MR. STEPHEN PHILLIPS AS A WRITER OF TRAGEDY 139 



Most striking instance of all, in an early part of Faust, where Valen- 

 tine is parting from Margaret, he inserts the avowal: 



Beneath War's thunder skies where'er I go 

 I'll think of thee the whitest flower of all. 



This is followed by a toast drunk with his student friends: ''Well 

 then, here's to my sister Margaret; and he who has the worth to 

 win her shall then toast the purest maid in our city." And examples 

 could be multiplied without end. It must be admitted that this 

 tossing about of the ball of the future is always employed skilfully, 

 even artistically; but its constant recurrence in six consecutive 

 plays is not without disturbing significance. 



Still more minute points give rise to thought, as the repeated 

 sympathy of atmospheric conditions with the psychological situation, 

 or the fact that Marpessa, Francesca, and Miriam are obviously 

 created by the same hand. Again, Giovanni speaks of a second 

 wedding when Paolo and Francesca are united in death, and Lisle 

 speaks of a second wedding when he and Miriam are reunited after 

 their punishment. One may concede unhesitatingly the non-essen- 

 tiality of most of these points and still feel that they are discomfort- 

 ing. Inexhaustibility is a large part of the difference between talent 

 and genius, and inexhaustibility is exactly what these detailed con- 

 siderations do not suggest. That they afford ground for anything 

 more substantial than a foreboding, few would care to maintain; 

 but from the foreboding I, for one, cannot escape. Furthermore, 

 it is disquieting to recall that his earliest play is decidedly his best, 

 even if there are signs of improvement in particular phases. Nor 

 can the failure to essay a new Faust, instead of acquiescing in an 

 adaptation, increase the hopefulness of his admirers. That Mr. 

 Phillips has never gone into novel fields for his subjects need not 

 concern us. An author may produce immortal works without seek- 

 ing the glaringly new or startlingly strange, as Greek tragedy alone 

 would prove; but in each new treatment of an old theme we have a 

 right to expect some profound criticism of life, some lifting of a tiny 

 corner of the great veil. Howbeit, my fears are at bitter war with 



