Welsh Journals

work and must take a very low rank. As a piece of propagandism it is most effective. On these two plays the present dramatic reputation of Mr. Galsworthy chiefly rests. He is far too much of a pamphleteer and too little of a poet. Those who sneer easily at the dictum art for art's sake will be sobered by a study of these works. Let me not be misunderstood. Mr. Galsworthy's social sense, his burning zeal for righteousness in the state, command respect and emulation. And every citizen has a right-it is his duty-where he thinks institutions cruel and wasteful, to protest with all his strength. And he may make his novel, even his tragedy, a vehicle for such protests. But it is vital beyond words that he should beware how he makes his appeal. Never must he deliver a definite attack upon a definite abuse. If he does, his success may be tremendous at the moment, but it is dearly bought. He will always be remembered as a partizan and his next pronouncement will be viewed, by all except those entirely convinced by his first, with a potential hostility fatal to the appreciation of art. They will be alert, but with the wrong kind of alertness the really eternal things he has to say have been terribly dis- counted beforehand. No our prophet of the stage must alter, not the catchwords of the hour, not the policy of this year, but the human heart, the attitude of mind from which these policies spring and over which such catchwords exercise their dominion. He must so speak and teach that the foolish opinion becomes, not merely discredited, but impossible. This is the deep glory of Ibsen. His teaching will survive all the temporary evils to which in the first instance men have quite justly applied it his genius will be an inspiration sorely needed so long as the human mind can bow slavishly before its own ephemeral creations, calling convention virtue and to-day eternity. We turn now to Mr. Granville Barker, who has de- served better of the English theatre than any man living. As actor, as manager, as playwright, he stands in the foremost rank he is also one of the chief agitators for a National Theatre. His plays are The Marrying of Ann Leete (1899), The Voysey Inheritance (1905), Waste (1907), The Madras House (1910). The Harlequinade (1913) and Prunella (1906) written in conjunction with Mr. Lawrence Housman. These fall into two classes The Harlequinade and Prunella are not drama at all, but a sort of fairy-phantasy it is with the others the realistic dramas, that we are now concerned. Ann Leete is a picture of upper-class life in the eighteenth century. A young girl, daughter of a soulless politician, is to be married in order to further his party-schemes. She learns to see through him and her suitor. Before her eyes, moreover, is her elder sister, who has been sacrificed in the same way and is now to be divorced because her father has deserted her husband's party. Suddenly Ann throws the whole sordid system over and asks the gardener to marry her she will rather have the first man she sees, provided he is honest and healthy. The play concludes with the only beautiful scene in Mr. Barker's dramas, the home-coming of the strange couple to their poor little cottage. Many have thought that Ann Leete is a different type of play from the rest, deceived by the simple charm of the close and by the eighteenth-century garnishing of postchaises, duels, Brighton, and the like. Really it is much the same; the burden of the whole thing is "Away with shams I We don't even know what we want. Let us find out, and do it." Still, there is in this first of Mr. Barker's works a touch of archaic charm, in virtue of which Ann Leete claims affinity with Prunella as well as with Waste. The Voysey Inheritance" is a legacy of dishonour. A young solicitor, recently admitted into partnership by his father, discovers something wrong in the administration of certain trusts. On investigation he finds that his father has for many years been guilty of shady manipulations. Instructed to invest money at a low and safe percentage, he has speculated in high dangerous percentages, paying the correct dividends out of his gains. This was done in the first instance to get the firm out of difficulties. When the dangers were over, the buccaneering instinct prompted him to begin again. It has not only created his income but added zest to the grey decorum of a solicitor's career. The father, after detailing all this in a curiously clever sort of gospel of immoral- ity, duly dies, and Edward Voysey is at the head of affairs, which are now in a bad state. His first idea is to proclaim everything and take the consequences. But he cannot bear to ruin the small investors, and determines to save some of them first. This he can only do by continuing his father's tactics he works on, fearing exposure day by day. Soon an old friend of the father, who has no confidence in the son, announces that he wishes to withdraw his own large investments from the firm. This precipitates matters. He is told the facts, but is bought off (for the sake of the poor clients) by a promise of repay- ment. The end is a picture of young Voysey settling down to a life of toil in order to repair his father's ravages.