Part 6

Mr. Middleton’s one-act plays reveal a wide range of subject-matter and a corresponding versatility of treatment. No one of them is similar to any of the others. Yet, pervading this variety of subject and of mood, there is discernible an underlying unity. Each of them deals essentially with woman—and with modern woman in relation to our modern social system. Woman is, at present, a transitional creature, evolving from the thing that man considered her to be in the far-away period of wax flowers and horse-hair furniture to the being that she considers herself about to become in the unachieved, potential future; and Mr. Middleton has caught her in this period of transition, and has depicted her, under many different lights, colored with her virtues and discolored with her faults.

Many of the most poignant and dramatic problems of present-day society arise from the fact that the evolution of woman is proceeding more rapidly than the evolution of her environment. While individuals advance, traditions linger. Mr. Middleton’s favorite subject seems to be a conflict between an advanced woman and a lingering tradition. The author is himself a radical, and his sympathy is forever on the side of the revolutionary individual; but his technical treatment is so fair to both sides of the contention that it remains possible for conservative readers to rank themselves against the individual on the side of the lingering tradition. Scarcely any of Mr. Middleton’s women would be pleasant to have around the house. Since most of them are discontented with the conditions of their lives, they naturally make the worst of these conditions instead of making the best of them. Hell hath no fury like a woman in revolt; and many readers may dislike Mr. Middleton’s heroines more heartily than he seems to like them himself. But to be able to dislike a character is a proof that that character is real, and must be considered as a tribute to the author’s art. The heroine of _The Unborn_, in Mr. Middleton’s latest volume, refuses to have children because motherhood might interfere with “her work,”—the work, in this case, being merely a habit of attending to minor matters in her husband’s photographic studio; but the intensity of impatience with which the reader listens to her twaddle is an indication that this character is really representative of a silly type of creature that is not infrequently encountered in actual life. Again, in the play called _Possession_, a woman who has been divorced for adultery attempts to kidnap her little daughter from the house of her former husband, to whose custody the child had, of course, been awarded by the courts. Her adultery was inexcusable, because it had been occasioned not by an irresistible and overwhelming love but merely by a superfluity of leisure; and her attempt to kidnap the child was treacherous and ignominious. She excuses herself, however, by telling her husband that the process of child-birth had been painful, and that, therefore, despite the judgment of the courts, their little daughter belonged more to her than to him. The reader is, of course, annoyed by all this nonsense; but this annoyance, once again, must be regarded as a tribute to the reality of the author’s characterization. No heroine who was not a living human being could make the auditor so ardently desire to climb upon the stage and talk back to her.

Fortunately, it is not at all necessary to like Mr. Middleton’s women in order to like his plays. One may admire Ibsen’s _Hedda Gabler_ without wishing to be married to the heroine; and the pleasant thing about Mr. Middleton’s women is that, while the reader is permitted to observe and study them, he is also allowed to realize with hearty thankfulness that he will never have to live with any of them. The world in which his women move is a world of discontent. This discontent is truly representative of the present transitional period in the evolution of society; but it is not representative of that perennial reality of life that remains oblivious of periods and dates. At all times, the really womanly woman has been a lover of her life and has not found it difficult to feel at home at home.

New York Letter

GEORGE SOULE

It would be difficult to imagine a more fantastic occasion than a debate in New York on the justice of the cause of the Allies vs. that of Germany between Cecil Chesterton and George Sylvester Viereck. The gods permitted it to happen last week, much to the chagrin of the Allies, for the hyphenated Germans took good care to fill the hall and hiss every offensive statement. Mr. Chesterton, an honest fighter and a clever polemicist, who has leapt through every phase of radicalism into the enfolding charity of the Catholic Church, deserves to be known for his journalistic achievements and his exposure of graft in high places almost as much as for his brother Gilbert. Mr. Viereck, a sublime egotist, has come into sudden favor with his countrymen by editing _Das Vaterland_, although before that he had taken every known means to secure notoriety for a naturally obscure individual. He began as a poet of strange verse, both in German and English. When it became apparent that it wasn’t going to sell, he issued a last volume which he called his “swan song,” with the announcement that as this commercial age was unappreciative of his poetry he would write no more, and anyone who wanted a last chance to value him at it must buy this book. For himself, he was going to get in line with the genius of the century and become a Big Business Man, for he must make himself felt. He announced in a stentorian wail his admiration for Theodore Roosevelt, and was much chagrined when that celebrity would not let him trail along on the skirts of his ample publicity. Later on, when Alfred Noyes began to sell in large quantities, Mr. Viereck resumed his dictatorship of poetry, and by scurrilous attacks attempted to draw Mr. Noyes’s fire—and newspaper space. Now German Patriotism has lifted him to the headlines.

