DUNSANY THE DRAMATIST EDWARC HALE BIERSTADT THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE tOi'V-V L v^^v ^tyti^- i^^''" • DUNSANY THE DRAMATIST I Courtesy oJ Mitchell Kennerlcy LOKD DUNSANY IN HIS SERVICE UNIFORM PUNSANY THE DRAMATIST BY EDWARD HALE BIERSTADT REVISED EDITION WITH ILLUSTRATIONS NON-RtLFEFCn ^vsLVAD-a3s; BOSTON LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 1918 / 9 , . Copyright, 1917, By Little, Brown, and Compant. All rights reserved Wotfaooti ^ttss Set up and electrotyped by J. S. Gushing Co., Norwood, Mass., n.S.A. Presswork by S. J. Parkbill & Co., Boston, Mass., U.S.A. TO LOUISE THIS BOOK IS dedicated; for it was her hand that FIRST UNLOCKED FOR ME THE GOLDEN GATES OP THE UNDREAMED CITY OF WONDER, AND IT WAS SHE WHO FIRST LED ME THROUGH THE WONDROUS STREETS TO THE LORD OF THAT CITY — DUNSANY. A PREFACE To THE Revised Edition At the time this study of Lord Dunsany's work was being written, communication with Great Britain through the ordinary channels was so slow, and often so uncertain, as to be almost prohibitive for my purposes. Added to this. Lord Dunsany was with his regiment, and those to whom I should otherwise have written were so scattered that it was hardly feasible to get in touch with them. In this eventuality I fell back on the notes I had been making for several years on Dunsany's work, and I was fortunate also in finding several members of the original Abbey Theater Com- pany who were in America, as well as others who knew Dunsany professionally and per- sonally. From these sources, and from some which need not be mentioned here, I drew the scanty material for the sketch of The Vll PREFACE TO REVISED EDITION Man, knowing that it must be painfully in- complete, but hoping that it might be sufficiently accurate to convey some idea of the personality behind the plays and tales. To assist in doing this I included such of Lord Dunsany's letters as seemed to me most pertinent, and in this edition I have added to these two recent letters which also beat' on the plays, to which in time I hope to add others. The book having been pubhshed, I asked Lord Dunsany to take a copy and make notes at his leisure of any errors of fact that he might find, and to comment upon any points, as seemed ad\'isable to him. A few days ago the book came back to me with Lord Dun- sany's marginal notes, thus enabling me to make full corrections. In the Appendix I have changed the text to correspond with the notes, but in the body of the book I have thought it would be more interesting, for the present at least, and not less valuable if I let the text stand, and simply included the corrections in the Preface, in Lord Dunsany's o\yn language. In this way all the notes have gone in, in one manner or another, so that hereafter if I con- fess to error it must be that of theory rather viii PREFACE TO REVISED EDITION than of fact — and in theory we are all fallible twice over. With apologies for this apologia, which under the circumstances seemed ad- visable, I will turn to the notes themselves. On page ten Lord Dunsany says : It was at my Mother's place, Dunstall Priory, Shoreham, Kent, that I spent my earliest youth. It is, I think, a more beautiful place than my place in Meath, and the window of my nursery faced the sun- set. I mention this because I think that of those hills and sunsets much of the poet in me is compounded. As for newspapers, I think it was just that they were considered more suitable for "grown-ups" than for small boys. Then for a long time I never took to reading them when I was grown up. But I thank Heaven I didn't, and so escaped their style. It was at Cheam School that I got most of the Bible, and got to know it pretty well. There also I was taught Greek before I went to Eton. Then as to the facsimile of the letter which faces page twelve: I think that this letter must have been done with a pen that I had made myself, as I often do, out of the feather of some large bird I have shot; and it looks as if it was not one of my successes. But there is pleasure in making anj^thing, and even a certain romance in writing with a pen that has sailed on who knows what mysterious journeys anywhere between the Equator and the Arctic. PREFACE TO REVISED EDITION I said that Lord Dunsany was ^' quite six feet two", and to this he repHes: No, six feet four ever since I left Eton. I used to be slender, but I wouldn't call myself so now. Before this, however, in reference to his working at night, he says : I have very seldom written at night. Even if I get in late from hunting, and that in the winter is about six. I wrote a good deal of "The Gods of the Mountain " latish one night in London, but that was an exception. My time for writing has nearly always been between tea and dinner, that is, beginning at four, and sometimes going on as long as eight. I always found tea a stimulant for ideas, and wrote after tea for that reason, but I never shifted the hour for tea earlier than four, thinking stimulants to be bad out of due season, even though only tea. The remark that he was rather poor for a peer (I repel any accusation of deliberate alliteration in the phrasing, but the thought is a bit naive I confess) on page thirteen, Lord Dunsany cannot subscribe to. He says : Not yet. But no doubt I shall be when we begin paying for breakages caused by "The " Kaiser while at large. On page fifteen the statement that Dunsany went with his regiment to Gallipoli was cor- X PREFACE TO REVISED EDITION rected in the Second Edition which he did not have at the time he wrote. I was not at Gallipoli, unluckily, or perhaps luckily. I spoke of "the Dublin riots", and Lord Dunsany makes the whimsical comment : I wouldn't have said that either side was rioting. However — A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. Shakespeare. Of the lines quoted from his Introduction to Francis Ledwidge's book of verse, on page sixteen, Dunsany says : I am glad to remember that the lines you have quoted have pleased Stephen Phillips a true poet, now dead. And as I write this the news has come that Francis Ledwidge has been killed in battle. He was twenty-six years old. On page one hundred and twenty-five I made the comment: ''There is always one scene in 'King Argimenes and the Unknown Warrior' for which we look from the very outset, and which never comes. . . . This is the meeting of the two kings, Argimenes and Darniak." Lord Dunsany 's statement in refer- ence to this is most interesting. zi PREFACE TO REVISED EDITION I had this situation originally. Darniak comes on and finds Argimenes there. He cries out, "Another holds my throne. Illuriel has turned against me! " But when staged (after a fashion) at the Abbey Theater the ensuing fight looked so like a badly run football match that I altered it. I hope that it will not seem out of place to add to my criticism here, and to say that this scene, which I characterized as a scene a faAre, demands that the two kings hold the stage alone. It is a contest and contrast between them personally, and the very strength of the scene lies in this. The addition of the oppos- ing armies, whether they are there all the time or whether they enter at the end, must to a very great extent nullify the value of the scene itself. In the programme of the English production, and in that of the first American production of "The Gods of the Mountain", Lord Dunsany called the seven gods ''The Others" so as not to give away the secret to the audience. In the Portmanteau Theater production, all refer- ence to the gods seems to have been omitted. It is an unimportant point, but as Dunsany mentions it, it is included. From the stand- xii PREFACE TO REVISED EDITION point of acting, the gods have small parts, and the players would doubtless not feel their omission from the printed cast; on the other hand the phrase ''The Others" seems calcu- lated to arouse interest and anticipation by its very mystery. Lord Dunsany mentions that he was present at the original production of "The Tents of the Arabs" in Paris, and he includes the in- teresting information that both ''The Tents of the Arabs" and "The Golden Doom" were refused by Yeats for the Abbey Theater. And that after having produced "The Glittering Gate" and "King Argimenes and the Unknown Warrior " ! Finally Dunsany gives a list of his plays in the order in which he values them. 1. Alexander 2. The Laughter of the Gods 3. The Gods of the Mountain 4. The King of the Golden Isles 5. The Old King's Tale 6. The Queen's Enemies 7. The Golden Doom 8. A Night at an Inn XIU PREFACE TO REVISED EDITION 9.^ Cheeze (or more likely Cheezo) 10. The Ginger Cat. 11. Fame and the Poet. 12. Argimenes. 13. The Tents of the Arabs. 