type of illimitable and unbridled power; but, resistlessly marshaled by celestial laws, all the wild waters, heaving from pole to pole, rise and recede, obedient to the mild queen of heaven. 5 Brethren of Brown, we have come hither as our fathers came, as our children will come, to renew our observation of that celestial law; and here, upon the old altar of fervid faith and boundless anticipation, let us pledge ourselves once more that, as the courage and energy of educated men fired the morning gun and led the contest of the Revolution, 10 founded and framed the Union and, purifying it as with fire, have maintained the national life to this hour, so, day by day, we will do our part to lift America above the slough of mercenary politics and the cunning snares of trade, steadily forward toward the shining heights which the hopes of its 15 nativity foretold. No. I is a swift, clear analysis and exposition of a subject not well understood by the general public; noteworthy, also, because its appeal is almost entirely to the intellect, not to the prejudices, emotions, or special interests of the audience. No. II, "The Child and the State" is included, though it was never intended for delivery as an address, for contrasting in persuasive method with the address of Phillips Brooks, No. III. Mr. Field appealed mainly to the two selfish motives, love of money and self-defence; Phillips Brooks to religious and ethical sentiment. I. NORMAN HAPGOOD. The Drama in America To-day.1 Delivered before the Cincinnati Conference of Art and Literature, No art is looked upon, in England and America, from more diverse points of view than the acted drama. The number of persons who take it as a serious interest is small, far smaller than in Germany, Austria or France. Nobody 5 of much education now regards the theatre as wicked, but large numbers deem it wasteful and frivolous, unworthy of the same attention that is bestowed upon literature, music and painting. There is another class, not so prominent intellectually, but of far larger numbers, which still thinks Io the theatre actually immoral. The existence of this class is not always suspected by Americans of a more modern spirit, but its importance is well-known to the theatrical manager. If a play can be manufactured which has the ordinary theatrical appeal, the qualities which lie under most dramatic suc15 cess, and yet something in it which will induce these conservative masses to imagine that it is a moral lesson, they go in swarms, and a public is created estimated at about four times the size of the ordinary theatre-going public, and numberless times the size of that tiny public which cares to use 20 its mind or which has at all the appreciation of art. Hence the enormous success of plays like The Christian and Ben Hur. People think they are almost in church, while they actually enjoy pure melodrama, melodrama with spectacle in Ben Hur, melodrama in The Christian which adroitly uses 25 the general love of impropriety. "One touch of indecency 1 1 Reprinted by permission of Norman Hapgood. makes the whole world kin," and when a literary trickster, like Hall Caine, can serve that dish, garnished with imitation virtue, the box-office will hardly hold the money. Now the theatre has nothing to gain from those who look upon the playhouse in itself as immoral. No art has any- 5 The Puritans set the drama back The 10 thing to gain from them. for centuries in England. our language it must be through the people who love art more than preaching, but who know that most of the plays presented to us lack every element of genuine art. stage in America will be a worthy and a stimulating influence, a part of national enlightenment, when it appeals to those who love good books, good statues, good music, and not before. There is little use in discussing the purely moral aspects of the drama. Intellectual standards are the ones 15 to apply. The highest drama of the day is in Germany, yet the leading dramatists of that country often produce plays which in this country would be deemed improper. Why? Simply because the audiences which see them here are less cultivated than those which see them in Germany. Some of 20 Sudermann's ablest plays, of the highest real morality, such as Sodom's Ende or Johannisfeuer, would be entirely condemned here, on account of their intellectual frankness. The latest one, Es Lebe das Leben, which Mrs. Patrick Campbell is playing in an admirable literary translation by 25 the celebrated novelist, Edith Wharton, has had a better fate, partly because, although its real meaning is startling enough, this significance can be overlooked. Nevertheless, there were critics in New York who had nightmares because the heroine strayed from the designated path. These 30 critics are even troubled by Magda. Now, at their best, tragedy has always pictured the consequences of sin, and comedy has always ridiculed the absurdities of vice. The very men who are afraid of Hauptmann and Sudermann speak glibly of the merits of Shakespeare, Racine, and 35 Moliere; of Tartuffe, Phedre, and Measure for Measure. |