If Poetic Justice was present at the debate, she probably did not receive much enlightenment on the questions which are now vexing her in Europe. To quote any of the substance of the debate would be an insult to her intelligence.

A more serious event was Richard Bennet’s recent production of Brieux’s _Maternity_. Considering the deadly earnestness with which author and cast struggled to inculcate lessons, the apathy of the public in respect to moral instruction was pathetic. On the night of my visit there was exactly one normal “theatre-goer” in the house. There was a sprinkling of people who had long admitted what Brieux has to say, and went from “high-brow” reasons. There was a young society matron who had escaped from her husband for the evening and is taking an amateurish interest in social questions. There were numerous persons who are always on the lookout for a chance to cackle at what they consider broad humor. These blonde ladies furnished an interesting refutation of one of Brieux’s theories. In one scene various women tell their troubles, emphasizing the fact that all women are united in their sorrows and understand them, whereas men do not. Immediately after this the drunken husband returns and disgusts and outrages the wife. There were many laughs in the audience to greet him—but not one from a man. Even the blonde ladies’ fat escorts tried to quiet them while the rest of us were hissing.

Granville Barker opens this week with _Androcles and the Lion_ and some of the other recent London productions. A number of the backers of the old “New Theatre” are guaranteeing his expenses, a fact which is a historical corroboration for Mr. Barker’s wit. When he was brought over as the chosen manager for that institution, he objected to the immense size of the house. “But the alterations you suggest would cost us a million dollars,” he was told. “If you don’t make them, it will cost you three million,” he replied, and sailed back to London. His popularity with the New Theatre guarantors has been steadily increasing from that day to this.

There is even a rumor that if the present experiment succeeds, the New Theatre project will be resumed. This whisper aroused an answering howl from the American managers and actors. Why should good American money be spent in encouraging English talent, especially in such a disastrous season? they wailed. The answer was, in effect, the one that should be made to the whole “made in America” propaganda. What has American production done that it should be encouraged? When “made in America” comes to have any relation to honesty and intelligence, it will be time enough to invoke “patriotism” in its favor. In the meantime, the more disastrous foreign competition can be to our present shoddy products, the better.

This ironic year has produced few more strange reversals than the one which has brought Mr. McClure to the status of an employee of Mr. Munsey. When a man has apparently won his life campaign and written so engagingly of it as has Mr. McClure in his Autobiography, we begin to regard him as beyond the touch of the fates. Perhaps the present eventuality should be taken, however, merely as another proof that in our present arrangement of things it is less profitable to have a touch of genius than to become the owner of trust companies. At any rate _McClure’s Magazine_ has apparently not profited much in recent years by Mr. McClure’s separation from its editorial policy.

There is one real consolation in a season which has brought such material devastation to commercial managers and magazines. When conventionally-planned “successes” don’t succeed, success comes to have less meaning. People who are after money in the promotion of artistic products are in their desperation more ready to try less “safe” ways of getting it, while the others have a decidedly better chance of gaining a respectful public attention.

Music

KREISLER AND SHATTUCK

In certain realms, words are opaque and stupid things. In others—oh, comforting thought!—they seem to become transparent and almost intelligent. Following this out consistently, it becomes easy to write a page about Arthur Shattuck, pianist, and very difficult to say anything at all about Fritz Kreisler, violinist.

Arthur Shattuck was a disappointment. His faults, in a lesser man, would have been considered the sign of mere mediocrity; but in himself, they are obtrusive and disagreeable. An exasperating contrast existed between what may be called his style, with its rhythmic sureness and its admirable perspectives, and his great lack of tonal beauty. He cracks out hard tones. Any particular phrase of Mr. Boyle’s concerto for piano with orchestra, when passed on from the orchestra to the solo instrument, lost its lyric curve and became flat and lifeless under Mr. Shattuck’s long, aggressive hands. When another pianist, Ernest Hutcheson, played the same work with the composer conducting the New York Philharmonic, a certain phenomenon was lacking which appeared when Frederick Stock conducted the work with the Chicago Symphony. This phenomenon (let it be whispered) was a strange prominence of the brass choir of the orchestra in certain portions of the work which led one to believe that Mr. Stock was, perhaps, more interested in the orchestral accompaniment than in the performance of the soloist. If this were as true as it appeared, it is on a par with another startling fact:—that the public is really learning something about tone-values and the possible beauties of piano music. What else could account for the numerous confessions caught in snatches in the corridors and stairways, the composite of which was, “He left me cold”?... Arthur Shattuck is a millionaire.

A compassionate attitude toward Chicago was considerably relieved by the sight of the Auditorium-full which paid to hear Kreisler. Think of so many people being moved by such good taste! And, what was better still, they all behaved well. Kreisler deserved their tribute of attentive silence. Such violin playing hasn’t been heard in Chicago since the same artist was here last season. There is no describing Kreisler’s tone; a magic circle of stillness encloses it, which words have not learned to cross. In the memory it is a living beauty, penetrant and bewitching. Praise and appreciation are miserable things in the presence of this man’s music. Fritz Kreisler is a genius.