14. The Lost Silk Hat. 15. The Glittering Gate. 16. The Murderers. It is a strong temptation to hesitate here long enough to comment on this list, and it is probable that some of us might be disposed to take issue with the author's valuation of his work. Only Time can give the true answer, and Time is very busy these days in making history, which seems a rather futile pursuit after all. But it may be questioned whether ''The Laughter of the Gods" is as fine as "The Gods of the Mountain"; and whether "The Queen's Enemies" is a better play than "A Night at an Inn"; and even whether "Argi- menes" is to be rated over "The Tents of the Arabs." Such a list will always provoke much ' I cannot decipher Lord Dunsany's writing here. It looks as though he had changed an "e" into an "o", but I cannot be sure. I cannot omit the name by reason of the list, but it will be cor- rected as soon as possible. xiv PREFACE TO REVISED EDITION argument, and we all cannot hope to agree either with the author or with each other. Such a valuation usually has no importance in itself, but only through the person who gives it, but in this instance it is of real sig- nificance both in itself, and in the deductions to which it gives rise. We have entered upon another year of war, and we are about to enter upon a new theatrical season. With both of these Lord Dunsany will be intimately connected, although in terribly different capacities. The incongruity between the two shocks one at first, when they are placed in juxtaposition, but art is part of that civilization for which Dunsany is fighting, and for which Ledwidge, Rupert Brooke, and others have already given their lives. One could wish that art in the truly fine sense might find more room in the theater than it has heretofore, that it might in some degree be more worthy of the sacrifice accorded it. It is pleasant to feel that, come what may, the American theater and the American public have given to Dun- sany's work credit according to his value, and that they will continue to do so ; and it is even an inspiration to know that in Lord Dunsany's XY PREFACE TO REVISED EDITION work that portion of civilization which we know as art has received some justification. Men fight less for land than for the dreams they have builded upon it; in defending their homes they contend far less for their worldly goods than for those unworldly goods by which their houses are occupied; a hero finds his in- spiration not in his belly, but in his soul, and he whose dream is highest will fight the hardest, for he has something on his side that is not of this earth only. Lord Dunsany has said that those who are taking part in this war will carry the memory always with them, for they have seen the real, the imperishable things of life. These things are reflected in Dunsany's plays, and it is that which makes them worthy. E. H. BIERSTADT. October 1, 1917. XVli ACKNOWLEDGMENTS It is with pleasure that I acknowledge here my indebtedness to Stuart Walker for valu- able material used in this book, and for photo- graphs of those of the Dunsany plays which were produced in the Portmanteau Theater. Miss Alice Lewisohn has also placed me under obligations by permitting me to use her picture of Lord Dunsany, as well as by aiding me with certain material. The Neigh- borhood Playhouse has provided me with pic- tures, as has Mitchell Kennerley, and to them too I am indebted. It is through the courtesy of Sam Hume, Director of the Arts and Crafts Theater of Detroit, that I am able to use the picture showing ''The Tents of the Arabs" in pro- duction. The set for this play was designed by Mr. Hume and is especially beautiful. xvii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS To Padraic Colum, and to J. M. Kerrigan, I am obliged for information about the Dun- sany plays, and for material concerning Lord Dunsany himself — which I trust they will not regret having given ! And to my friend Barrett H. Clark I express my gratitude for his never-failing patience, and kindly — though somewhat caustic — criticism ! This is a long list of acknowledgments for so small a book, and rightly the list should be even longer. I have no excuse to offer, but in explanation I suggest that a certain num- ber of ''accompUces before the fact" are sometimes highly to be desired. E. H. B. XVlll CONTENTS PAQB I The Man 1 II His Work 23 III His Philosophy 108 IV Letters 133 Appendices 179 XIX LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE Lord Dunsany in his Service Uniform Frontispiece Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Lord Dunsany A Page of a Letter from Lord Dunsany, who writes with a Quill .... Lord Dunsany, Captain, 5th Royal Innis killing Fusiliers . ; . . The gate opens — and there is nothing there The Glittering Gate .... The slaves see Argimenes kill the guard King Argimenes and the Unknown Warrior Agmar threatens the citizens with a doom The Gods of the Mountain The Chief Prophet interprets the writing on the door. The Golden Doom . 12 16 26 30 46 58 XXI LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE The TofF deceives the Priest into thinking he is dead. A Night at an Inn ... 73 The Queen welcomes her guests. The Queen's Enemies 80 The Queen reassures her guests. The Queen's Enemies 84 Bel-Narb and Aoob before the gates of the city. The Tents of the Arabs ... 92 Agmar tells the one who doubts to go. The Gods of the Mountain .... 138 Agmar tells Slag to have a prophecy made. The Gods of the Mountain . . . 144 A Page of a Letter from Lord Dunsany . 162 Argimenes at last mounts the throne of Dar- niak. King Argimenes and the Unknown Warrior 166 xxii DUNSANY THE DRAMATIST DUNSANY THE DRAMATIST The Man For about the last quarter century, or from the time when Ibsen began to come into his own, the history of hterature is at one with the history of the drama. The great Uterary artists of this period have nearly all chosen the dra- matic medium, and, though they have not con- fined themselves to it exclusively by any means, the more notable of their works have found expression in this form. The nineteenth cen- tury was undeniably that of the novel; the twentieth seems to be quite as unmistakably that of the play. In those countries where the drama assumed proportions of a national movement the develop- ment was for the most part gradual, its scope widening as its intensity increased. There are definite reasons why the dramatic art should 1 DUNSANY THE DRAMATIST tend toward "national" expression in a greater degree than any other of the arts. The most fundamental reason may well be that the drama is part and parcel of the art of the theater, and that the theater is the great co-operative art. Co-operation, in theory at any rate, is our inheritance from the last century; there is hardly a phase of life where its influence has not become evident in a greater or less degree, but in the arts there seems to be but one logical outlet for the trend. That outlet is the theater, and the spirit of co-operation has perhaps been one of the greatest factors in instilling a new and increased vitality into the theatric and dramatic arts. It is strange, and yet not so strange, that one of the least co-operative countries on earth should have felt this influence so keenly. This country is Ireland, and it is perhaps be- cause of the hyper-sensitiveness of the Irish people that they reacted so sharply to an ele- ment which was in reality foreign to them. And it is again perhaps because that element was alien that Ireland having reached a pinnacle of greatness permitted the movement to decline until now it seems to have little besides a past. The inherent inability of the Irish to co-operate 2 THE MAN successfully over an extended period of time was, however, but one of the factors that brought about the change. The great war, and that rising among the intellectuals in Ireland that soon followed it, were fatally destructive ele- ments, if only in the dreadful loss of life which they entailed. But Ireland has contributed her share, and more than her share, to the great dramatic movement that has swept the nations. It was about 1899 that W. B. Yeats and Edward Martyn inaugurated the Irish Literary Theater in Dublin. At this time Lord Dunsany was in the Transvaal with his regiment, for the Boer war had just started. That is doubt- less one reason why we do not hear of him until the Irish literary movement had been under way for some years ; indeed it was in 1909, ten years afterwards, that ''The Glittering Gate", Dunsany's first play, was produced at the Abbey Theater. There is no necessity to recapitulate here the history of the Irish Literary Theater or the Abbey Theater Company as it finally became. That history has already been written. Great names are connected with it — Yeats, Moore, Martyn, Hyde, ''A. E.", Robinson, Ervine, Shaw, Colum, Lady Gregory, Synge, 3 DUNSANY THE DRAMATIST and Dunsany have all had their share, as well as many others, in developing a national dramatic literature which has spread its influence over the entire English speaking race. The drama so generated and developed was a direct reaction against the drama fathered by Ibsen, and yet to a certain extent there is a superficial resem- blance between the two. The form is the same certainly, and so also is the terminology. That is, we have people who are true to life speaking lines which are equally true. But the philos- ophy, the point of view which was brought to bear on the work was essentially dissimilar. This has been summed up well and succinctly by Edwin Bjorkman : "Observation and imagination are the basic principles of all poetry. It is impossible to conceive a poetical work from which one of them is wholly absent. Observation without imagination makes for obviousness; imagina- tion without observation turns into nonsense. What marks the world's greatest poetry is perhaps the presence in almost equal propor- tions of both of these principles. But as a rule we find one of them predominating, and from this one-sided emphasis the poetry of the 4 THE MAN period derives its character as realistic or idealistic. "The poetry of the middle of the nineteenth century made a fetish of observation. It came as near to excluding imagination as it could without ceasing entirely to be poetry. That such exaggeration should sooner or later result in a sharp reaction was natural." ^ Once grant Mr. Bjorkman's premise (it is certainly a fair one), and it is clear that it is to the British Isles we must look for that new voice among the singers of the world, for since the Renaissance, Britain has always produced the greatest poets, just as France has given us the greatest painters, and Germany the finest musicians. Out of Ireland it came, and that land, waking out of its long winter's sleep, blossomed and flowered in overpowering abun- dance. The hand that waked the sleeper was that of Yeats. It was he who discovered Synge — the greatest genius of them all — and it was he who found Dunsany. It will be well perhaps to pause and tell a little something of Dunsany himself before we turn to his work. Vital »"Five Plays," By Lord Dunsany. Introduction by Edwin Bjorkman. 