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WRITERS OF THE DAY
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GENERAL EDITOR: BERTRAM CHRISTIAN
JOHN GALSWORTHY
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_By SHEILA KAYE-SMITH_
_NOVELS_
_THE TRAMPING METHODIST_
_STARBRACE_
_SPELL LAND_
_ISLE OF THORNS_
_THREE AGAINST THE WORLD_
_SUSSEX GORSE_
_BELLES LETTRES_
_SAMUEL RICHARDSON_
---
_WILLOWS FORGE AND OTHER POEMS_
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[Illustration: JOHN GALSWORTHY]
JOHN
GALSWORTHY
By
SHEILA KAYE-SMITH
[Illustration: colophon]
NEW YORK
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
_First Published in 1916_
CONTENTS
PAGE
INTRODUCTION 9
THE PLAYS. I. 17
THE PLAYS. II. 35
THE NOVELS. I. 52
THE NOVELS. II. 69
THE SKETCHES 86
GALSWORTHY THE ARTIST 100
BIBLIOGRAPHY 115
AMERICAN BIBLIOGRAPHY 118
INDEX 121
INTRODUCTION
A characteristic of every age is its group of popular writers. These
writers at once concentrate and give out the spirit of their age—they
are representative. Literature has many names of pioneers and apostles,
who were ahead of or out of sympathy with their times, but these were
never popular. The popular writer is essentially a man who conforms to
his period; it is true that his conformity must have life and vigour, it
must have nothing in it of the echo or the slave, it may even be
disguised rather transparently as revolt—but whatever enterprises and
excursions he allows himself, he remembers that there are certain bases
which he must keep, and to which after every expedition he must come
back. These bases are either the conventional ideas of his time, or the
conventional methods of attacking them—the two are for such purposes the
same.
So a glance at our most popular modern writers ought to give us a clue
as to the spirit of to-day. But here there is something baffling—we find
names as far apart as H. G. Wells and Florence Barclay, Arnold Bennett
and Hall Caine. Surely the spirit of the age is not broad enough to
include both Joseph Conrad and Marie Corelli. This brings us face to
face with a modern complication: we have two publics. The spread of
education, with other causes, has brought into being a mob-public, and
the approved of the mob-public have a popularity which could hardly have
been realised two generations ago. The most popular writer of to-day is
he whose appeal is to the man in the street, and the largest sales are
made by those who are most successful in catering for this newly
enfranchised reader—with whom literature and art have not hitherto had
much truck, but with whom they will have to reckon more and more as time
goes on.
There is, however, a public above the street, and this is large and
important enough to allow those who write for it to call themselves
popular. This public grants its favour on grounds literary as well as
emotional--it is not enough to stir its feelings, one must tickle its
taste. It is fundamentally the same as the mob in its ideas, but it is
very different in its methods of criticism. The mob likes to see its
prejudices upheld, this public above the street—which is the public that
most writers of any “literary” aspiration supply—while holding the same
prejudices as strongly at heart, rather enjoys seeing them overthrown on
paper. At the same time it demands artistic quality, reality, and an
occasional shock. While not actually _gourmet_, it is fastidious in the
matter of literary fare, and it is characteristically split up into
cliques or smaller publics, each swearing by a particular writer, just
as men who are nice as to food swear by a particular restaurant. There
is a Wells public, differing slightly if not essentially from the
Bennett public; there is a Kipling public—with democratic foundations;
there is a Conrad public, and a Galsworthy public—and the Galsworthy
public is perhaps the smallest of all.
Indeed Galsworthy can hardly be called a “popular” writer. I am not
using the word in a contemptuous sense, but to describe a writer who is
widely read. Galsworthy will never be widely read, for he alienates two
important sets of readers—those who insist that a book shall teach them
something, and those who with equal force insist that it shall teach
them nothing. He fails the first class because, while supplying its
demands, he does not satisfy the conditions it imposes. He undoubtedly
has something to teach, but he avoids the direct appeal, which is what
the public wants. Direct and open championship is the only way of making
a cause popular—let us be broad-minded, by all means, but agreeing that
“there may be something to say on the other side” is very different from
finding out what that something is, and saying it. Also he is too
sensitive, too moderate, too well balanced to please the
“improvement-above-all-things” reader, whose perceptions are not of the
subtlest.
On the other hand, he puts himself out of touch with those who do not
want to be taught, because he undoubtedly has a propaganda, and is not
an artist purely for art’s sake. Between himself and the numbers who
would unhesitatingly admire him as a man of letters he raises the
barrier of ideas which, while too subtly expressed to satisfy those who
clamour for instruction, are quite decided enough to cut off those who
object to it.
Thus Galsworthy’s public is whittled down to those who either are in
sympathy with his aims and methods—and there must be few who understand
both—or are able to swallow a small amount of propaganda for the sake of
art. He sets out to write deliberately for no man—he does not recruit
his readers, they are volunteers. They come to him from widely different
camps, and concentrate in an admiration which is perhaps as full of
reserves as its object.
He has deliberately rejected all public-snatching tricks, revealing his
personality in his work alone, avoiding the light of popular curiosity
and journalistic enterprise. He has treated his private life as his own
concern, not as a bait for readers. A judicious use of his own
personality and private affairs is, broadly speaking, indispensable to
the seeker after popularity. Galsworthy, by disliking this, has
necessarily limited his public to those who read him for his work’s
sake.
