Il8 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 



How, then, does the Paola and Francesca emerge from the experi- 

 ment? The real answer can come only from the individual reader; 

 but I cannot escape the conviction that if he will read as I did, doing 

 his best to put aside all preconceptions and yielding himself natur- 

 ally to the pages in his hands and the general impression thereby 

 produced, he will close the two plays with the feeling that if there 

 is not equality of concrete achievement there is at least real kinship 

 of spirit. Nay, I even fancy that not a few readers will feel the 

 tugging at the heartstrings just a little stronger at the last words of 

 Giovanni than at the closing speech of the Prince. If there "never 

 was a story of more woe than this of Juliet and her Romeo," yet by 

 its side may stand the story of Paolo and Francesca, who wooed and 

 loved unwillingly, whom we leave looking like children fast asleep. 

 Naturally, there arises the objection that the experiment would be 

 proposed and the conclusion reached only by a cloistered bookman. 

 In this objection, however, I could not quite acquiesce; for I must 

 beheve that a comparison in the theater would lead to no materially 

 different decision. Mr. Irving's production of the modern play I 

 have never heard; but no unprejudiced auditor will ever forget or 

 deny his emotions when Mr. George Alexander, approaching the litter 

 with its bitter lading of youth and beauty, in whose company we have 

 lived a fated hour, says very gently: 



Not easily have we three come to this — 

 We three who now are dead. Unwillingly 

 They loved, unwillingly I slew them. Now 

 I kiss them on the forehead quietly. 



In my own experience I noted the same deep and general hush that 

 I had felt shed itself over a Greek audience some six years before, 

 at the not dissimilar close of the Antigone, which was presented by 

 the students of the University of Athens. Of course the surface is 

 only the surface; but the heart is the heart, and this tugging at its 

 strings has something to do with judging a tragedy. The farther I 

 followed the thoughts suggested by the comparison, the more I was 

 strengthened in the belief that Mr. Phillips was worth knowing. 

 Shortly afterward the Faust was placed in my hands, and I have 