5 DUNSANY THE DRAMATIST statistics are not always interesting, but they are often necessary, and so let us try if we can come so close to the man as to understand and appreciate his plays and his point of view a little better. Lord Dunsany's family name is Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, or it might be more cor- rect to say that those are his Christian and his family names. He is the eighteenth Baron of his line, and his name and ancestry are said to be the third oldest in Irish history. In 1899 he succeeded to the title, and to the family estates in Meath. These estates comprise many acres of the most historic land in Ireland, and within sight of Dunsany Castle rises the great Hill of Tara, famous in song and story. Born in 1878, Lord Dunsany was educated at Eton and Sandhurst, and then entered the army. He saw active service with the Coldstream Guards during the South African war,) and there is a faint memory of the hardships undergone at this period in "King Argimenes and the Un-^ known Warrior", when the slaves cry for the ^ bones of the King's great dog to eat. There was a time in South Africa when there were not even ' bones. It is interesting too to observe that 6 I) Courtesy of Mitchell Kennerley Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Lord Dunsany THE MAN Lord Dunsany's uncle is Sir Horace Plunkett, who laboured so long and earnestly to introduce the idea of co-operation in agriculture among the peasants in Ireland. It was Sir Horace who took *'A. E." from a clerk's office, upon Yeats' recommendation be it noted, to send him as ambassador among the rural classes in Ireland, and this was the beginning of ''A. E.'s" career. Somehow one always comes back to Yeats. But now I must return to Dunsany. (His family, by the way, are said to be of Danish origin, and to have settled in Ireland sometime before the Norman conquest. Per- haps that is one reason why his gods are not the gods of Ireland; one reason why there is a strain of northern mysticism, weird, indefinable, and implacable withal running through his work. It must have been about 1902 or 1903 when we first find mention of Dunsany in connection with the literary movement in Ireland. George Moore remarks in speaking of A. E., '*He was offered some hundreds of pounds by Lord Dunsany to found a review, but he had not time to edit it, and proposed John Eglinton. 'Contrairy John' wanted to see life steadily, DUNSANY THE DRAMATIST and to see it whole; and Yeats came along with a sneer, and said : ' I hear, Lord Dunsany, that you are going to supply groundsel for A. E/s canaries.' The sneer brought the project to naught. ..." And so the review was not founded. Nevertheless this must have been Dunsany's initial entrance as a patron of art. His first published book was issued in 1905, but his first play did not appear until 1909, when ''The Glittering Gate" was put on at the Abbey Theater, Dublin. "King Argimenes and the Unknown Warrior" fol- lowed in February of 1911 at the Abbey, and the next June "The Gods of the Mountain" went on at the Haymarket Theater, London. Then came "The Golden Doom" at the Hay- market in November of 1912, after which it was played successfully through a number of Rus- sian cities. The productions of both "The Gods of the Mountain" and "The Golden Doom" were entirely successful,") the first so much so that William A. Brady, the American producer, brought the production intact from the Haymarket, except as to cast, and put it on in Buffalo, New York. It failed promptly for reasons which will be taken up when we 8 THE MAN come to consider the individual plays. This was in the summer of 1912. .The next produc- ^ tion was that of "The Lost Silk Hat" by B. Iden Payne at Manchester in August of 1913, during the repertory season there. In 1914 Mr. Philip Carr gave ''The Tents of the Arabs" its first production in Paris, and in the same year "The Glittering Gate" was put on at the Neigh- borhood Playhouse, New York, to be followed by "A Night at an Inn" and "The Queen's Enemies" in 1916, all at the same theater .^ These last two plays have not as yet had an English production. Thus the season of 1916 was a splendid one for Dunsany in America, for at the same time that "The Queen's Enemies" was put on at the Neighborhood Playhouse, "The Gods of the Mountain", "KingArgimenes and the Unknown Warrior", and "The Golden Doom" were staged by Stuart Walker in his Portmanteau Theater,) which may be said to be of New York, Tientsin, and Thalanna, for it is a traveling theater. The productions of the Dunsany plays were most beautifully done, however, and all New York was Dun- 1 A more detailed history of these productions will be found in the Appendix. 9 DUNSANY THE DRAMATIST sany mad on the instant. That is roughly the history of Dunsany's dramatic career. It covers only eight years, but surely those eight years have come to a most wonderful fruition. Lord Dunsany's style is at once the wonder and admiration of his contemporaries; wonder at its sheer, Hmpid beauty, its melodic charm — sometimes his lines are perfect hexameters, reminiscent of Homer in their colour and beat — and admiration of the artistry with which he uses the material that has been given him. This style seems to have been due in some part to a process of rather involuntary elim- ination. During his youth at Dunsany Castle he was never allowed to see or to read a news- paper lest he become contaminated by the filth circulated in the daily press. His books were watched over as carefully, and for many years no style seemed to him natural but that of the Bible. "I feared that I would never become a writer when I saw that other people did not use it," said he in speaking of this period. With the Bible he was per- mitted Grimm's and Hans Andersen's fairy tales, and soon afterwards he was able to 10 THE MAN recognize his like in the splendour of the literature of the Golden Age of Greece. This has remained, I believe, his strongest influence, affecting both his manner of expression and his point of view. The lovely imagery of the Greeks, and the pure melody of their lines, are reflected in his style, and in his philosophy may be found man in his relationship to the gods or to the cosmos even as it was in the "olden, golden evenings" of Euripides. To be the best pistol shot in Ireland is no small boast, but it is one that Lord Dunsany can make if he so wishes. He is a keen cricketer too, and has been captain of his County Club •tf 4tH Often he is off for all day in the saddle, for he is a good horseman, and on these days his writing is done in the wee, small hours. Altogether Dunsany leads the life of the normal, healthy Anglo-Saxon, loving the out of doors, and rejoicing greatly in it all from the warmth of the sun to the glistening dew, and the cool splendour of the moonlight. There is not a morbid bone in his body and that is why, when I hear him compared rapturously with Strind- berg, I am forced to smile. He is happy in his friends, and in his wife and little boy, and 11 DUNSANY THE DRAMATIST only desires to be allowed to remain so. Lady Dunsany is the daughter of Lord Jersey. She is intellectual, and she is attractive, perhaps charming would be a better word though it is somewhat overused, and for the purposes of the present sketch it will be enough to say that she is an ideal wife for such a husband. Pic- ture to yourself Lord Dunsany and his guest Bernard Shaw sailing paper boats in the pond at Dunsany Castle, and see whether you too cannot get the eternal spirit of childhood which makes such a scene not only possible but keenly pleasurable to the participants. \ Did you never sail paper boats, and would you not like to do it again? c» CAs I said, much of Dunsany 's work is done at night, and, it is an infinitely small point but an amusing one, it is all done with quill pens, a large supply of which he keeps before him. I remember when I first saw a letter from him I wondered whether he used a brush as the Japanese do. It seemed to me that nothing else would make such great lines. His work is not methodical; he does it when the fit is on him, and there is no reason why he should not, for he is not only independent of the public 12 A Page of a Letter from Lord Dunsany, Who Writes WITH A Quill THE MAN economically, but mentally and spiritually as well. Yet he is eager for praise, as who is not who has respect for his work ? He is in- tensely desirous of being accepted by the public, of having others love his gods as he does. And yet appreciation has come to him slowly. His first book was published at his own expense, and even the illustrator was paid by him. I saw a first edition of this book the other day listed at fifteen times the original retail price. Publishers seemed to think that a "Lord" had not to think of money, yet Lord Dunsany is not rich as such things go nowadays. For a poet he is without doubt fabulously wealthy, but for a peer he is rather poor. One of his chief characteristics is his intense eagerness. This quality is apparent in his attitude toward everything; his work, his play, his desire for appreciation, and his whole outlook upon life as a whole and in particular. Eager is a very good word to use in that connection, for it conveys in some wise that naivete of which it is an essential part. It is said, even by his friends, that Lord Dunsany is the worst dressed man in Ireland. "He looks," remarked one of these friends, 13 DUNSANY THE DRAMATIST "as if he'd stood there naked, and had his clothes hurled at him, leaving them wherever they happened to land.'' 