THE IDEA OF TEAGEDY 699 



efforts is recognized as the one great thing in the universe; but when 

 the times have grown older, when there has appeared a certain lassi- 

 tude in art and in national existence, such a doctrine is too hard to 

 be borne. It is so much easier for those who are already fatigued 

 and wearied with much experience and much knowledge of the falla- 

 ciousness and failure of human effort to say that destiny comes from 

 the outside, and is an irresistible force overbearing human wills. 



In Maeterlinck, for instance, you find the conclusion that man 

 is the plaything, the sport of Destiny. At all events this is true of 

 Maeterlinck's earlier dramas, where the human figure is so faintly 

 drawn that the notion of spontaneity or freedom is absurd and im- 

 possible. " Pelleas and Melisande," were both the victims of fate, 

 which they could not control; so, too, were Aglavaine and Selysette; 

 so, too, was the unlucky Princess Maleine. If you reduce human 

 vitality to a thin, almost incorporeal vapor, if, instead of human be- 

 ings that have length, breadth and thickness, you have frescoes on a 

 wall, it is absurd to ask if things like these can alter their fates, or 

 recognize that the supreme fate lies in their character. They will be 

 driven hither and thither as leaves in a wind, puppets dangled on 

 wires over which they have no control, dolls which the dramatist takes 

 out, dresses up, and when they have finished their task, puts into 

 the box again. What Maeterlinck will do hereafter is another matter. 

 He has written a fine book on Destiny and Character, and for aught 

 we know may be devising in his mind quite other characters and 

 dramas from those with which we are at present conversant. 1 



It is more than commonly difficult to arrive at any just estimate 

 of the position of Ibsen as a dramatist. It would not be true to say 

 of him, as I venture to say about Maeterlinck, that he depresses the 

 sense of human vitality. His thought, if not always quite clear, 

 is always vigorous; he has a singular grasp of many of the insistent 

 problems that vex the modern world, and for reasons that are con- 

 nected with his unique personality, he wields a curious power of 

 fascination in many ways disturbing to the judgment. There is 

 much of the sorcerer in him, so that however much one may dislike 

 his themes, he holds us, like the Ancient Mariner, with his glittering 

 eye, compelling us to read what he has to say to the last page. 

 Moreover, he is so unconventional that he gives a vivid impression of 

 originality, not always, I think, quite deserved. Many of his social 

 themes, for instance, appear in French dramatists, who raise, though 

 in a different form, the precise questions which Ibsen raises. But 

 no one could deny him the name of a dramatist. He is a master of 



theatrical technique, in the presentment of his themes, and in the 



* 



i In what 1 have said I am only dealing with the dramatic qualities of 

 Maeterlinck. The poetic qualities, the haunting and suggestive beauty of his 

 scenes and some of his lines, are quite another matter. 



