which life stands than this painfully thoughtout parody of life; and it is truly saddening that a man who began his literary career in accents that reminded one of the young Schiller, who, even in his Johannes and Die drei Reiberfedern, seemed to strive after the heights of life, should now stoop to the pseudotragedy of social scandals not a whit more uplifting or less mawkishly sentimental than the much-abused plays of Kotzebue or Paul Lindau. What leads me to mention this doleful production here is the fact that it is another flagrant instance of that lack of a bold and consistent personality, along with and in spite of a certain attitude of protest against social tyranny, which seems to me responsible for the ultimate artistic failure of Hartleben's Rosenmontag.

In Sudermann's play also the hero, or rather the heroine, sacrifices herself without any sufficient reason, nay, even without any intelligible purpose. She sacrifices herself, she thinks, in order to save the life of her lover, with whom fifteen years ago she had transgressed her marriage vows, and who since. then had lived unsuspected in ideal friendship with herself and in close comradeship with her

husband, until a sudden exposure brings the two men into irreconcilable conflict. But how is it possible to think that this man, after her self-destruction, should take up life in the sense she wishes him; namely, as a champion of the Conservative cause against the destructive tendencies of Social Democracy, since, as he himself expresses it epigrammatically, he "must live on because he is dead"? She sacrifices herself also, she thinks, in order to rescue her husband from an impossible situation, apparently without realizing how little this sacrifice can do to atone for the protracted falsehood and lie of fifteen years. Finally, she sacrifices herself in order to keep the Conservative party from the scandal and confusion which would arise from an open conflict between the two men, both pillars of law and order; and again she seems to be entirely blind to the fact that nothing will more clearly reveal the "skeleton in the closet" of the Conservative party, and more directly and irretrievably hurt the cause of law and order, than her own suicide.

In short, the motives which actuate the events in this play are artificial to the last degree; and while there runs a hidden protest

through it against the suppression of individuality demanded by the complicated moral code of the modern state, there appears not a single character in it who dares to be truly himself, and most of the characters (to borrow one of the author's own phrases), seem to be living in a prison which they themselves guard. A sorry turn, indeed, to be taken by the author of Heimat.

It would be superfluous to dwell on other dramas of recent date, such as Philippi's Das grosse Licht and Wohlthäter der Menschheit, which show this same curious mixture of individualistic leanings on the one hand and submission to social convention on the other. It is, however, worthy of mention, since it is characteristic of the whole state of contemporary German culture, that the only play of the last few years in which a powerful personality successfully asserts itself, is an educational play,-Otto Ernst's comedy, Flachsmann als Erzieher, a brave, timely, and amusing plea for individuality and common sense in the instruction of children. The way in which the ideas of Pestalozzi and Froebel are here given form in an inspired young teacher who fights to the end and maintains

his ideals in spite of endless intrigue, slander, and malicious machinations on the part of his colleagues and superiors, is truly delightful; and the only pity is that the sphere of action in this piece is too narrow to give room for a really free and large artistic movement.

When will the German society drama fulfill the prophetic message of fifteen years ago, free itself from the shackles of sentimentality and conventional formality, and rise to a really human representation of the great conflicts of modern life? Björnson's Beyond Our Strength, which is being performed with such masterly skill in all the great German theatres, should point the way toward this goal.

VIII. WIDMANN'S DER HEILIGE UND DIE TIERE (MAY, 1906)

The English-speaking world is not sufficiently aware, I think, of the fact that German literature is in the midst of a great revival. To be sure, a few names, such as Hauptmann and Sudermann, are accepted as newspaper celebrities, about whom it is well to have, or at least to express, opinions. For the rest, one does not expect much of mental stimulus or spiritual enlightenment from German novel

ture,

ists, dramatists, or poets of to-day. Among the causes which account for this indifference of other nations toward modern German literaI am inclined to consider the negative tendency of contemporary German journalism. as the most potent one. In France or England, criticism in the main is a help to production. By setting forth what is valuable or important in the literary activity of the day, French and English critics, as a class, enable the foreign public to arrive at a tolerably just view of the literary progress of their respective countries. The German press, with a few exceptions, is dominated by a spirit of factional acrimoniousness and fault-finding. The consciousness that it is the main office of criticism to interpret, to reproduce the mood and feelings from which sprang the productions of creative fancy, seems almost entirely lost. Still less is there to be seen a widely spread desire or even willingness by fairness and justice of interpretation to uphold national dignity and to make propaganda for the cause of German literature abroad. Most of the journalistic reviewers seem to consider authors as fair game for their own caprice. To protest, to belittle, to ignore, to ridicule, to startle by sensational