'I may be wrong, but I believe this statement is slightly exaggerated. However — ! In appearance Lord Dunsany is tall, quite six feet two, and rather slender, with fair hair, and kindly eyes from which the won- der has not yet vanished, and with the most exquisitely sensitive mouth in the world. } Was it not Thoreau, by the way, who said: ''Who am I to complain who have not yet ceased to wonder?" Lord Dunsany is like that. ( His attitude toward his title of Peer as well as his title of Poet is immensely characteristic of the man. Though he is the eighteenth Baron of his line his dignity has lost none of its freshness for him in tradition; rather it has gained. Strangers meeting him for the first time sometimes go away feeling that he is too haughty for them, but they do not under- stand. He is haughty, and he is proud when the occasion warrants it, but it is never the hauteur or the false pride of a snob. It is simply his absolute sense of the fitness of things. It is as if he said — what is the use of having a title or of being a poet if you don't get all the 14 THE MAN fun out of it that you can? The attitude of a small boy toward his first pair of long trousers, or of a girl toward her first lover is entirely similar. But perhaps the best comparison is to say that Lord Dunsany and Don Quixote are very nearly one and the same. To know that he is a Baron with centuries of tradition behind him, to realize that his great estates are a his- toric landmark in Ireland, and then above all to be a Poet into the bargain — what more could the heart of small boy or Dunsany him- self wish for ? And how he must enjoy it all ! Lord Dunsany is an Imperialist of the Im- perialists largely, I think, because it satisfies his sense of romance. Once on a time Lord Dunsany was candidate at the elections, and his joy passed the bounds of enthusiasm when he found that he was beaten. Politics do not in- terest him except as they serve to complete the picture. He sees himself as a romantic, a feudal figure, and because he does so see himself he is one. But his point of view on all this is that of the joyous child playing with glittering toys, and seeking new worlds to conquer over the sand hills. ^ G. K. Chesterton, in "Manalive^', drew Dunsany's picture for once and all. 15 DUNSANY THE DRAMATIST At the beginning of the present war Lord Dunsany was Captain in the 5th Royal Innis- kilHng Fusiliers. Until he was wounded in the Dublin riots he was stationed in Londonderry whipping men into shape for the trenches ; then, before leaving for the front in December, 1916, he was, for a time, in barracks recovering from his wound. In his company was Francis Ledwidge, the Irish poet whom Dunsany himself discov- ered. Ledwidge is of peasant stock, a poet of the soil, and the beauty of his lyrics might perchance have been lost to the world had it not been for Dunsany's kindly interest. It was Dunsany who wrote the Introduction to Ledwidge's first book of verse, and in this Introduction is a pas- sage which in its summing up of Ledwidge sums up Dunsany himself so well that I shall quote it here. Of pure poetry there are two kinds, that which mirrors the beauty of the world in which our bodies are, and that which builds the more mysterious king- doms, where geography ends and fairyland begins, with gods and heroes at war, and the sirens singing still, and Alph going down to the darkness from Xanadu. Mr. Ledwidge gives us the first kind. And Lord Dunsany gives us the second, fit was for Yeats that Lord Dunsany's first ^ 16 THE MAN play was written. Yeats wanted a play for the Abbey Theater and, though Dunsany had never written a play, Yeats asked him to try what he could do. "The Glittering Gate" was the result, one which never pleased its author, feeling as he did its vagueness and its faulty construction. The play is much less important in itself than in its indication of what might follow. It was Yeats, too, who at this time gave Dunsany the only lesson he ever had in dramatic construction ; the pupil has advanced far beyond his master now. ''Surprise," said Yeats, "is what is necessary. Surprise, and then more surprise, and that is all." However greatly Dunsany's plays have grown in other ways it can never be said at least that this early lesson was wasted, for to this day surprise is one of their chief elements of delight. But such a bit of advice from the gentle Yeats might have ruined the work of one who had less dramatic instinct than Dunsany. And does not what I have said about the man him- self show the presence of such instinct quite apart from the plays ? The three great contemporary dramatic poets of Ireland are Synge, Dunsany, and Yeats. 17 DUNSANY THE DRAMATIST Now while comparisons are said to be odious they are at the same time often enlightening, and it may not be amiss to compare in a general way these three men who stand at the top of the great literary movement of the day. Dunsany and Yeats are alike in that they both are more interested in ideas than in people. Therein lies at once their strength and their weakness. Of the three Synge was the only one who knew poverty and misfortune in plenitude ; his whole life was such as to emphasize the human element, as the lives of Dunsany and Yeats have been to make this element of less account. They have lived in a dream world. A poet considers things and people in three ways — in their relation to themselves, in their relation to each other, and in their relation to the whole. The greatest poet is he who in his work is able to see and to express things in all three ways. Synge's weakness lay in the fact that as a rule he saw people in their relation to themselves and to each other, but not in their relationship to the whole scheme of things. It is only in one play, his greatest, ''Riders to the Sea", that he achieved and made plain this triple relationship, and that play alone marks 18 THE MAN a height to which no one of his fellows has yet been able to climb. ''Riders to the Sea" is one of the great masterpieces of modern drama. George Moore rated it below "The Well of the Saints" because it was less of the soil, which is to say less local, but that which Moore pointed out as its weakness is in reality its strength ; that is what makes it akin to the Greek drama, its realization of man in his relation to the cosmos, of his impotency, and of the great cosmic implacability. ''Riders to the Sea" is, however, an isolated example of this quality in Synge's work. Yeats and Dunsany err on the other side: their outlook is almost entirely cosmic, man is removed from man, and is considered only in reference to the gods, the fairies, or whatever it is that represents the whole. A poet must have his head in the clouds, but his feet must be touch- ing on Mother Earth. The feet of both Dun- sany and Yeats are often striding through the skies where mortals cannot follow. This is much less true of Dunsany, who achieves a far better balance in his work than Yeats, but it is sufficiently true of them both to be defined as a Umitation. Synge, with both feet hard 19 DUNSANY THE DRAMATIST on the ground, thrust his head for a moment through the upper air and in that instant achieved immortality. In style, which is to say beauty and clarity of expression, there cannot be much doubt but that Dunsany stands alone. Since William Morris no such English has been written. It is in this regard that Yeats becomes obscure, and Synge occasionally colloquial. Moore in speaking of Yeats remarks that "he attempted a joke, but it got lost in the folds of his style." Unfortunately too many of his ideas have been lost in that same manner. His style is rich, but it is rarely clear; whereas with Synge, his style is clear, but it is not always rich. But with Dunsany, his style is both rich and clear beyond desire. There is nothing that he can- not say, and in the saying make more beautiful or more dramatic than can another. His great- est thoughts as well as his smallest are all expressed so simply, and yet so exquisitely that a child can understand and feel the sheer beauty. There is a music, and a magic harmony in his lines that no other living writer can imitate. From a dramatic standpoint Synge and Dunsany are very fairly matched. Yeats is 20 THE MAN so much less a dramatist than a poet that it is diflfictdt to consider him in this connection. Through the work of both Sjnge and Dunsany one finds errors of dramaturgy' side bj' side with magnificent examples of perfect structure. It is probable that "Riders to the Sea", masterpiece though it is, would have been better in two acts than in one, and it is certain that ''King Argimenes and the U::known Warrior" would hr ve been a better play in three acts than in two. On the ether hand, ''In the Shadow of the Glen" and ''A Xight at an Inn" are well- nigh perfect one act plays so far as construction is concerned. They might well stand by them- selves as a criterion of excellence. For some time past it would be fair to say that the point of ^iew of the literary' artist was entirely microcosmic, and that is one rea- son wh}- we hail Dunsany ^vith such a sense of relief, even of quiet and of gratitude. Yeats too has attempted to bring us closer to the great heart of things, but his fairies and heroes are of local origin, while Dunsany's gods are uni- versal if they are anything. This was the im- mense advantage Dunsany achieved in creating his own m^thologj' ; he was not bound bj' place 21 ' DUNSANY THE DRAMATIST or time, and the only associations his characters have are those of the infinite. His expression is universal in the broadest sense, and upon the theory of universality is founded the philos- ophy of art. Man becomes tired of himself, and fatigued with his fellows, and when this time comes his only peace is to be found in his relation to the infinite. A part becomes sated with itself or with another part, but upon the whole it may feed eternally. But I fear that in my own desire to clarify I have only confused, and that from the philosophy upon which art is founded I have wandered almost into meta- physics, so faint is the dividing line between them. It is only a critic who is so foolish as to try to explain the beautiful or to think that it can need explanation. 22 II His Work It will be well now to take each of Lord Dun- sany's plays in turn and see what may be gained by a brief analysis of its structure and of its meaning, and in so doing let us take them chron- ologically, for to list them at once in the order of their importance would be to anticipate the work at hand. THE GLITTERING GATE The scene is a Lonely Place, and the time the Present. The Lonely Place is strewn with large black rocks and uncorked beer-hottles, the latter in great profusion. At back is a wall of granite built of great slabs and in it the Gate of Heaven. The door is of gold. Below the Lonely Place is an abyss hung with stars. The two characters of the piece are Jim, lately a burglar, for he is dead, and Bill, likewise deceased, who was a pal of Jim's on earth. 