Welsh Journals

study in transition. The Two Mr. Wetherbys has strong affinities with the Neo-British School. The exposure of the husband, through the discovery of a music-hall programme in his pocket, is only a symptom of this, to be sure, and the feebleness and the stagey- ness of all the characters, except the extraordinary Dick, is a weakness in execution, not in conception. But the theatrical triviality of the theme, above all the frantically absurd happy ending,' by which the devil-may-care husband belies his whole character and the trend of the whole play so that the curtain may descend as of old upon couples instead of units- these ghastlinesses mark the pre-Ibsenite born too late. The other works show quite a different tone. Even the first of them-The Return of the Prodigal- is so much more mature and certain in its handling that I cannot repel the suspicion that The Two Mr. Wetherbys is a youthful production brushed up for the stage a good many years after it was written. But the Prodigal evinces real observation and artistic sincerity. It is the story of a wastrel who really is a wastrel he is not a victim of circumstances or a rough diamond' or a good trusting fellow betrayed and badgered by his villainous rival through three acts, only to save the heroine from a burning mill in the fourth. No he is by birth inefficient-a gentleman, good-natured, and discreet, but material prosperity flees from his most crafty stalking. There are such people, and Hankin gives us a first-rate study of one of them, a study both amusing and pathetic, unmarred by a cowardly happy ending.' The Charity that began at Home is a third-rate affair to which only its novelty gives any charm. A charitable lady decides to do good by inviting to her country-house people whom no one else will entertain. She thus gathers round her an extra- ordinary troop of nuisances-an ogre of a governess who insists on poor Lady Denison learning der die das at the busiest hours of the day; a terribly common commercial-traveller a shady ex-lieutenant of the Munsters,' a positively paralyzing bore of an Anglo- Indian colonel of the Poonah-horse-my-boy' type, and so forth. The discovery by these wretches of the reason Lady Denison had for inviting them makes an effective scene, but the play as a whole falls flat, because Hankin never made up his mind whether he intended comedy or mere farce. The Cassilis Engagement produces the same effect of amiability and weakness, though here the author is very success- ful in his country-life atmosphere. But the whole rests on a psychological impossibility. For a youth of the type represented by Geoffrey Cassilis to become engaged to a girl like Ethel Borridge is as near a miracle as a respectable Ibsenist can get. The dialogue here as elsewhere, is admirable-a kind of compromise between the wit of Wilde and the wit of Shaw. We still feel the spirit of transition. Another symptom of it is the shamefully overdone commonness of Ethel and her mother. It shows what Hankin thought of his audience 'they are so stupid and vulgar themselves that they won't see I mean these women as vulgar unless I make them positively gutter-bred. Hankin's best work is undoubtedly The Last of the de Mullins-the story of a girl who deliberately breaks loose from the benumbing life in a dead home ruled by faded memories of land-owning and lineage, in order to find life and interest. Cool and practical but not impatient of her emotions, rather inspired by them, she is a curiously charming figure. The whole work has a tender richness and appeal. Both this and (still more) the Prodigal are Ibsenist, but at two removes, for they were clearly written under the influence of Shaw. Hankin is a strange mixture. In his earliest work an heir of the nineteenth century, in his latest a thorough Shavian, a writer of clever dialogue which strongly recalls the metallic brilliance of Wilde, a dramatist capable in his last full-length play of per- spective and melancholy charm-he suggests that had he lived (he died at thirty-nine) he might have performed more for the theatre than what one is tempted to call a splendid half-achievement. Mr. John Galsworthy shows the strongest contrast to Hankin. He seeks neither grace nor sublimity his sole aim is reform. In almost all his plays The Silver Box, Joy, Strife, Justice-he is a propagandist attacking definite institutions. For no writer has the stage been more manifestly a plat- form. Moved to indignation by some social injustice he takes us by the scruff of the neck and forces us to stare at the horror. His hard, driving, doctrinaire manner is often terribly inartistic but at least it makes for an athletic simplicity, a clear-cut structure. Yet he seems to forget a vital truth. One aim of the drama should be to entertain. I do not mean to amuse; I employ the word entertain because I cannot think of a better term for the effect of art an austere but solid satisfaction, a quiet possession of one's soul, a refreshment of the emotions, which is the ministration of genuine tragedy as of genuine comedy. Mr. Galsworthy often strikes us as too busy pummell- ing some special form of white-waistcoated iniquity to trouble about eternal truths. 'Look at that brute he exclaims, dashing forward again. Charm can wait. I'll put the embroidery on afterwards.' But he might as well put embroidery upon a steam-engine