In the bare facts of his life that he chooses to give we shall find
nothing so interesting as what we find in his books and plays. Born in
1867, at Coombe in Surrey, he was educated at Harrow and at Oxford. He
was called to the Bar in 1890, but practised very little.
He has travelled a great deal, and widely—America and Egypt, Canada and
the Cape, British Columbia and Australia, Russia and the Fiji Islands.
It was on the sailing ship which carried him from Adelaide to South
Africa twenty-two years ago that he made friends with a sailor who now,
as Joseph Conrad, has a fame equal to Galsworthy’s own. It is remarkable
that, in spite of these wide wanderings, his plays and novels should
almost invariably have an English background. Seldom, if ever, does he
go afield, and then it is only to some place more or less known to
everyone, such as Austria in _Villa Rubein_, _The Dark Flower_, and _The
Little Dream_. He has never, like Conrad, given us the fruit of his
voyagings on the far seas, or his tracks over Russian and Canadian
plains.
Perhaps this may be due to the fact that no matter how far he may have
wandered, his roots are English. Though born in Surrey, he is a Devon
man. Galsworthy is of course a well-known Devon name, and for many years
now he has lived in Devon, on the eastern rim of Dartmoor.
Again and again he gives Devon to us—there is _A Man of Devon_, with its
tender freshness of the Devon soil sweetening the strength of Devon
hardihood; there is _A Bit o’ Love_, with its living and poetic
conception of Place; and there is _The Patrician_, with all the breadth
of the moors in contrast with the littleness of human passion and human
reasoning. Again, too, in _Riding in Mist_, we have a picture of a mood
of the Devon tors which has seldom been equalled and never surpassed.
Also his _Moods, Songs and Doggerels_ is full of the county, its
scenery, its men and women, its dialect, its rains, its “heather gipsy”
wind. Though Galsworthy is certainly not an interpreter of place, though
his great novels and plays deal with the mysteries of human nature
rather than with local subtleties—and the atmosphere he sheds over his
work is general rather than particular, the spirit rather than the
ghost—one feels that Devon is the background of his dreams.
THE PLAYS
I
Galsworthy takes his place in modern literature chiefly by virtue of his
plays. Criticism may to a certain extent damage him as a novelist, but
the most searching critics cannot leave him anything less than a great
playwright. His talents are specially adapted to the dramatic form,
which at the same time does much to veil his weak points. His mastery of
technique nowhere shows to greater advantage than on the stage, nor has
he better scope for his true sense of situation; on the other hand, the
stage is a legitimate field for propaganda, and the occasional failure
of the human interest in his work can be made good by the ability of the
actor.
For Galsworthy’s plays have the advantage of acting well—unlike much
literary drama, they are as effective on the stage as in the study; in
fact, they gain by acting, because, as I said, he has a tendency now and
then to subordinate the human interest to the moral, and this the actor
can make good.
He stands midway between the purely literary and the purely popular
playwright, and he also occupies middle ground between drama which is
entirely for instruction and that which is for amusement only. Poles
apart on one hand from the light comedies of H. H. Davies and Somerset
Maugham, he has very little in common with stage preachers such as Shaw
and Barker. More polished and more subtle than Houghton, he is less
clear-eyed and heroic than Masefield. Undoubtedly his most striking
quality as a dramatist is his sense of form and craft, but he is far
removed from that school of playwrights, of which Pinero and H. A. Jones
are leaders, whose technique amounts to little more than a working
knowledge of the stage.
Galsworthy loves, in his novels as well as his plays, to deal with
situations. This is to a certain extent detrimental to the novelist, as
it hampers development, and a novel which does not develop along some
line or other has a tendency to stale or solidify. But it is obvious
that a sense of situation is one of the first essentials of a dramatist,
and Galsworthy has it in full measure. It shows pre-eminently in his
central ideas, and subordinately in his apt management of his curtains,
which in his best plays are situations in themselves, epitomising the
chief issues of the act or scene.
His central situation is the moral or social problem at the bottom of
the play. He carries on his propaganda almost entirely by situation, and
this is what lifts his art above that of Shaw and other missionary
dramatists. He practically never relies on dialogue for introducing his
theories, except so far as dialogue develops and explains the situation.
He depends on his characters and their actions to enforce his moral, and
it is to this he owes his artistic salvation.
Having chosen his situation, he proceeds to balance it with two
contrasting groups, one on either side. Each group consists of various
types, embodying various points of view, which, while differing to a
slight extent, are yet subordinate to the Point of View of the group.
The fact that his characters are types rather than individuals is all to
his good as a dramatist, though we shall see later that it is a drawback
in the novels. Types are always more convincing on the stage than
individuals, the necessary personal touch being given by the actor.
There is no use criticising a play apart from the acting—the two are
inextricably bound together, so that the author is in a sense only the
collaborator; a play which was not written to be acted can scarcely be
called a play—it is a novel in dialogue.