23 DUNSANY THE DRAMATIST Jim was hanged and Bill was shot, and the marks of their recent ordeal are still upon them. Jim has been dead the longer, so that he is there first. Bill finds him uncorking empty- beer bottles endlessly and throwing them away, as he enters and knocks on the Gate of Heaven. Each time that Jim finds himself deceived by the empty bottles faint and unpleasant laughter is heard from somewhere in the great void. Bill recalls to Jim the little things of their life together and gradually Jim remembers. Find- ing the great door immovable before him Bill recollects that he has still with him his old jemmy, ''nut-cracker", so with it he tries to drill open the huge Gate of Heaven. Jim takes little interest in the endeavour until sud- denly the door begins to yield. Then they both give themselves up to imagining all the wonders that will confront them on the other side of the closed door. Bill is sure that his mother will be there, and Jim thinks of a yellow-haired girl whom he remembers as a bar-maid at Wimble- don. Of a sudden the drill goes through and the great door swings slowly open, and — there is nothing there but the great blue void, hung with twinkling stars. 24 HIS WORK Bill, (staggering and gazing into the revealed Noth- ing, in which far stars go wandering) Stars. Blooming great stars. There ain't no heaven, Jim. {Ever since the revelation a cruel and violent laugh has arisen off. It increases in volume and grows louder and louder.) Jim. That's like them. That's very like them. Yes, they'd do that ! (The curtain falls and the laughter still howls on.) This play has been pointed out as a bit of rare cynicism on the part of Lord Dunsany, but I am inclined to think that this opinion is unjustified. What he has done is simply that which he never tires of doing, of showing man in his eternal conflict with the gods. The Gate of Heaven cannot be forced open with a jemmy, or if it is there will be found nothing on the other side. Bill and Jim are both materialists, and having broken both the law of God and man all their lives, it is thoroughly in keeping that after death they should adhere to their old beliefs, that there is nothing too strong or too sacred to be forced to serve their turn. Not to try to force the door would be wholly out of character for them, but to force it and to find heaven on the other side would violate our sense of the eternal fitness of things. Sur- 25 DUNSANY THE DRAMATIST rounded by empty beer-bottles, fitting symbols of their material life, and hounded by the mocking laugh of Nemesis, Bill and Jim can only vent their spleen in a last bitter outcry against the eternal. The old and endless bal- ance of things is achieved, and the law is ac- complished. The play is open to several interpretations and therein lies its greatest weakness. The issue is not clearly defined and it is only in the light of Dunsany's other work that we are able to attempt a logical elucidation. A mythol- ogy such as Dunsany's presupposes a certain element of fatalism when man comes in contact with the cosmic force. It must be remembered too that Dunsany is a great imaginative genius, — have I not deplored his lack of interest in man as related to man ? — and that imagina- tion is a wholly mental quality. Any emotion we get from Dunsany is not one based on human attributes ; for the most part it is purely aesthetic, a rapture at the beauty of his conceptions, and at his manner of expression, or a terror at the immensity and grandeur of what he shows us. Herein he is at one with the Greek dramatists, and this attitude on his part has been laid 26 Photo by White Studio. Courtesy of Neighborhood Playhouse The Glittering Gate The gate opens — and there is nothing there HIS WORK down by Aristotle as a law of tragedy centuries ago. That is why we find so little human sympathy shown in his treatment of Bill and Jim. How easy it would have been to have made this play a maudlin diatribe! But Dunsany's point of view on the problem is purely dispassionate, entirely that of an artist — and an aristocrat! And after all the little play must not be taken too seriously. It has a story to tell, and with Dunsany the story is paramount always. There is no need to attempt to read in a hidden meaning. Yeats might have written the play and if he had done so we should doubtless have had a second version of "The Hour Glass" or something closely akin to it. Indeed the influence of Yeats on this first play of Dunsany's is not to be ignored. Dramatically "The Glittering Gate" leaves much to be desired. It most certainly furnishes an excellent example of the law of surprise, and it even provides suspense, a much more vital element, and one which is not always to be found in Dunsany's plays. How often it has been said that a dramatist must not keep anything from his audience! A genius may 27 DUNSANY THE DRAMATIST do all things, and as a rule Dunsany prepares us for his surprise so effectively that in the very preparation an element of suspense is created. It is interesting to observe that Dunsany here avoids an error which marks a weak spot in two of his later and bigger plays; that is, he does not attempt to bring the gods on the stage. The mocking laughter is much more mysterious and terrible when its source in unknown. The dialogue is excellent. The language that the two dead burglars use is perfectly natural and in character, albeit the situation is grotesque. This very incongruity is highly dramatic in itself. Through the dialogue, too, runs a vein of gentle irony, as there does through every Dunsany play. Each character is devel- oped along individual lines. Jim is frankly a cynic ; Bill is more trusting — but Jim has been dead the longer. In denouement the play is masterly. The climax is led up to without hesitation and when the moment comes the blow is struck with deadly accuracy. Then the play is over. No further time is wasted in "past regrets or future fears.") It is not a very good play on the whole, but considering the circumstances under which 28 HIS WORK it was written it is beyond question an extra- ordinary play. I think it is a better play than " The Queen's Enemies ", which was written much later and which was successful in produc- tion. But "The GHttering Gate" will remam always one of the least popular of Dunsany's plays, for while the dialogue, the humour, the characterization, the denouement are all done well and with infinite finish, the purpose of the play is undoubtedly vague, and no matter how capable it is of elucidation its lack of clar- ity detracts from the force of the piece. It could not be otherwise. The play depends on the situation and upon the dialogue to hold the interest of the audience ; there is no actual opposition to the characters, none of the immedi- ate and personal conflict for which the modern audience has been taught to look. To some people this will always be a lack in Dunsany's plays, but they could not have been written in any other way and written as well. The impotency of man is much more strongly shown when he is placed in conflict with a gigantic indefinable force ; as soon as that force suffers embodiment, it is brought down to man's level, and the whole conception is destroyed. 29 DUNSANY THE DRAMATIST "The Glittering Gate" stages well, and acts well ; it is very short even for a one-act play, but its lack of definitiveness keeps it from being classed with the later and more forceful work of the author. None of Dunsany's plays could be described as robust; they are too delicate, and too full of finesse for that, but '' The Glitter- ing Gate" is not even vital. And notwith- standing all that, it is a most extraordinary play. KING ARGIMENES AND THE UNKNOWN WARRIOR The action opens in the slave fields of King Darniak, where King Argimenes, a deposed and captured monarch, is working with the slaves. King Argimenes has just finished the bone he was gnawing and laments that he has nothing more to hope for. Zarb, a slave, envies him his beautiful memories, for he himself can recall nothing better than the fact that he once went for a full year without beatings. He tells Argimenes too that the King's great dog is ill and that they may soon have more bones. Argimenes left alone goes on digging, until of a sudden he comes on a great bronze sword left there long ago by some unknown warrior. 30 bO < (1) 1/3 > C3 ) ifiS-^Nt.lJtv^ HIS WORK He offers a prayer to the spirit of the departed, and conspires with Zarb to rebel against King Darniak. Zarb tells him that now he has a sword, and such a sword, the slaves will believe he is a King and will follow him. Ar- gimenes creeps off to where the slave-guard are seated with their backs to the diggers, intending to kill the guard and arm the slaves. As the curtain falls one sees the slaves all huddled together watching Argimenes stalk the slave- guard, and at the very last a great gasp of wonder goes up from them. This scene is very remarkable. From the time when Ar- gimenes makes his intention apparent to Zarb, to the fall of the curtain the action off stage is as clearly shown as that before the audience. Argimenes creeping through the sand hills, and then showing himself on the horizon line as he plunges downward to the attack is as clear before us as the slaves themselves as they watch and listen in awe and agony. The second act is in the throne-room of King Darniak. The King is seated in all his glory on his throne with his four lovely Queens beside him. On his right is his idol, Illuriel, with an idol-guard in front of him. The King's Over- 31 DUNSANY THE DRAMATIST seer brings plans for a new garden, and they are discussed by the King and Queens. A hill must be removed, terraces made, and the slaves must be flogged that the work be accomplished more quickly. Power and selfishness are very clearly and amusingly depicted . Then a Prophet comes in to prophesy, and the Queens com- ment caustically on the cut of his hair while the King converses aside. The Prophet warns them of the approaching doom, of an enemy within the gates, but there is no one to give him heed. When he stops, the King in a bored tone, and without listening to him, bids him continue. The Prophet goes out and the King and the Queens go to the banqueting hall. The idol-guard ruminates on the prophecies and feels a sense of disquietude. A great noise of