HERMAN SCHUCHERT.

Book Discussion

Ellen Key’s Steady Vision

_The Younger Generation, by Ellen Key._ [_G. P. Putnam’s, New York._]

In the present amusing reign of boisterous propagandic voices, it is good to find a thinker who describes the exciting truth in simple terms. The many are able to catch glimpses of the truth; between glimpses, they shout and wave their inefficient arms for the enlightenment of their brothers, and for their own joy. The few see the truth steadily and, because they see steadily, become so passionately enthusiastic that they are driven to express themselves in quiet, mighty phrases. Such phrases imprint vital ideas upon the mind of the seeker, while pitiable confusion alone results from the shouts and wavings. In _The Younger Generation_, Ellen Key tells simply and surely her conclusions about vital things.

Conservative judgment is at once a splendid balance and a terrific barrier in the world of ideas. Intense enthusiasm, when it displays itself, often combines blindness with sight. It has always seemed to be asking too much to expect in one person a finely balanced enthusiasm in which the conservative element does not hamper the divine qualities of youth—courage, impetuosity, and an ever-fresh perception. Not to be extravagant, but to characterize her fairly, one may say that this Swedish woman writes as if she possessed the virtues commonly attributed to both age and youth. She is vigorous, free-hearted, and calm—enthusiastic, fiery, and sane—a champion of revolution when and wherever it breaks the path for evolution.

Reaching deftly into anarchism, christianity, feminism, individualism, socialism, and other good glimpses of the truth, she secures the elements for a strangely consistent wisdom.

Parents of the new generation will feel it to be a blasphemy against life—another name for God—that the beings their love has called into existence, the beings who bear the heritage of all past generations and the potentialities of all those to come, should be prematurely torn from the chain of development. Every such link that is wrenched away from unborn experiences, from unfinished work, was a beginning which might have had the most far-reaching effects within the race.... It is not death that the men of the new age are afraid of, but only premature and meaningless death.

“Women ought not to be content until governments have been deprived of the power of plunging nations into war.”—Ellen Key doesn’t ask the ladies to fidget and whimper at afternoon teas, nor to operate upon male-kind with their verbal lancets, nor to adopt circuitous resolutions about affairs of which they know nothing; but her suggestion, here as elsewhere, is simple and practical—so very simple that the ladies will smile down upon it as something delightfully girlish and unsophisticated. It is safe to speculate that not one of the smilers could, in her comfortable condescension, live up to this humble and powerful procedure:—“Women can always and everywhere ennoble the feelings, refine an idea of justice, and sharpen the judgment of those who come under their influence. The indirect result of this influence will then be that war will become more and more insufferable to the feelings, repugnant to the sense of justice, and absurd to the intelligence. When thus the eyes of the best among the nation are opened to the true nature of war, they will be finally opened also to the way to real, not armed, peace.” And as it is the secret and boasted and forgotten desire of every woman to influence a man, or men, these profoundly plain suggestions would seem to be sown in a fertile field. There is hope in this. Then she says, on another page: “To win over men’s brains to the idea of solidarity, that is the surest way of working for peace.” And this, being a more complex remark, will probably upset everything gained by the clarity of the preceding quotations; but it is given here to repay the time otherwise wasted by the many for whom simplicity has lost its god-like charm. Solidarity is a great idea, partly because it is something to be shouted about. But the first element in solidarity, human kindness, has never seemed “strong” to a shouting age.

One of the firm demands which Ellen Key makes in her future “Charter for Children” is “the right of all children to disinheritance; in other words, their being placed in the beneficent necessity of making full use of their completely developed powers.” After reminding us of the strenuous manners of a past age in which the children of any conquered city were dashed hideously against the walls, she claims that “the judgment upon our time will be more severe. For the people of antiquity knew not what they did, when they caused the blood of children to flow like water. But our age allows millions of children to be worn out, starved, maltreated, neglected, to be tortured in school, and to become degenerate and criminal; and yet it knows the consequences, to the race and to the community, that all this involves. And why? Because we are not yet willing to reckon in life-values instead of in gold-values.”

What a frantic rage must there be in the souls of the truly social-minded when this terrific indictment is pronounced in their hearing! But the appalling nightmare will go on until the frantic element is overcome, and the rage is focused to a point of white heat—an intense simplicity.

HERMAN SCHUCHERT.