Perhaps the best example of Galsworthy’s technique, and at the same time
his finest achievement as a playwright, is _Strife_. Here we have the
central situation, the contrasting of groups, the combination of
types—the whole so perfectly balanced, and so smooth-working, that it
does not creak once. The central idea is the dispute between the
directors of the Works and their employees, but it is impossible to
consider this in itself, apart from the attitude of the two parties
towards it. Indeed we are given a very vague idea of the nature of the
difference; all we know is that it has reduced many of the workers to
starvation, while the directors have to face angry shareholders and
failing dividends. Harness, the trades-union delegate, acts as a
go-between, and gradually both groups begin to see the allurements of
compromise. Various circumstances drive them towards it, with the
exception of their respective leaders, Roberts, and old Anthony. The end
is pitiful—for the two sides surrender to each other simultaneously,
breaking their leaders’ hearts. These men are of extraordinary character
and ability, and of the most splendid courage, but they are betrayed by
their cowardly followers, who have not grit or faith enough to see that
their only chance lies in “no compromise.” There is a powerful scene
between Roberts, the men’s leader, and Anthony, chairman of the
directors, when they have both been abandoned by their supporters:
ROBERTS [_to_ ANTHONY]. But _ye_ have not signed them terms! They can’t
make terms without their chairman! Ye would never sign them terms!
[ANTHONY _looks at him without speaking_.] Don’t tell me ye have! for
the love o’ God [_with passionate appeal_] I reckoned on ye!
HARNESS [_holding out the Directors’ copy of the terms_]. The _Board_
has signed.
ROBERTS. Then you’re no longer Chairman of this Company! [_Breaking into
half-mad laughter_.] Ah, ha—Ah, ha, ha! They’ve thrown ye over—thrown
over their Chairman: ah—ha—ha! [_With a sudden dreadful calm._]
So—they’ve done us both down, Mr Anthony.
There is also a social problem at the bottom of _Justice_, but this time
it is in connection with the English law. In _Justice_ we have a bitter,
tragic indictment of the penal system. We are given the psychology of a
crime, but not so much of its committal as of its expiation. We are
shown the effect of prison life on the clerk Falder, and of its
consequences following him after his release, and driving him at last to
suicide. It is a wonderfully temperate statement of cruel facts.
Throughout it Galsworthy retains a perfect command of his art; above all
he avoids any cheap identification of the ministers of a system with the
system itself. The officials of the court and of the prison are all
shown as wise and humane men; they do their best, according to their
powers, for those wretches whose lives are harassed by the system they
administrate. It is the system alone which is in fault.
Perhaps Galsworthy has made a mistake in choosing Falder as his victim.
The man is of a type which would go under with a very slight push, weak
and changeable, an extreme case. On the other hand, he shows the effect
of Law on the poor and weak it is ostensibly there to protect. He is one
of those for whom Justice, as understood in this country, and indeed
most countries, makes no provision. He is a special case, and it is
characteristic of systems and institutions that they ignore—are to a
certain extent forced to ignore—the special case, which is almost always
better worth considering than the general mass to which the system is
adapted. Galsworthy suggests no remedy, no alternative. He does not hint
anywhere that Falder has been badly treated. He has been treated as well
as Justice will allow; as many men are the victims of injustice, so is
he the victim of justice itself.
The play is not quite so well constructed as _Strife_. The first and
second acts cover mostly the same ground, and the action is not so
compact or the climax so inevitable. On the other hand, there are some
fine scenes, and some particularly arresting characters. Cokeson, the
little kind-hearted, humble-minded clerk, is a lovable person, and the
relations between Falder and Ruth Honeywill are studied with exquisite
delicacy and pathos. The scene of Falder’s arrest, of his trial, and
that terrible silent scene, in which not a word is spoken, but in which
we are shown far more powerfully than by any words, the horror, the
misery, the madness, of solitary confinement—are all memorable, and make
us forgive a certain scrappiness in their succession. The play ends on a
fine note of tragedy, when Falder, re-arrested for obtaining employment
by a forged character, throws himself downstairs rather than go back to
gaol:
[RUTH _drops on her knees by the body_.]
RUTH [_in a whisper_]. What is it? He’s not breathing. [_She crouches
over him._] My dear! my pretty!.... [_Leaping to her feet._] No, no! No,
no! He’s dead.
COKESON [_stealing forward, in a hoarse voice_]. There, there, poor dear
woman.
[RUTH _faces round at him_.]
COKESON. No one’ll touch him now! Never again! He’s safe with gentle
Jesus.
[RUTH _stands as though turned to stone in the doorway, staring
at_ COKESON, _who, bending humbly before her, holds out his hand
as one would to a lost dog_.]
_Justice_ and _Strife_ both deal with social and economic questions in
the larger sense, but in the majority of the plays the issues are more
personal. _The Silver Box_ and _The Eldest Son_, for instance, both show
the different standards of morality expected from the poor and from the
rich. _The Fugitive_ is a study of the helplessness of a beautiful
woman, not specially trained, when she is driven to make her own way in
life. _Joy_ shows the essential selfishness which we all bring into our
relations both with one another and with problems of conduct.
_The Silver Box_ runs _Strife_ close as Galsworthy’s masterpiece. There
is a strong resemblance between its central idea and that of _The Eldest
Son_, a far inferior play. In _The Silver Box_ the charwoman’s husband
is sent to gaol for stealing, whereas the M.P.’s son, who has also
committed a theft, under far more unforgivable circumstances, escapes
because of his superior position and wealth.... In _The Eldest Son_, the
poor gamekeeper is threatened with dismissal if he will not marry the
girl he has betrayed, while the eldest son of the house brings his
father’s wrath upon his head for standing by the lady’s maid he has put
in the same position.