fighting is heard without. The slaves rush in all armed and overpower the idol-guard, throwing down Illuriel and breaking him in seven pieces. They go back to face the rem- nants of the palace guard, and Damiak rushes in from the feast to find his idol fallen and his throne broken. He goes back in an effort to flee, for he knows that his doom is upon him. The slaves reenter with Argimenes at their 32 HIS WORK head. Argimenes takes his place on the throne, and throws a cloth of gold about his shoulders. He looks the King he is and the slaves bow before him in awe and wonder. Suddenly the Keeper of the King's Great Dog comes to say that the royal beast is dead. In an instant Argimenes forgets that he is a King once more and with a cry of ''Bones!" he rushes forward, followed by the slaves. Then, recollecting him- self, he returns to the throne, and with dignity commands that the King's Great Dog be buried. ''Majesty!" cries Zarb, confounded at this last token of royalty. And so the cur- tain falls. It is unquestionable that the first act of this play is immeasurably superior to the second. The first has a unity, a directness, and a force which the second lacks, breaking as it does into several phases of action. From the time when King Darniak goes with his Queens into the banqueting hall to the entrance of Argimenes and the slaves there is a momentary interlude, and just here the act breaks, splitting into two sections. In the last half of the act the entrances and exits are not carefully arranged, and altogether the effect of the whole is to give 33 DUNSANY THE DRAMATIST the act a downward slant rather than the up- ward one that it should have. The play "falls off" at the conclusion. This is all due simply and solely to faulty construction. This was the first play Dunsany attempted in more than one act, and hence it must be regarded some- what as in the nature of an experiment. Prob- ably the play would have been better written in three acts instead of in two. The first act in that case would show King Darniak on his throne with the Queens and the Prophet; in short it would contain the material now used in the first part of act two. The second act would be the present act one just as it now stands; and act three would be composed of what is now contained in the second portion of act two. Thus we would see the splendour of Darniak on his throne, hear the prophecy, and mark his inattention to it, after which we would get the contrast of Argimenes in the slave- fields, followed by the revolt, and the over- throw of Darniak. This revolt would follow immediately and logically upon Argimenes' slaughter of the slave-guard in act two. There is little question in my mind but that this is the proper construction for. the play.' 34 HIS WORK It may be well to take up here a question which has arisen concerning the acts or scenes of the Dunsany plays. When William A. Brady produced "The Gods of the Mountain'' in America he called it upon the programme "A One Act Play in Three Scenes", whereas Dunsany himself calls his divisions, acts. When "King Argimenes and the Unknown Warrior" and ''The Gods of the Mountain" were pro- duced by Stuart Walker in his Portmanteau Theater he had no hesitation in using the term "acts." But of late the point has again arisen so that it seems desirable that we pause long enough to investigate the matter more deeply. A play is a series of minor climaxes leading to major climaxes which in turn lead to an ultimate climax. A one-act play is a series of minor climaxes leading to one major climax which is in itself the ultimate climax. A three-act play has the major climaxes near the end of each act, and the ultimate climax near the end of the second act or during the third. A four or five act play is susceptible to the same course of reasoning. I fear that my phraseology is somewhat involved, but I have striven to be exact. 35 DTJNSANY THE DRAMATIST Let us try this dictum on ''King Argimenes and the Unknown Warrior" and see whether or not it will stand the pragmatic test. Be it under- stood that these major climaxes are as a rule placed at such points in the action as will tend to divide the play conveniently. This is merely a convention of the dramatic art. Dunsany's acts are shorter than is customary, but that does not invalidate their claim to be called acts in the least, for acting time has nothing to do with the question, except as it might tend to produce lack of balance and unity. Broadly speaking, acts are nat- ural divisions produced by emotional or in- tellectual climaxes. In the first act of the play under immediate discussion the minor climaxes are the finding of the sword, and the coming of the Overseer, both leading to the major climax, the '*0h" which the slaves give as Argimenes slays the guard. In the second act the Overseer, the Prophet, the entrance of Argimenes, the destruc- tion of Illuriel, the reen trance of the Overseer, the incident of the King's Great Dog with the cry of "Bones !" all lead to the ultimate climax, where Argimenes orders that the dog be buried 36 HIS WORK and Zarb cries "Majesty!" Note by the way that the printed version of the play makes Zarb deliver this last speech in a tone of protest, when in reality, as Dunsany himself points out, his tone should show awe. The major climax at the end of act one leads direct to the ultimate climax at the end of act two just as I said it would. "King Argimenes and the Unknown Warrior" is not as good an example as "The Gods of the Mountain" simply because the second is by far the better play. The working out of the rule I have suggested is perfectly plain in them both, however. There can be no question whether or not these plays are written in acts or scenes. "The Gods of the Mountain" is as unmistakably a three-act play as "The Amazons." But before discontinuing the discussion let me append a note to something I said a little while back. I remarked that acts are natural divisions produced by emotional or intellectual climaxes, but if such climaxes come at points where an interval would be incon- venient or detrimental to the balance of the play then the necessary divisions must be arbitrarily imposed. The slave song, the chant of the low born 37 DUNSANY THE DRAMATIST in the first act of ''King Argimenes", and the wine song or the chant of the nobles in the second act are both interesting. When the play was first given at the Abbey Theater one of the old songs of famine time was used for the chant of the low born, and most effectively. It is immensely typical of Dunsany to have these two songs balancing each other, and presenting so forceful a contrast. The play begins and ends with the thought of bones uppermost, and this gives a certain sense of unity in contra-distinction to the otherwise faulty structure. In Argimenes there is a superficial resemblance to Agmar in ''The Gods of the Mountain", and in Zarb there is a faint prophecy of Slag in the same play. This does not argue by any means that Dunsany's charac- ters are all types, but it indicates how his char- acters developed, one growing out of another. This play should dispose finally of any theory that Dunsany develops his plot at the expense of his characters. See how Argimenes, fallen almost to an animal, regains his individuality under the influence of the sword, and how the slaves, from being mere whipped curs, rise to the point of revolt imder the leadership of 38 HIS WORK Argimenes. Observe the study of meanness and selfishness in the scene of Damiak, the Queens, and the Overseer, and the bhnd igno- rance depicted in the following scene with the Prophet. Here is a social study for us if we care to heed it. And then the reversion to habit in Argimenes when he hears that the King's Great Dog is dead, and his cry of "Bones!", with the awe and wonder of the slaves at the reinstated monarch. It is a most excellent bit of character work on rather broad lines. As might be expected the gods have their share in the proceedings, and the fact that the god of Argimenes was only broken in three pieces while that of Darniak, Illuriel, was broken in seven, is made to serve as a partial raison d'etre for the action. The last act furnishes a splendid example of peripetia in the fall of Darniak, and the victory of Ar- gimenes. "King Argimenes and the Unknown Warrior" is almost a good play. It presents a problem of man as opposed to man as most of the other Dunsany plays do not, and in consequence of this the conception is much less poetic, with none of the grandeur of some of the other plays. 39 DUNSANY THE DRAMATIST On the other hand, the fact that we are deahng with purely human elements permits more visible opposition and direct conflict, and for this reason one occasionally hears the play placed much higher in the scale than it deserves to be. In its characterization, its dialogue, its flashes of poetry and of wit, the play is well worth serious consideration, but in its concep- tion, and in the faulty construction of its frame- work it falls far below the standard set by the major portion of Dunsany's work. THE GODS OF THE MOUNTAIN The first act is outside the wall of the city of Kongros. In the dust three beggars are seated who lament their poverty and that the "divine benevolence" of man is not what it used to be. To the three comes Agmar fol- lowed by his servant. Slag. Agmar is a very great beggar. The story of his adventures is told by Slag, and a practical demonstration of his cleverness is given as some citizens pass. The other beggars all fail to receive alms, but Agmar by his pitiful aspect and deep groans moves the passers-by to compassion. A scheme 40 HIS WORK must be devised to retrieve their fallen fortunes. Oogno suggests that they enter the city as ambassadors from a far country, and Ulf seizes upon this with enthusiasm. Slag, however, says that they do not know his master, and that now they have suggested they go as am- bassadors he will suggest that they go as kings. Agmar, who has been thinking, betters even this and says that they will go as gods. He tells of the seven green jade idols seated on the mountain of Marma a few days' ride from the city. Those gods are very potent here, and the beggars shall impersonate them. Agmar sends for a Thief, and tells him to fetch some green raiment, and he sends also for another beggar to make up the quota of seven. The green raiment comes, and Agmar distributes it among the seven, telling them to disguise themselves. The conclusion of this act is par- ticularly fine, presenting as it does a splendid climax to the action, and a most enlightening bit of pure characterization. Ulf. We will each wear a piece of it over our rags. OoGNO. Yes, yes, we shall look fine. Agmar. That is not the way that we shall disguise ourselves. 