I
M. Maeterlinck, in his beautiful _Treasure of the Humble_, compares the
dramas of our stage to the paintings of an obsolete taste; and the dramas
of the stage for which he hopes, to the paintings of a taste that cannot
become obsolete. 'The true artist,' he says, 'no longer chooses Marius
triumphing over the Cimbrians, or the assassination of the Duke of Guise,
as fit subjects for his art; for he is well aware that the psychology of
victory or murder is but elementary and exceptional, and that the solemn
voice of men and things, the voice that issues forth so timidly and
hesitatingly, cannot be heard amidst the idle uproar of acts of violence.
And therefore will he place on his canvas a house lost in the heart of the
country, a door open at the end of a passage, a face or hands at rest.' I
do not understand him to mean that our dramas should have no victories or
murders, for he quotes for our example plays that have both, but only that
their victories and murders shall not be to excite our nerves, but to
illustrate the reveries of a wisdom which shall be as much a part of the
daily life of the wise as a face or hands at rest. And certainly the
greater plays of the past ages have been built after such a fashion. If
this fashion is about to become our fashion also, and there are signs that
it is, plays like some of Mr. Robert Bridges will come out of that
obscurity into which all poetry, that is not lyrical poetry, has fallen,
and even popular criticism will begin to know something about them. Some
day the few among us, who care for poetry more than any temporal thing,
and who believe that its delights cannot be perfect when we read it alone
in our rooms and long for one to share its delights, but that they might
be perfect in the theatre, when we share them friend with friend, lover
with beloved, will persuade a few idealists to seek out the lost art of
speaking, and seek out ourselves the lost art, that is perhaps nearest of
all arts to eternity, the subtle art of listening. When that day comes we
will talk much of Mr. Bridges; for did he not write scrupulous, passionate
poetry to be sung and to be spoken, when there were few to sing and as yet
none to speak? There is one play especially, _The Return of Ulysses_,
which we will praise for perfect after its kind, the kind of our new drama
of wisdom, for it moulds into dramatic shape, and with as much as possible
of literal translation, those closing books of the Odyssey which are
perhaps the most perfect poetry of the world, and compels that great tide
of song to flow through delicate dramatic verse, with little abatement of
its own leaping and clamorous speed. As I read, the gathering passion
overwhelms me, as it did when Homer himself was the singer, and when I
read at last the lines in which the maid describes to Penelope the battle
with the suitors, at which she looks through the open door, I tremble
with excitement.
'_Penelope_: Alas! what cries! Say, is the prince still safe?
_The Maid_: He shieldeth himself well, and striketh surely;
His foes fall down before him. Ah! now what can I see?
Who cometh? Lo! a dazzling helm, a spear
Of silver or electron; sharp and swift
The piercings. How they fall! Ha! shields are raised
In vain. I am blinded, or the beggar-man
Hath waxed in strength. He is changed, he is young. O strange!
He is all in golden armour. These are gods
That slay the suitors. (_Runs to Penelope._) O lady, forgive me.
Tis Ares' self. I saw his crispèd beard;
I saw beneath his helm his curlèd locks.'
The coming of Athene helmed 'in silver or electron' and her transformation
of Ulysses are not, as the way is with the only modern dramas that popular
criticism holds to be dramatic, the climax of an excitement of the nerves,
but of that unearthly excitement which has wisdom for fruit, and is of
like kind with the ecstasy of the seers, an altar flame, unshaken by the
winds of the world, and burning every moment with whiter and purer
brilliance.
Mr. Bridges has written it in what is practically the classical manner, as
he has done in _Achilles in Scyros_--a placid and charming setting for
many placid and charming lyrics--
'And ever we keep a feast of delight
The betrothal of hearts, when spirits unite,
Creating an offspring of joy, a treasure
Unknown to the bad, for whom
The gods foredoom
The glitter of pleasure
And a dark tomb.'
The poet who writes best in the Shakespearian manner is a poet with a
circumstantial and instinctive mind, who delights to speak with strange
voices and to see his mind in the mirror of Nature; while Mr. Bridges,
like most of us to-day, has a lyrical and meditative mind, and delights to
speak with his own voice and to see Nature in the mirror of his mind. In
reading his plays in a Shakespearian manner, I find that he is constantly
arranging his story in such and such a way because he has read that the
persons he is writing of did such and such things, and not because his
soul has passed into the soul of their world and understood its
unchangeable destinies. His _Return of Ulysses_ is admirable in beauty,
because its classical gravity of speech, which does not, like
Shakespeare's verse, desire the vivacity of common life, purifies and
subdues all passion into lyrical and meditative ecstasies, and because the
unity of place and time in the late acts compels a logical rather than
instinctive procession of incidents; and if the Shakespearian _Nero:
Second Part_ approaches it in beauty and in dramatic power, it is because
it eddies about Nero and Seneca, who had both, to a great extent, lyrical
and meditative minds. Had Mr. Bridges been a true Shakespearian, the pomp
and glory of the world would have drowned that subtle voice that speaks
amid our heterogeneous lives of a life lived in obedience to a lonely and
distinguished ideal.