_The Silver Box_ is much the clearer-sighted of the two plays; in the
second the issues are occasionally confused, and both the construction
and dramatic effect are inferior. _The Silver Box_ is practically
flawless. The two contrasting groups, the rich and important Barthwicks,
and the poor, good-for-nothing Joneses, are perfectly balanced. There is
no crude over-emphasis of the situation, nor inopportune enforcement of
the moral, though perhaps in the trial scene Galsworthy is a little too
anxious to point out the similarity of the positions of Jack Barthwick
and Jem Jones, and the difference of their treatment: “Dad! that’s what
you said to me!” says young Barthwick, more pointedly than naturally,
when the magistrate tells Jones he is “a nuisance to the community.”
The characters are drawn with great vividness and restraint. Mrs Jones
is particularly successful—pale, quiet, down-trodden, she has about her
a certain dignified pathos which is perfectly human and natural. She
does not pose as a martyr, she does not pretend that she would not leave
her husband if she could and dared; the fact is not hidden from us that
her sad-eyed silences must be particularly irritating to him. She does
not complain over much, but she has nothing of stoical endurance—she
endures rather because she has been battered into submission and sees
the uselessness of revolt. She would revolt if she could.
One of the most direct and convincing scenes in the play is that between
these two, in their home, when Mrs Jones discovers that her husband has
stolen the silver box.
JONES. I’ve had a bit of luck. Picked up a purse—seven pound and more.
MRS JONES. Oh, James!
JONES. Oh, James! What about oh, James! I picked it up, I tell you. This
is lost property, this is.
MRS JONES. But isn’t there a name in it or something?
JONES. Name! No, there ain’t no name. This don’t belong to such as ’ave
visitin’ cards. This belongs to a perfec’ lidy. Tike an’ smell it. Now,
you tell me what I ought to have done. You tell me that. You can always
tell me what I ought to ha’ done.
MRS JONES. I can’t say what you ought to have done, James. Of course the
money wasn’t yours; you’ve taken somebody else’s money.
JONES. Finding’s keeping. I’ll take it as wages for the time I’ve gone
about the streets asking for what’s my rights. I’ll take it for what’s
_overdue_, d’ye hear? I’ve got money in my pocket, my girl. Money in my
pocket! And I’m not going to waste it. With this ’ere money I’m going to
Canada. I’ll let you have a pound. You’ve often talked of leavin’ me.
You’ve often told me I treat you badly—well I ’ope you’ll be glad when
I’m gone.
MRS JONES. You have treated me very badly, James, and of course I can’t
prevent your going; but I can’t tell whether I shall be glad when you’re
gone.
JONES. It’ll change my luck. I’ve ’ad nothing but bad luck since I took
up with you. And you’ve ’ad no bloomin’ picnic.
MRS JONES. Of course it would have been better for us if we had never
met. We weren’t meant for each other. But you’re set against me, that’s
what you are, and you have been for a long time. And you treat me so
badly, James, going after that Rosie and all. You don’t ever seem to
think of the children that I’ve had to bring into the world, and of all
the trouble I’ve had to keep them, and what’ll become of them when
you’re gone.
JONES. If you think I want to leave the little beggars you’re bloomin’
well mistaken.
MRS JONES. Of course I know you’re fond of them.
JONES. Well then, you stow it, old girl. The kids’ll get along better
with you than when I’m here. If I’d ha’ known as much as I do now, I’d
never ha’ had one o’ them. What’s the use o’ bringin’ ’em into a state
o’ things like this? It’s a crime, that’s what it is; but you find it
out too late; that’s what’s the matter with this ’ere world.
MRS JONES. Of course it would have been better for them, poor little
things; but they’re your own children, and I wonder at you talkin’ like
that. I should miss them dreadfully if I was to lose them.
JONES. And you ain’t the only one. If I make money out there—--[_Looking
up he sees her shaking out his coat—in a changed voice._] Leave that
coat alone!
[_The silver box drops from the pocket, scattering the cigarettes
upon the bed. Taking up the box, she stares at it; he rushes at
her, and snatches the box away._]
MRS JONES. Oh, Jem! Oh, Jem!
JONES. You mind what you’re sayin’! When I go out I’ll take and chuck it
in the water along with that there purse. I ’ad it when I was in liquor,
and for what you do when you’re in liquor you’re not responsible—and
that’s Gawd’s truth as you ought to know. I don’t want the thing—I won’t
have it. I took it out o’ spite. I’m no thief, I tell you; and don’t you
call me one, or it’ll be the worse for you.
MRS JONES. It’s Mr Barthwick’s! You’ve taken away my reputation. Oh,
Jem, whatever made you?
JONES. What d’you mean?
MRS JONES. It’s been missed; they think it’s me. Oh, whatever made you
do it, Jem?
JONES. I tell you I was in liquor. I don’t want it; what’s the good of
it to me? If I were to pawn it they’d only nab me. I’m no thief. I’m no
worse than what young Barthwick is; he brought ’ome that purse I picked
up—a lady’s purse—’ad it off ’er in a row, kept sayin’ e’d scored ’er
off. Well I scored ’im off. Tight as an owl ’e was! And d’you think
anything’ll happen to him?
MRS JONES. Oh, Jem! It’s the bread out of our mouths.