41 DUNSANY THE DRAMATIST OoGNO. Not cover our rags? Agmar. No, no. The first who looked closely would say, "These are only beggars. They have dis- guised themselves." Ulf. What shall we do? Agmar. Each of the seven shall wear a piece of the green raiment underneath his rags. And perad- venture here and there a little shall show through; and men shall say, ''These seven have disguised them- selves as beggars. But we know not what they be !" Slag. Hear my wise master. OoGNO. {in admiration) He is a beggar. Ulf. He is an old beggar. It is Ulf who voices a fear that what they are to do may be regarded as an impious act, but Agmar quiets him. The curtain falls on the last speech given above. Act two is in the Metropolitan Hall of the City of Kongros. The beggars are seated in a circle and the citizens are questioning them. Agmar with the aid of Slag succeeds in deceiving them into a half-hearted belief that the beggars are the gods. Wlien doubt is raised Agmar so frightens the citizens that meats are brought as a sacrifice. All the beggars except Agmar eat hungrily. To the citizens they eat like hungry men, but when they see that Agmar abstains they wonder. Agmar says that he, 42 HIS WORK the eldest of the gods, never eats, leaving that to the younger gods who have learned the bestial habit from the lions. And again he intimidates the citizens. Woldery wine is brought as a final test, and Agmar taking the bowl pours the wine on the ground. The citi- zens are amazed not so much by what the man does, but by his dignity and the manner of the doing. Through his very acting of the part, he is growing godlike. The citizens retire and Agmar eats, posting Slag at the door as sentinel. One comes running and demands the god who will not eat. The following scene, the concluding one of the act, is one of the most remarkable in dramatic literature. One. Master, my child was bitten in the throat by a death-adder at noon. Spare him, master; he still breathes, but slowly. Agmar. Is he indeed your child? One. He is surely my child, master. Agmar. Was it your wont to thwart him in his play, while he was well and strong? One. I never thwarted him, master. Agmar. Whose child is Death ? One. Death is the child of the gods. Agmar. Do you that never thwarted your child in his play ask this of the gods? 43 DUNSANY THE DRAMATIST One. {with some horror, perceiving Agmar's mean- ing) Master! Agmar. Weep not. For all the houses that men have builded are the play-fields of this child of the gods. (The Man goes away in silence, not weeping.) OoGNO. (taking Thahn by the wrist) Is this indeed a man? Agmar. A man, a man, and until just now a hun- gry one. Is not this scene beautifully builded? As Agmar talks he gradually assumes the aspect of a god, for his imagination reacts upon him until he seems to shake off his earthly guise. Then on the departure of the Man — or as it is usually played to give better effect, a Woman — he slowly recovers himself in his repetition of, "A man, a man ..." bringing himself back to earth and to a realization of his position. Agmar is but a leader of beggars; he would have been a great prophet, a captain, and a leader of men but for one thing. He is wholly lacking in that spiritual quality which prompts Ulf to voice his fear that the gods will be angry at their impersonation. Agmar is a mental giant, an imaginative genius, but this great void in his nature is to undo him. 44 HIS WORK In the third act the beggars are seated on seven thrones rough hewn from rock set up in the same hall that they first entered. For the most part they reek with self-satisfaction. Mian and Oogno, who represent the physical element, are in a voluptuous reverie over the wines they have drunk and meats they have eaten. They laugh at the people who come to worship them, sneering at their credulity. Agmar rebukes them, saying that when they were beggars they behaved as beggars, but now that they are gods they must behave as gods. Agmar by sheer imaginative power seems to deify himself above the others. The Thief who has been absent among his calling, but unknown to them, rushes in and cries that they are lost, that three days ago two dromedary men were sent to Marma to see whether the gods were still there. There is instant panic. Agmar fights for time, and tries to devise a plan. The citizens enter and announce the two Dromedary Men. Agmar warns them that their doubting will bring a heavy doom upon them and ad- vises them to desist. They refuse, saying that their doubts are mighty. The Dromedary Men are ushered in, and are asked whether the seven 45 DUNSANY THE DRAMATIST gods are still seated in their thrones at Marma. They are not there ! Their shrines are empty ! The gods are indeed come from Marma ! The citizens are reassured and retire to prepare a feast for the beggars whom they now believe to be the true gods beyond all question. The beggars are mad with joy. They are saved. Only Agmar wonders. Something has come to pass which was unforeseen by him. He saw the seven gods there at Marma as he passed by not long ago. He cannot understand. He represents the wholly mental element as Oogno and Mian represent the physical, and now some- thing has happened that his intelligence cannot compass. Ulf tells of a dream he has had in which there was a fear. Ulf is the only one who is susceptible to spiritual instincts; he may be said to be the prophet of the gods. Suddenly a frightened man runs in and throws himself down before them. He implores them not to walk at night around the city, and he describes how they appeared to him and to others — all green, and blind, and groping. The beggars cannot understand, but they begin to wonder. Agmar now feels his grasp on the situation slipping from him. He feels the 46 s o o a- 42 to a; M c a> HIS WORK presence of some force which is superior to him — and he fears. In spite of this he re- assures the man and sends him away, but when the other beggars ask for explanations he can- not give them. There is the sound of a heavy, measured tread approaching. Can it be the dancing girls who walk so slowly and with such an ominous sound? Ulf springs to his feet and permits his fear to cry aloud — they have been impious and retribution will over- take them. His fears shall cry aloud and shall run before him like a dog out of the city. The great steps come nearer. Seven huge stone gods enter, and despite the efforts of the beggars to escape they are held by some mysterious power and are unable to resist. {The leading Green Thing points his finger at the lantern — the flame turns green. When the six are seated the leader points one by one at each of the seven beggars, shooting out his forefinger at them. As he does this each beggar in his turn gathers himself back on to his throne and crosses his legs, his right arm goes stiffly up- ward with forefinger erect, and a staring look of horror comes into his eyes. In this attitude the beggars sit motionless while a green light falls upon their faces. The gods go out.) {Presently enter the Citizens, some with victuals and fruit. One touches a beggar's arm and then another's.) 47 DUNSANY THE DRAMATIST Citizen. They are cold; they have turned to stone. {All abase themselves, foreheads to the floor.) One. We have doubted them. We have doubted them. They have turned to stone because we have doubted them. Another. They were the true gods. All. They were the true gods. It is probable that there has never been a play more gigantic than this in conception. The fatality which Dunsany shares with the Greek dramas is here in its most perfect form. As Mr. Bjorkman remarks, ''The crime of hyhris which to the Greeks was the ' unforgivable sin ' is here made as real to us as it was to them." Five of the beggars are purely physical, and they are shown as wholly subservient to the great intellect of Agmar ; they themselves have nothing of the mind or spirit; they care for nothing but food, and wine, and dancing girls. Agmar is another Nietzsche ; he is all brain, and his limitations are those of the fallible human intelligence. Ulf is a prophet of the spirit, but his mind is not strong enough to combat that of Agmar even though his instincts rebel against the projected imposition. But all through the play his forebodings warn us of 48 HIS WORK the approaching peril. It is only when Agmar comes in contact with the spiritual essence, the divine force, that he is frustrated and ruined. Here is something which he did not consider and could not account for. That which is beyond and above the grasp of mere mind has crushed him with an ease and implacability which he could never foresee. Throughout the play I have pointed out how from time to time Agmar seemed to rise almost to divine heights, but it was never more than a "seeming." His divinity was a matter of imagination, and of cold logic; it never rose above the stratum of the mind. Hence when he is at the last con- fronted with that which he tried to imitate, his whole structure is shattered in an instant. The old saw that "you can fool a man with a stuffed dog, but you can't fool a dog" is very applicable to the relation between the citizens and the beggars. Humanity is fallible; only the gods are omnipotent. By the foregoing it will be seen that I have read no little symbolism into "The Gods of the Mountain." It is not only permissible but even inevitable that this should be so, but still I feel called upon to defend my position 49 DUNSANY THE DRAMATIST in the face of Lord Dunsany's oft repeated statement that his plays have no hidden mean- ing. A writer