the world, I charge you that there can be no theory or school Lady Gregory and Mr. W. B. Yeats,
his message was,
founded out of me.
intent on the same object, and inspired
I charge you to leave all free, as I have left all free. by the same spirit of "the older life
of
"Lift up your hearts, my brethren, high; There is another similarity which goes Ireland. Every district in the United
higher.
Lift up also your legs, ye good dancers, to the very root of both :-
Kingdom, indeed, might establish an
and better still if ye stand also on your
“Abbey Theatre and produce good, if
heads”;
"When I try to picture the character not great drama to-morrow, if the propor
of a perfect reader, I always imagine a
leaders with a little money and a great
monster of suppleness, cunning, and
and, again :
pru.
dence-in short, a born adventurer and deal of enthusiasm could be found. The
“This crown of Laughter, this rose. explorer. ”
problem is simply to bring into touch a
garlanded crown, to you, my brethren, do
sufficient number of people who respond
Î cast this crown! Laughing have I It is not far from this to Whitman and to those ideals of taste and sincerity which
consecrated; ye higher men, learn I pray his “ pioneers,”
have always governed the production of
you to laugh. "
Conquering, holding, daring, venturing as we go art worthy of the name. The drama is no
But the learned mistake for laughter a the unknown ways.
exception to this rule ; but, since its appeal
feeble cachinnation, and the standard of
is to the crowd, it, of all the arts, has been
their terpsichorean accomplishments is
most exploited in our commercialized
deplorably low.
communities.
SYNGE AND THE THEATRE.
Nietzsche, then, refuses to be classified
Mr. Howe's critical exposition of Synge's
among philosophers, philologists, or others PROF. SAINTSBURY somewhere remarks plays and individual genius leaves little
to whom he has some partial likeness, that history shows that the drama has to be desired. His analysis is clear and
and his gospel can be reduced to no single often little or nothing to do with litera- stimulating, and, though it is not marked
catchword. It is not megalomania nor ture. The aspect of truth in the conten- by the brilliance of Mr. Montague's short
brute force. “What is it that I have tion veils, however, a cardinal heresy. essay, it is felicitous as well as painstaking.
never forgiven Wagner ? ” he asked. Internecine warfare has, indeed, been Our confidence in Mr. Howe is early
“The fact that he became a German waged between the drama and the theatre established by his handling“ of the
Imperialist. " Germany for him, under ever since mediæval days, when the structural defect in ‘Riders to the Sea,'”
the pompous pretence of empire-founding, audiences of the Mystery plays clamoured whereas Synge's critics have failed to
had passed over into mediocrity. He for their cup to be brimmed over with the point out that the crowding of the
repudiates Darwinism and the hero-cult violent pantomime of tortured sinners action of the play into half an hour
with equal emphasis. There are Puritan and exultant fiends. Debased, mere involves a congestion of tragic incident
elements in him, the doctrine of election tricious, or spectacular drama is always which is jarringly unreal on the stage.
and the striving of the elect against the in favour with the majority, and, since Mr. Howe, perhaps, gives more praise
world; but a man's own self, and not a the Elizabethan constellation set, only to ‘Riders to the Sea' than the piece
deity, is to be the agent of insurance. a few stars-a Congreve, a Sheridan, a deserves. He has not observed that
Nor was his individualism and exclusion Synge-here and there have risen over its “marvellous intensity” and “flaming
of his fellow-men merely a passionate the flat mediocrity of our stage. Sta- momentum ” are obtained by the sacrifice
pleasure in the contrast, like Montaigne's tistics, indeed, more than justify Prof. of dramatic contrast, relief
, and pause,
pleasure in being awakened from sleep Saintsbury's dictum. Mr. Howe" rightly which are inherent in tragic situations in
* that he might the better and more says :
life, and that the tragedy itself becomes
sensibly relish it. " Pure exclusion is
equally impossible. “To have prickles portions of a city, has produced no great fact that it has gained its place in the
“ London, since it outgrew the just pro- thereby somewhat artificial. The mere
amounts to a squandering of strength,” | drama. Paris does not produce great drama, theatre from Melbourne to Buda-Pesth"
which is a sin against life, and Nietzsche's No great drama has come out of the United is not, indeed, the highest testimony to
loathing is of the kind which forges States of America, where the life is young, its quality. In his remarks on
wings and
the strength to scent fountains and its sudden expansion such as should have Playboy of the
Western World 'Mr. Howe
afar off. ” The end, as he conceives it, moved men powerfully to express themselves does full justice to that masterpiece.
in the stronger arts.
is a positive state, free from the ana-
He happily defines its atmosphere as
chronism of conscience or a sense of sin, J. M. Synge : a Critical Study.