JONES. Is it, then? I’ll make it hot for ’em yet. What about that purse.
What about young Barthwick.
[MRS JONES _comes forward to the table, and tries to take the
box_; JONES _prevents her_.]
JONES. What do you want with that. You drop it, I say!
MRS JONES. I’ll take it back, and tell them all about it. [_She attempts
to wrest the box from him._]
JONES. Ah, would yer?
[_He drops the box, and rushes on her with a snarl. She slips back
past the bed. He follows; a chair is overturned...._]
In _The Eldest Son_ we have the same idea not quite so effectively
handled—the contrast between the codes of ethics required from the poor
and from the rich. There are some good scenes in the play, notably that
between Bill and Freda in the first act, and that towards the end, when
the whole Cheshire family is brought into action against Freda and her
sturdy old father, who at last suddenly solves the difficulty by saying:
“I’ll have no charity marriage in my family,” and leading his daughter
away. Also the characters of Sir William Cheshire and of his wife are
great achievements, both strong and delicate. But the play has not the
grip or the reality of _The Silver Box_.
The failure lies in a certain lack of cohesion and inevitableness in the
whole. The rehearsal of _Caste_, which is introduced in the second act,
points the moral rather too obviously. Also the central idea is hampered
by the fact that the two illustrative cases are not really parallel. In
_The Silver Box_ the theft by young Barthwick is just as blameworthy as
that by Jones. Their positions are quite the same, except that, indeed,
it is the man of wealth who is the more despicable and deserving of
punishment. But no one can say that Bill Cheshire and Freda Studdenham
are in the same position as the gamekeeper and the village girl. There
are objections to the marriage of Bill and Freda which do not exist in
the other case. Certainly there are objections to that too, but the fact
remains that the two examples are not parallel.
THE PLAYS
II
There are social and economic ideas at the bottom of _The Fugitive_,
which is to a certain extent symbolical—a study of woman’s position
when, for any reason, she is separated from the herd. But in this, as in
other of his later plays, Galsworthy’s command of his art is not equal
to his enthusiasm for his subject. Moving and forcible as it all is, it
has not the balance, the inevitableness, of _Strife_ or _The Silver
Box_. We feel that events are being arranged to suit the basic theory.
The career of Clare Dedmond, from her revolt to her downfall, is not a
thing foreseen, a thing of fate. We feel somehow that her end is
arbitrary—at all events we are not shown the steps that lead to it. The
actual catastrophes we witness do not demand it.
None the less the study of Clare is arresting—the woman who is “fine,
but not fine enough.” She alienates our sympathies a little in the first
act; there is no denying that she behaves childishly, and her husband,
uncongenial as he may be, is not quite such a bounder as Malise, in
whom, apparently, she finds satisfaction. But somehow that whole first
act has an air of unreality about it, a remoteness from life, and a
staginess we do not expect from Galsworthy. Later on the movement
becomes swifter, and we have the sense of impending tragedy, which is
realised in the scene where Clare leaves Malise, though she loves him
and he is her only protector, because she discovers that she has become
a drag on him and is spoiling his career.
The scene at the Restaurant, too, has its fine points, though it is
spoilt by a riot of symbolism and a tendency towards false sentiment.
The continuous singing of “This Day a Stag must die” by the revellers at
another table is rather an obvious and cheap effect, so too the
courtesan’s kiss as the curtain falls. On the whole one feels that _The
Fugitive_ is a play in which the author’s plan has been better conceived
than carried out.
The central situations of _Joy_ and of _The Mob_ have nothing to do with
any social or economic problem, even in a narrowed, personal sense. They
deal with conduct, and special cases of conduct. _Joy_ and _The Mob_,
with _A Bit o’ Love_, stand at the bottom of the scale at the top of
which are _Justice_ and _Strife_. The interest of the two latter is
centred in the social and industrial problems they are built on; then
come _The Silver Box_, _The Eldest Son_, and _The Fugitive_, in which
the social problem undoubtedly exists, but which depend for interest on
its personal variations; then come _Joy_, _The Mob_, and _A Bit o’
Love_, in which the interest is purely personal and unconnected with any
social idea.
_Joy_ is a play built round an attitude rather than a problem. “A Play
on the Letter I” is the sub-title, and from first to last we see how the
consideration of self is the governing motive of widely different
characters. We see it working openly, in characters that are frankly and
aggressively egotistic; we see it acting more subtly in characters of a
different stamp. The one person who is free from it is the old
governess, Miss Beech, who lives only in her interest in those around
her. Somehow, as is often the case with characters purposely in contrast
with his general scheme, Galsworthy is occasionally artificial in
dealing with Miss Beech. Her “devilishness” is more than once a trifle
forced—the author so obviously wants her to be original, unlike both the
conventional stage governess, and the conventionally selfless person.
She fills to a certain extent the position of Chorus, and her vocation
takes from her humanity. She becomes, as the play goes on, more and more
of a Voice.
On the other hand, there is a great deal of humanity about Joy herself
and her mother. Mrs Gwyn’s lover, Maurice Lever, is also real enough,
though the same cannot always be said of Joy’s Dick. The scenes between
the young people ring true, but the boy loses reality when away from
Joy; he becomes more a part of stage machinery.
