But we need dwell no further on the necessarily artificial poems that
arise from the impossible marriage of past and present. Let us rather
consider the drama that actually stands for the reality of our time, as
Greek drama stood for Greek reality, and the drama of the Renaissance
for the reality of the Renaissance. Its scene is a modern house, it
passes between men and women of to-day. The names of the invisible
protagonists--the passions and ideas--are the same, more or less, as of
old. We see love, hatred, ambition, jealousy, envy, greed; the sense of
justice and idea of duty; pity, goodness, devotion, piety, selfishness,
vanity, pride, etc. But although the names have remained more or less
the same, how great is the difference we find in the aspect and quality,
the extent and influence, of these ideal actors! Of all their ancient
weapons not one is left them, not one of the marvellous moments of olden
days. It is seldom that cries are heard now; bloodshed is rare, and
tears not often seen. It is in a small room, round a table, close to
the fire, that the joys and sorrows of mankind are decided. We suffer,
or make others suffer, we love, we die, there in our corner; and it were
the strangest chance should a door or a window suddenly, for an instant,
fly open, beneath the pressure of extraordinary despair or rejoicing.
Accidental, adventitious beauty exists no longer; there remains only an
external poetry, that has not yet become poetic.--And what poetry, if we
probe to the root of things--what poetry is there that does not borrow
nearly all of its charm, nearly all of its ecstasy, from elements that
are wholly external?--Last of all, there is no longer a God to widen, or
master, the action; nor is there an inexorable fate to form a
mysterious, solemn and tragical background for the slightest gesture of
man; nor the sombre and abundant atmosphere, that was able to ennoble
even his most contemptible weaknesses, his least pardonable crimes.
There still abides with us, it is true, a terrible unknown; but it is
so diverse and elusive, it becomes so arbitrary, so vague and
contradictory, the moment we try to locate it, that we cannot evoke it
without great danger; cannot even, without the mightiest difficulty,
avail ourselves of it, though in all loyalty, to raise to the point of
mystery the gestures, actions and words of the men we pass every day.
The endeavour has been made; the formidable, problematic enigma of
heredity, the grandiose but improbable enigma of inherent justice, and
many others besides, have each in their turn been put forward as a
substitute for the vast enigma of the Providence or Fatality of old. And
it is curious to note how these youthful enigmas, born but of yesterday,
already seem older, more arbitrary, more unlikely, than those whose
places they took in an access of pride.
V
Where are we to look, then, for the grandeur and beauty that we find no
longer in visible action, or in words, stripped as these are of their
attraction and glamour? For words are only a kind of mirror which
reflects the beauty of all that surrounds it; and the beauty of the new
world wherein we live does not seem as yet able to project its rays on
these somewhat reluctant mirrors. Where shall we look for the horizon,
the poetry, now that we no longer can seek it in a mystery which, for
all that it still exists, does yet fade from us the moment we endeavour
to give it a name?
The modern drama would seem to be vaguely conscious of this. Incapable
of outside movement, deprived of external ornament, daring no longer to
make serious appeal to a determined divinity or fatality, it has fallen
back on itself, and seeks to discover, in the regions of psychology and
of moral problems, the equivalent of what once was offered by exterior
life. It has penetrated deeper into human consciousness; but has
encountered difficulties there no less strange than unexpected.
To penetrate deeply into human consciousness is the privilege, even the
duty, of the thinker, the moralist, the historian, novelist, and to a
degree, of the lyrical poet; but not of the dramatist. Whatever the
temptation, he dare not sink into inactivity, become mere philosopher or
observer. Do what one will, discover what marvels one may, the sovereign
law of the stage, its essential demand, will always be _action_. With
the rise of the curtain, the high intellectual desire within us
undergoes transformation; and in place of the thinker, psychologist,
mystic or moralist there stands the mere instinctive spectator, the man
electrified negatively by the crowd, the man whose one desire it is to
see something happen. This transformation or substitution is
incontestable, strange as it may seem; and is due, perhaps, to the
influence of the _human polypier_, to some undeniable faculty of our
soul, which is endowed with a special, primitive, almost unimprovable
organ, whereby men can think, and feel, and be moved, _en masse_. And
there are no words so profound, so noble and admirable, but they will
soon weary us if they leave the situation unchanged, if they lead to no
action, bring about no decisive conflict, or hasten no definite
solution.