Europe is weary even of the Scandinavian women (Hedda Gabler, Rebecca Rosmer, Asta Allmers) whom the poetic genius of Ibsen created when the Slav heroines of Dostoievsky and Turgenev were growing stale. On what woman will the light of the poet's mind now shine? Perhaps at last on the Celt. Vain question. Curl the hair how you will and undo it again as you will.
Richard, unfitted for the adulterous intercourse with the wives of his friends because it would involve a great deal of pretence on his part rather than because he is convinced of any dishonourableness in it wishes, it seems, to feel the thrill of adultery vicariously and to possess a bound woman Bertha through the organ of his friend.
Bertha at the highest pitch of excitement in Act III enforces her speech with the word 'Heavens'.
The doubt which clouds the end of the play must be conveyed to the audience not only through Richard's questions to both but also from the dialogue between Robert and Bertha.
All Celtic philosophers seemed to have inclined towards incertitude or scepticism-- Hume, Berkeley, Balfour, Bergson.
The dialogue notes prepared are altogether too diffuse. They must be sifted in the sieve of the action. Possibly the best way to do this is to draft off the next act (II) letting the characters express themselves. It is not necessary to bind them to the expressions in the notes.
The greatest danger in the writing of this play is tenderness of speech or of mood. In Richard's case it does not persuade and in the case of the other two it is equivocal.
During the second act as Beatrice is not on the stage, her figure must appear before the audience through the thoughts or speech of the others. This is by no means easy.
The character of Archie in the third act carries on the lightheartedness of Richard, which has been apparent at intervals in the first and second acts. However, as Richard's spiritual affection for his son (also his filial feelings towards his own father) has been adequately represented in the former acts to balance this, the love of Bertha for her child must be brought out as strongly and as simply and as early as possible in the third act. It must, of course, be accentuated by the position of sadness in which she finds herself.
Perhaps it would be well to make a separate sketch of the doings of each of the four chief persons during the night, including those whose actions are not revealed to the public in the dialogue, namely Beatrice and Richard.
Robert is glad to have in Richard a personality to whom he can pay the tribute of complete admiration, that is to say, one to whom it is not necessary to give always a qualified and half-hearted praise. This he mistakes for reverence.
A striking instance of the changed point of view of literature towards this subject is Paul de Kock-- a descendant surely of Rabelais, Molière and the old Souche Gauloise. Yet compare George Dandin or Le Cocu Imaginaire of Molière with Le Cocu of the later writer. Salacity, humour, indecency, liveliness were certainly not wanting in the writer yet he produces a long, hesitating, painful story-- written also in the first person. Evidently that spring is broken somewhere.
The relations between Mrs O'Shea and Parnell are not of vital significance for Ireland-- first, because Parnell was tongue-tied and secondly because she was an Englishwoman. They very points in his character which could have been of interest have been passed over in silence. Her manner of writing is not Irish-- nay, her manner of loving is not Irish. The character of O'Shea is much more typical of Ireland. The two greatest Irishmen of modern times-- Swift and Parnell-- broke their lives over women. And it was the adulterous wife of the King of Leinster who brought the first Saxon to the Irish coast.
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