In spite of some languors, the play is quick-moving and closely knit,
and the author keeps the central situation well in hand. There are one
or two haunting scenes—the scenes of young love between Joy and Dick,
the scenes of older, sadder love, more passionate and more
disillusioned, between Mrs Gwyn and Lever—and one particularly good
scene between Mrs Gwyn and Joy, after the girl has discovered her
mother’s secret.
JOY [_covering her face_]. I’m—I’m ashamed.
MRS GWYN. I brought you into the world; and you say that to me? Have I
been a bad mother to you?
JOY. Oh, mother!
MRS GWYN. Ashamed? Am _I_ to live all my life like a dead woman because
you’re ashamed? Am I to live like the dead because you’re a child that
knows nothing of life?... D’you think—because I suffered when you were
born and because I’ve suffered since with every ache you ever had, that
gives you the right to dictate to me now? I’ve been unhappy enough, and
I shall be unhappy enough in the time to come. Oh, you untouched things,
you’re as hard and cold as iron.
JOY. I would do anything for _you_, mother.
MRS GWYN. Except—let me live, Joy. That’s the only thing you won’t do
for me, I quite understand.
JOY [_in a despairing whisper_]. But it’s wrong of you—it’s wicked.
MRS GWYN. If it’s wicked, _I_ shall pay for it, not _you_.
JOY. But I want to save you, mother!
MRS GWYN. Save me? [_Breaking into laughter._]
JOY. I can’t bear it that _you_—if you’ll only—I’ll never leave you ...
oh, mother! I feel—I feel _so awful_—as if everybody knew.
MRS GWYN. You think I’m a monster to hurt you. Ah! yes! You’ll
understand better some day.
JOY [_in a sudden burst of excited fear_]. I won’t believe
it—I—I—can’t—_you’re deserting me_, mother.
MRS GWYN. Oh, you untouched things! You—--
[JOY _looks up suddenly, sees her face, and sinks down on her
knees_.]
JOY. Mother—it’s for _me_!
MRS GWYN. Ask for my life, Joy—don’t be afraid!
[JOY _turns her face away_. MRS GWYN _bends suddenly and touches
her daughter’s hair_; JOY _shrinks from that touch, recoiling as
if she had been stung_.]
MRS GWYN. I forgot—I’m deserting you.
[_And swiftly without looking back she goes away._ JOY _left alone
under the hollow tree crouches lower, and her shoulders shake_.]
_The Mob_ is rather an irritating, unsatisfactory play. It is meant to
be a study in ideals, but it is astonishing how blunderingly and at the
same time how coldly Galsworthy puts these ideals before us. The title
is also a mistake. The attitude of the mob towards Stephen More is
merely of secondary and artificial importance. He meets his death at its
hands, it is true, but it plays little part in the spiritual fight he
wages. The exhibition, in a final tableau, of its changing fancy—in the
statue it erects to his memory—is dangerously near anti-climax, and no
integral part of the whole. One cannot see that the mob is anywhere a
dominant force—it is an incident, far less important here than in
_Strife_, though there is one scene in which Galsworthy shows again, as
he showed in _Strife_, his power of dealing with stage crowds:
[MORE _turns and mounts the steps_.]
TALL YOUTH. You blasted traitor.
[MORE _faces round at the volley of jeering that follows; the
chorus of booing swells, then gradually dies, as if they
realised that they were spoiling their own sport_.]
A ROUGH GIRL. Don’t frighten the poor feller.
[_A girl beside her utters a shrill laugh._]
MORE. Well, what do you want?
VOICE. A speech.
MORE. Indeed! That’s new.
ROUGH VOICE. Look at his white liver. You can see it in his face.
A BIG NAVVY. Shut it. Give ’im a chanst.
TALL YOUTH. Silence for the blasted traitor?
[_A youth plays on the concertina; there is laughter, then an
abrupt silence._]
... and so on.
The whole of this scene is vigorous and convincing, so too the scene of
More’s death; but again and again we are irritated by the way Galsworthy
misses his chances. Take, for instance, the scene in which Katherine
uses her beauty and his love for her to tempt More from his ideal—it is
full of magnificent opportunities, and there is some fine stuff in it,
but somehow it misses fire. This may be partly due to the fact that in
his later plays Galsworthy’s restraint occasionally seems to lose its
force. Economy of words and emotion is effective only when used to
control the riches of both.
_A Bit O’ Love_ is in a sense the most personal of all the plays—I say
in a sense, because, for the first time, we find Galsworthy definitely
exploiting Place. The importance of Place in literature is a
comparatively new discovery, for we must not count the descriptive and
local novels which have been with us more or less from the first.
Studies in Place, which set out deliberately to bring forward the
personality—if I may use the term—of Place, are only just beginning, and
Galsworthy, with _A Bit O’ Love_, comes among the pioneers. It is his
latest play, and it will be interesting to watch if he chooses to
develop along this line.
We have the Devonshire village as a central character in the piece—the
various types which compose it are just so many parts of the whole, and
it would be a mistake to treat them as separate persons. The village is
at once sturdy and sweet and foolish, it is curious, it is pig-headed—it
is built of the wisps of moon-and-dew cobwebs, and of the sty-door
stakes from which they float. It is the common life of the village which
is dealt with here, rather than subtleties of atmosphere—the actual
locality has no definite existence apart from its inhabitants, which is
a milder practice of the art of Place. But the central idea is the same
as in all Place studies—the effect of the Place on the Man.