Two Conrad Reviews

_Joseph Conrad: A Study, Richard Curle._ [_Doubleday, Page and Company, New York._]

“The business of criticism,” says Mr. Curle, “is to surmount this _impasse_ between conviction and the power to convince.” Judged by this test, his study of Joseph Conrad is undoubtedly successful: it is hard indeed to imagine any reader reaching the end of it without believing that Conrad is a very great writer. A careful reading of the numerous and often lengthy quotations from Conrad’s books should alone convince the persons Mr. Curle is most anxious to convert—those who know nothing about them.

But _Joseph Conrad_ has two obvious faults. In the first place, Mr. Curle is quite too modest—almost haltingly so. His pages abound in such phrases as “I dare say”, “I cannot help”, “I think”, and the like. That’s all very honest, but Americans prefer the more lordly manner. One feels really, that while the critic may speak in such fashion to himself, he should give us only his conclusions—and no apologies for them to boot. In the second place, Mr. Curle seems to think that he is very brave in putting forth this book, that the critics haven’t appreciated Conrad at all, and that since _he_ does there must be a real quarrel between him and them. Now as a matter of fact this is not so. Probably no living writer has had a fraction of the hearty recognition from the best critics that Conrad has. True, he has (until six months ago) woefully lacked anything like popularity and the material rewards it brings—but very few of those whose opinion carries weight will hesitate to agree with most of the fine things that Mr. Curle says about the author of _Chance_. Mr. Curle’s attitude simply arouses unfriendly antagonism on the part of his readers who know and love their Conrad.

So much for its faults. They are not of serious importance and should not obscure the really splendid qualities of Mr. Curle’s book. It abounds in acutely perceptive remarks—often extremely well put. In the course of seven chapters on Conrad’s Psychology, Men, Women, Irony and Sardonic Humour, Prose and the Artist, he piles up an overwhelming evidence of the man’s greatness. Is there a man alive, has any English novelist ever lived about whom one could wax so easily, so madly enthusiastic? True, to some Conrad does not appeal. They have never caught the glorious glamour of his pages—the solemn grandeur of his magnificent prose. Probably the surest way to win converts would be to compile a small book of extracts from his works, carefully graded according to their difficulty.

When I was still at college I was curious about Conrad. A well-meaning bookseller sold me _Lord Jim_. I tried to read it, but fifty pages was as far as I could go. I tried again, but with even less success. Then one day at Interlaken I found a Tauchnitz copy of _A Set of Six_. Before I had quite finished the last story I lost the book—changing trains. But Conrad has never since seemed obscure to me. A beginner in French would never try to appreciate the shimmering pages of Flaubert; nor would even the Yankee farm-hand feed his baby pie. More than any living writer has Conrad needed some one to _present_ him to the public. This his American publishers have tried of late to do. Mr. Curle’s book will add to their success in so far as they manage to persuade people to read it. Except for those who have begun with _Lord Jim_, _Nostromo_, or _Chance_, I have never found anyone, who, having read one book by Conrad, was content to stop there. Mr. Curle thinks _Nostromo_ Conrad’s greatest work. It is now, with Europe in the throes of a bloody conflict, that one realizes more and more how Conrad’s men and women, far removed from the problems of a Wells, a Chesterton, or a Shaw—problems which _appear_ suddenly to be of very little importance after all—bulk great and ever greater. There they loom—like Rodin’s _Balzac_ against the glowering sky.

ALFRED KNOPF.

_A Set of Six, by Joseph Conrad._ [_Doubleday, Page and Company, New York._]

In this first American edition of his _Set of Six_, Conrad is revealed as an artist _par excellence_. You find no subjective emotionalism on the part of the author in any of his six tales, in spite of their subtitles—_Romantic_, _Indignant_, _Pathetic_, and the like. You see in him the wistful observer of characters and situations, which he presents with impassionate objectivity, with the impartiality of a painter who lovingly draws his object, whether it is ugly or beautiful, whether it is a villain or a saint. Conrad possesses a wonderful skill in setting up a background, which, at times, appears of more importance than the plot. He makes you feel equally at home in the atmosphere of Napoleonic France and of France of the Restoration, of revolutionary Peru and of a Neapolitan amusement garden. You enjoy the tales greatly, you admire the clever craftsmanship of the story-teller, but you close the book with an empty feeling, as if you had listened to brilliant anecdotes in a bachelors’ club.

K.

Amy Lowell’s Poetry

_Sword Blades and Poppy Seed, by Amy Lowell._ [_The Macmillan Company, New York._]

In one of his letters, Byron says: “To withdraw myself from myself has ever been my sole, my entire, my sincere motive in scribbling at all.” Such a confession seems strange coming from a poet, and it is a confession of quite a different character which is written on every page of Miss Lowell’s book of poems. There one finds in every line the expression of a personality which tries to realize itself and succeeds in doing so. The unity as well as the interest of the book is in this very development of a strong personality, of which a new and original aspect is revealed in every poem.