is often wholly unconscious of what lies beneath the surface of his work. He may tell a story and see nothing himself but the story, and yet that portion of him which is apart from his objective consciousness may have written heavily between the lines. It is here that one must step in to interpret, a dan- gerous task and full of pitfalls, striving to de- duce from the more obvious import the under- lying and subconscious motive. "The Gods of the Mountain" taken only as a tale fulfills its purpose splendidly, but it is quite fair to take it as more than that, provided only that in our effort to interpret we do not misconstrue. Several of Dunsany's plays are distinctly sym- bolic in character, but the symbolism is wholly unconscious, and therein differs from the delib- erate symbolism of one such as Maeterlinck. With Dunsany the symbolism arises from the story; with Maeterlinck the story arises from the symbolism. It is simply a difference in point of view, but this difference is vital. From a standpoint of dramatic technique the play is almost perfect. The plot is unified 50 HIS WORK and well constructed, unfolding gradually and smoothly. The character development is masterly, rising to splendid dramatic heights. The climaxes are quite perfect in themselves, (the final scenes of acts two and three are strokes of pure genius) and every line advances the movement. It has been found that to some act two has too little definite action, and this may be explained by saying that here again we are confronted with the difficulty of providing an obvious opposition when one of the contending forces is an abstract element. The criticism is entirely captious, however, for in act two the character development is keen and vivid. Hence those who are disposed to criti- cise the play on these grounds, are as a rule those who would much prefer the old Drury Lane melodrama to the modern and more ar- tistic play. If there is not always physical action in this play there is at least always plot and characterization, which is a much better thing. There is just one error in ''The Gods of the Mountain", and this is an error which is re- peated in another of the Dunsany plays, namely, that of bringing the gods themselves on the 51 DUNSANY THE DRAMATIST stage. This is a matter of applied psychology, and of stage mechanics. One can imagine much more terrifying things than one can con- struct. When the gods are merely talked of, when they are only heard, and when their presence is but suggested, the imagination will conjure up a picture much nearer to that which the artist desires to convey than when we actually see the gods in person. It is impossi- ble so to construct them as to present a really adequate sense of illusion. Gigantic and gro- tesque as they are they will always fall far short of what they ought to be. This comes of try- ing directly to embody an abstract force. It cannot be done. It is like trying to bring Truth or Beauty before us; it is impossible. True we can symbolise Truth and Beauty, and just here we are provided with a point of escape. The gods can be symbolised. Very well, then, and how shall such symbols be manifested? When the Dunsany gods come on the stage the criticism is usually that though they are obviously not men they partake too greatly of the human element. The only way to avoid this is to make them more so; that is, to make them more like Man than men them- 52 HIS WORK selves. In the same way the Venus de Milo is more Uke Woman than the average female. They must not be something different because they cannot be made different enough; hence they must be simply the same, only more so! It is a question not of realization, but of idealiza- tion. In my opinion by far the better plan would be not to attempt to bring the gods on the stage at all. "The Glittering Gate" illustrates this perfectly. Then while everything would be done to suggest, nothing would be done to satisfy the suggestion, and the imagination would be left free to spin its own texture of immensity. Realization always falls short of expectation; nothing really is as terrible as we think it is going to be, and so it is by all odds best to rest content with the thought, sure that the embodi- ment would be no more than disillusioning. With this one exception "The Gods of the Mountain" is a practically flawless play. And be it noted in this connection that it is not the dramatist who is at fault in this, but the man of the theater, and Dunsany does not pretend to be that. This play is the only one of Dunsany's which has had a failure in production, and that failure 53 DUNSANY THE DRAMATIST has since been notably retrieved. When William A. Brady brought the Haymarket production to Buffalo it failed. There were two reasons for this. First, the bill consisted of two plays of which " The Gods of the Moun- tain" was the second, and the bill was far too long. The audience did not leave the theater until almost midnight, and no play could be expected to succeed with such a handicap. Next, the production was very inadequately rehearsed, so inadequately in fact that the gods are said to have fallen over each other as they made their entrance. I simply desire to point out that Dunsany's one failure has been through no fault of his own. If ''The Gods of the Mountain" were a second "Hamlet" we should have the back- ground sketched in for each of the characters, giving us a personal interest in their problems which is now somewhat lacking. Agmar's tragedy would be almost unbearable if we had a deep personal interest in him. It is man in his relation to the gods and not to himself or to his neighbour which we are called upon to observe, and so the personal touch, the human element, is not there. There is something greater 54 HIS WORK there, but it is not enough. If the two lesser re- quirements were fulfilled as the one greater is, the play would be perhaps one of the greatest in all dramatic literature. As it is, it is a masterpiece. The plot advances to its conclusion with utter inevitability, punctuated by the forebodings of Ulf, who sniffs the approach of Nemesis as a trained dog flinches at the smell of death. It is impossible to praise the play too highly in this connection. The characterization is clean cut and vivid, the lack of background accounting for the fact that the outlines of the personalities are somewhat oversharp. They have to be in order that they may stand out properly. Dunsany has never surpassed in his dramatic writings the poetry of Ulf's wailing warning of their doom in the last act. Agmar too has in several places, notably the end of act two, wonderful magic lines, poignant and bitter sweet with beauty. THE GOLDEN DOOM ' The scene is outside the King's great door in Zericon, and the time is some while before 55 DUNSANY THE DRAMATIST the fall of Babylon. Two sentries guard the door and talk meanwhile of the heat and the cool of the near-by river. They talk also of the great King, and one of them feels a sense of menace as if some doom hung heavy. A star has fallen, and that may be a sign. A little boy and girl come in. The boy has come to pray to the great King for a hoop, but he can- not see the King so he prays to the King's door instead. Boy. King's door, I want a little hoop. The girl tells of a poem she has made and then proudly she recites it. I saw a purple bird Go up against the sky And it went up, and up, And round about did fly. Boy. I saw it die. Girl. That doesn't scan. Boy. Oh, that doesn't matter. The King's Spies cross the stage, and the girl is frightened. The boy tells her that he will write her verses on the King's door, and at this she is greatly delighted. And so he writes the verses, appending the last line he added. The girl again protests, but the line is written. 56 HIS WORK The sentries have hardly noticed the children, but now they hear the King coming so that they drive the youngsters away. The King comes with his Chamberlain, and as he nears the door he sees the writing on it. He ques- tions the sentries but they say that no one has been near the door ; it does not occur to them to mention the children. The King fears that this writing may be a prophecy. The Prophets of the Stars are summoned and are commanded to interpret the prophecy of the writing on the King's door. They cannot do so, but each one silently covers himself with a great black cloak, for they believe the prophecy to be a doom. The Chief Prophet is summoned. He reads the writing and says that the King can be no other than the purple bird, for purple is royal; he has flown in the face of the gods and they are angry. It is a doom. The King offers a sacrifice. He says that he has done his best for his people; that if he has neglected the gods it was only because he was concerned with the welfare of his subjects on earth. The King and the Chief Prophet dis- cuss the most suitable sacrifice, and finally decide that the King's crown as a symbol of 57 DUNSANY THE DRAMATIST his pride shall be offered. The King asks only that he may rule among his people un- crowned, and minister to their welfare. So the crown is laid on the sacrificial block before the King's door, and as the night comes on and it grows dark so that the stars may be seen, everyone goes away. Boy. {enters from the right, dressed in white, his hands out a little, crying) King's door, King's door, I want my little hoop. {He goes up to the King's door. When he sees the King's crown there he utters a satisfied) 0-oh! {He takes it up, puts it on the ground, and, beating it before him with the sceptre, goes out by the way that he entered.) {The great door opens; there is light within; a furtive Spy slips out and sees that the crown is gone. Another Spy slips out. Their crouching heads come close to- gether.) First Spy. {hoarse whisper) The gods have come ! {They run back through the door and the door is closed. It opens again and the King and the Chamberlain come through.) King. The stars are satisfied. So the play ends, on the high note, the major chord always. The play like others of Dunsany's represents the expression of an abstract idea, and that idea not a particularly dramatic one. Again 58 o o