The man here is Michael Strangway, curate of the village, “a gentle
creature burnt within,” who plays the flute, and loves dumb animals, and
acts St Francis without the adorable Franciscan coarseness. His wife
pleads with him not to ruin her lover’s career by bringing a divorce,
and for love of her he promises. Unfortunately the interview is
overheard by a little gossiping village girl who has a grudge against
him because he had set free her imprisoned skylark. The news is spread,
and the village is righteously indignant, wrath culminating when the
curate crowns his impious toleration by falling upon the man who has
used a few plain words about his wife in a public-house. Attacked and
shunned on all sides for his attempt at a literal gospel, and betrayed
within by the ache and emptiness of his heart, the curate resolves on
suicide, but is rather tritely saved at the last moment by the little
che-ild of such occasions, who offers him “a bit o’ love.”
There is some good work in the play, an atmosphere of beautiful
wistfulness, tenderly combined with the bumpkin clump and flit. The
dance in the big barn has its full effect of mystic and rustic beauty;
there is infinite pathos in Strangway and Cremer setting out for a long
tramp together in the link of their bruised hearts—and Galsworthy has
done nothing more kindly-humorous than the meeting at the village inn,
with Sol Potter uneasily in the chair.
The play is beautifully written, but it would seem as if the author had
scarcely a clear idea himself of Strangway, and a little more planning
might have saved him from one or two banalities. The extreme
individuality, so to speak, of the curate’s problem—for no one can deny
that his was an exceptional case—is a bit in the way of a writer whose
chief concern is the social and general. But we must give a particular
welcome to _A Bit o’ Love_, because it is Galsworthy’s first real
experiment in Place, and one has a feeling that here is a grand new road
for him to tread.
There remain two plays, which are called respectively “A Fantasy” and
“An Allegory”—_The Pigeon_ and _The Little Dream_.
The first is a fantasy based on sober facts. Indeed it would be rightly
called a satire. It is a study—carried through in a spirit of comedy, in
spite of drunkenness, vice, poverty, and suicide—of three
irreclaimables, and of those who would reclaim them. Old Timson, the
drunkard; Mrs Megan, born light of love, who even while drowning thinks
of dancing; Ferrand, the vagabond, the wanderer of quaint
philosophy—they are a fantastic trio, because the sorrow and sordidness
of their lives is all hazed over by this half-comic, half-satiric glow
in which their creator chooses to see them. In themselves more hopeless
and tragic than any of the characters in _Strife_ or _Justice_, they
raise smiles instead of tears. It would seem almost as if the tragedy of
the outcast had stirred in Galsworthy those depths beyond sorrow, which
can find no expression save in laughter.
Various theorists argue about these three outcasts, and one good-natured
man befriends them. Wellwyn is a kindly study, and his easy methods,
however much his practical little daughter may blame him, do more to
humanise the poor wretches than the sterner tactics of Professor Calway
or Sir Thomas Huxton. But as a matter of fact no generosity will meet
the case, no theory. We can only laugh, and through laughter learn a
little more of pity.
There is some delightful humour in _The Pigeon_. As a rule Galsworthy’s
humour is too deeply tinged with bitterness to ring true; when it is not
embittered it is often ineffective or trivial, as in _Joy_ or _The
Eldest Son_. In _The Pigeon_, however, there are scenes of genuine
humour and fine satire, both in situation and in dialogue. The various
conceptions of character too are essentially humorous, which is seldom,
if ever, the case in the other plays. It is a sharp stroke which right
at the end of the play avenges the kindly Pigeon whom everyone has
plucked.
CHIEF HUMBLE-MAN [_in an attitude of expectation_]. This is the larst of
it, sir.
WELLWYN. Oh! Ah! Yes!
[_He gives them money; then something seems to strike him and he
exhibits certain signs of vexation. Suddenly he recovers, looks
from one to the other, and then at the tea-things. A faint smile
comes on his face._]
WELLWYN. You can finish the decanter.
[_He goes out in haste._]
CHIEF HUMBLE-MAN [_clinking the coins_]. Third time of arskin’! April
fool! Not ’arf. Good old Pigeon!
SECOND HUMBLE-MAN. ’Uman being, _I_ call ’im.
CHIEF HUMBLE-MAN [_taking three glasses from the last packing-case, and
pouring very equally into them_]. That’s right. Tell you wot, I’d never
’a’ touched this unless ’e’d told me, I wouldn’t—not with ’im.
SECOND HUMBLE-MAN. Ditto to that! This is a bit of orl right! [_Raising
his glass._] Good luck!
THIRD HUMBLE-MAN. Same ’ere!
[_Simultaneously they place their lips smartly against the liquor,
and at once let fall their faces and their glasses._]
CHIEF HUMBLE-MAN [_with great solemnity_]. Crikey! Bill! _Tea!_... E’s
got us!
[_The stage is blotted dark._]
_The Little Dream_ is rather a bitter allegory of the adventures of the
soul in search of life and happiness. Seelchen, the little mountain
girl, hears the call of the Wine Horn, typifying the delights of the
town and the world, and the Cow Horn, typifying the pleasures of her
mountain home, but there is a strange resemblance in the hard
disillusions they are bound to offer after their gifts, and only the
lonely Great Horn behind points to something finer and higher. There is
really not much interest, or indeed, much originality in the little
sketch, but there is some beautiful language, and Galsworthy is able to
give free rein to his sense of words and poetic faculty. There is real
poetry in some of the lyrics, and by them, rather than by his published
volume of verse, one judges him poet as well as playwright.
