712 THE DRAMA 



their ken from half of human life, yet his vision is the more keen 

 and strenuous for the half that lies before them. If he is a sour 

 and shabby courtier to beauty, he is never a traitor to truth. He 

 will never be surpassed in his angry scorn for lies. He has great 

 fascination, but little charm. Joyous youth will never hobnob with 

 him. For happy lovers he grows no sweet forget-me-nots. The poor 

 in spirit he crushes. They who have rooted themselves at ease in 

 the rank stubble of modern commercialism shudder at him, as a weed 

 at the plowshare, as a cancer at the knife. For two-thirds of human 

 kind, he has only a command of self-contempt and a sentence of 

 despair and destruction. But the strong he fortifies ; the steadfast he 

 establishes; he is a scourge to slaves, but for them that are free he 

 enlarges the bounds of freedom. They honor him who honor the 

 truth, and they welcome him who welcome the growl of the thunder 

 and the dart of the lightning rather than stagnancy and miasma and 

 the fitful shimmer that dances around corruption. 



A test of Ibsen's quality is supplied by the characters of the men 

 who have most hated and vilified him. Some tribute may, perhaps, 

 be offered, belated, but I hope, not too late, by those whom his tense 

 and shattering genius has at length conquered and brought to own 

 with great regret that they have in part misjudged, in part under- 

 estimated him. He will long stand forth, a frowning landmark in 

 the domain of the Drama. Weak creatures may now be counseled 

 to shun him, and to cease from cursing and shrieking at him. He 

 remains. 



But at present Ibsen, by his circumstances, by his character, by 

 the nature of his genius, by the language he wrote in, abides a solitary 

 figure, and, though he has alarmed and shifted the whole Modern 

 Drama, he stands mainly apart from it. And that we may get an 

 answer to my prime question : " How can we foster and develop a 

 worthy art of the Drama in America and England to-day ? " I 

 must take you back to a comparison of the history of the Drama in 

 England and France during the last 250 years. 



Let us look at England first. Immediately after Moliere we have 

 Dryden and the brilliant and corrupt Restoration Comedy, largely 

 drawing its inspiration from France and Moliere. But our leading 

 Restoration Dramatists had not the immense advantage of Moliere's 

 practical acquaintance with the theatre, and their plays, compared 

 with Moliere's, are badly and loosely constructed. Further, there is 

 a profound, instinctive, all-pervasive morality in Moliere. Moliere's 

 morality is sure, intrinsic, inevitable; like Dante's, like Ibsen's, like 

 nature's morality. Our English Restoration Comedy is arid, heart- 

 less, degrading; essentially mischievous, corrupt, and depraved. Our 

 love for Charles Lamb must not tempt us for a moment to accept 

 his ingenious and audacious excuse for Restoration Comedy. We 