“O flame that treads the marsh of time,
Flitting for ever low,
Where, through the black enchanted slime,
We, desperate, following go—
Untimely fire, we bid thee stay!
Into dark air above,
The golden gipsy thins away—
So has it been with love.”
THE NOVELS
I
Though undoubtedly Galsworthy owes his position as an artist and as a
thinking force to his plays, he still carries considerable weight as
both in his novels. That his novels have not the value, whether social
or literary, of his plays—that indeed his position as a novelist is
largely due to his fame as a playwright—does not make away with the fact
that he has given us some half-dozen novels of standing, which are worth
consideration in themselves, apart from anything their author may have
done in other fields.
His lack of complete success as a novelist is partly due to those
characteristics which have made him so successful as a playwright. The
drama is a lawful means of propaganda, the novel is not—Galsworthy’s
plays gain enormously from the social or moral problems at their base,
while the same problems have a tendency to constrict or impede the
development of his novels. A play is dependent mainly on its craft, for
this is a point which lies solely with the author, in which no actor,
however skilful, can help him; on the other hand, a novel depends
chiefly on its human interest, and this the author must supply himself,
since he has no intermediaries to make good where he fails. There is
little doubt that abstract ideas do not help the human interest of a
novel. It is remarkable how small a part the abstract plays in the lives
of even the most thoughtful of us, and anything in the nature of a
problem or an idea, of anything belonging to the brain rather than to
the heart, has a tendency to destroy the illusion of real life which it
is the chief object of a novelist to create.
Another reason why Galsworthy is more successful in his plays than in
his novels is that most good plays are founded on a situation, most good
novels on the development of a situation, and development is not a
characteristic of Galsworthy’s art. He likes to take a situation,
examine it from characteristic and conflicting points of view, and show
the effect it has on different lives, but he never attempts to develop
it, to start a chain of events from it, mould characters by it.
Practically every character in a Galsworthy novel, with the possible
exception of _The Dark Flower_, is the same at the end as at the
beginning. This means that in his novels he is still a playwright as far
as both situation and character are concerned. He develops neither, he
never goes forward, he goes round. The result is that his novels are
mostly plays in novel form, and they suffer in consequence.
In fact all the drawbacks of the novels may be said to arise from
defects in the human interest so essential to a novelist. It is not that
Galsworthy does not feel, and most passionately, for his characters,
neither is it that they are not flesh and blood, nor that their stories
are not real and moving. It is rather because they are types, not
individuals, and types chosen to fit some particular situation which has
been already selected. They are never mere pegs or mere puppets, but
somehow there is nothing creative about them; they lack the individual
touch which the actor can impart to a character in a play, but which the
author alone can give in a novel. Also they repeat themselves, there is
not enough diversity; the same groups arrange themselves in different
novels. Of course there are exceptions—Lord Miltoun in _The Patrician_,
Mr Stone in _Fraternity_—but these, on examination, prove to be only a
fining down of the type till it is almost an individual; there is no
definite creation.
However, against this defect, which is due to the intrusion of the
playwright into the novelist’s sphere, we must set a wonderful and
seldom-failing craft, which goes far to justify that intrusion. There
are few novelists with a finer sense of form than Galsworthy, few with a
finer sense of style—the conciseness of the dramatist teaches him the
need of arrangement and the full value to be wrung out of a word. In one
point only does the dramatist fail the novelist, and that, strange to
say, is in dialogue. Again and again the dialogue in the novels falls
flat, or is stilted, or irrelevant—and it is curious, when we remember
how strong the plays are in this respect.
There is a certain inequality about the seven novels: _The Island
Pharisees_, _The Man of Property_, _The Country House_, _Fraternity_,
_The Patrician_, _The Dark Flower_, and _The Freelands_. In every way
the first is the weakest, but, on the other hand, the last is not the
most successful. The finest are _The Man of Property_ and _Fraternity_.
Undoubtedly Galsworthy is at his best when his technique is at its
highest pitch of excellence, and weakest when his sense of form most
fails him. Form is never used by him to cover defects of interest,
beauty, or reality. _Fraternity_, which is very nearly his masterpiece,
almost reaches technical perfection, while _The Island Pharisees_—which
is as near as he can go to writing a thoroughly bad novel—is also the
most faultily constructed.
_The Island Pharisees_ shows perhaps more than any of the novels the raw
edges of his art. He is burning with indignation at the
self-righteousness of the British middle classes, and his power as a
novelist is as yet too undeveloped to cope with his zeal as a reformer.
He lacks too that subtlety of warfare which in the plays and later
novels makes his propaganda so effective and at the same time is one of
his truest safeguards as an artist—the exposure of a cause out of the
mouth of its own champions. He attacks crudely—through a series of
events which are not always above the suspicion of pre-arrangement,
through dialogue which is often manœuvred and artificial. None of his
characters, except Ferrand, the vagabond, has much of the breath of
life, and over the whole hangs a fog of bitterness which is scarcely
ever dispelled by those illuminating phrases and flashes of insight into
his opponents’ cause, which elsewhere make him so appealing.