it reveals character finely, it does not definitely mould it. In Justice character development is shown only in the secondary personages, above all in James How and Cokeson; Falder remains to the end as he was at the beginningweak, but with a nervous, quality that drives him in despair to desperate action. His suicide gives a climax of incident, but the effect is weakened (at least when the play is read and not seen) by the reflection that here, as in his earlier desperate act of forgery, we have the result of an instant's blind impulse; a tragic accident, not an inevitable tragic end.

Apart from this fault-once more traceable to his supreme/ concentration on the great general forces working in his material—Mr. Galsworthy's plot-workmanship is excellent. He realizes every step of the action, uses detail in incident with most telling effect, and never fails in probability. All necessary facts, including those preceding the action of the play, he brings into the framework of his plot with perfect ease, without using the clumsy mechanism of the inset narrative: the necessary facts about Mrs. Gwyn's marriage, in Joy; Roberts's invention and its insufficient reward by the company, in Strife; the sordid tragedy of Ruth Honeywill's marriage, in Justice; the earlier trouble of Jones and Mrs. Jones, and the parallel earlier fault of Jack Barthwick, in The Silver Box. He uses contrast and comparison admirably, especially in The Silver Box. Dramatic suspense, when at an important point the action hangs in the balance for a moment, occurs less often than we should expect; the finest examples are in Strife, in the parallel scenes of Roberts's appeal to the men and John Antony's to the directors, and in the last act of The Eldest Son. Similarly, though he is too good a playwright to forget the value of the tense dramatic moment, Mr. Galsworthy never strains his material to this end; and here he stands in striking contrast to Shaw,

Pinero, Hartleben, Sudermann - indeed to most modern dramatists. His method is to reveal meaning in every Xmoment, rather than to lead up to a few great moments. He combines intellectual with emotional appeal, not only making the spectator feel, but also stimulating him to inquire the significance of the situation which moves him.

Then, too, Mr. Galsworthy is never carried away by interest in individuals. His characters attract him by their mutual relationship, rather than as revelations of independent personalities; and therefore he cares little for the moment that reveals only the individual. (Here his work contrasts sharply with Ibsen's.) It is partly on this account, partly from his strong sense of the natural in dialogue, that the lyrical element in the plays is so slight. Wherever an emotion receives expanded treatment, it bears dramatically on character. Striking examples occur in the speeches of Roberts and of John Antony, and in Jones's words to his wife after his theft. Ferrand's plea for the born vagabond, and his indictment of the hard mechanical charity of society, belong to a different category. Here the thought is expanded for its own sake; but even here, because the character has grown out of the message it conveys -grown, not been constructed, for Ferrand lives-the speeches are dramatically perfectly apt.

In matters of stagecraft, as in literary qualities, Mr. Galsworthy's plays are characterized by unforced naturalism and reserve of emphasis. He introduces new personages unostentatiously; there is no formal entrée-the nearest approach is in the slightly prepared first entrance of Mrs. Gwyn in Joy. His crowd and group effects are admirable. Think of the crowd in Strife. It is rivalled in modern drama, within my knowledge, only by the crowd of workpeople in Gerhart Hauptmann's Die Weber, and by the crowd in the court-scene of Brieux's Maternité. Neither equals it in revealing both individual feeling and its modi

fication by mob-feeling. Similarly, naturalism and strict relevance are the chief characteristics of his dialogue. Every word bears on the action, or reveals character, or suggests the attitude which Mr. Galsworthy desires in the spectators. Occasionally he allows tricks of phrase with something of label effect—a parallel to his tendency towards typical character; for example, in The Silver Box we have Mr. Barthwick's talk of my principles'; and again, Mrs. Jones's frequent parenthetic of course', admirably suggesting her numbed attitude of fatalism.

Finally, Mr. Galsworthy's fine economy and concentration of effect reveals itself in his stage directions. In his novels he shows himself particularly alert to sense effects. He feels character in externals; not in bodily characteristics only, but also in gesture, in clothes, in furniture, in dogs (Mr. Galsworthy's dogs deserve a special essay), in every kind of associated object. To turn for illustrations. only to The Country House: think of the faint smell of lavender that clings round Mrs. Pendyce; think of the chapter on Mr. Pendyce's head '-a meditation which has something of the flavour of Sterne; or of the description of the breakfast-table, or of Mr. Pendyce's study. This alertness extends to influences of season, of time, even of weather. In the plays these suggestions necessarily pass into stage directions; and Mr. Galsworthy's stage directions are admirable. Up to the middle of the nineteenth century playwrights were content with roughly appropriate background, and many contemporary playwrights have not advanced from this careless attitude. Ibsen realized the value of thoroughly characteristic setting, and created the tradition of detailed stage directions. Some of his successors run the risk of forgetting the bearing of the detail, and describing merely for description's sake. Others, like Mr. Shaw, write directions intended for the reader,_not for the actor. Mr. Galsworthy no doubt bears the reader.

in mind, as must a modern dramatist whose plays gain their provincial audience largely through book form; but we seldom find a word which is not weighty for the stage manager. Every touch is purposeful. Think of the force of suggestion in the setting of Jones's room, in The Silver Box. One scarcely needs any further apology for Jones; certainly no further comment on the sordid tragedy of his wife's life. Again, it is distinctly significant for the character of the unknown lady, in The Silver Box, that her reticule is sky-blue and her purse crimson. It is no mere accident that Mrs. Jones, at the Barthwicks', wears 'a blue linen dress, and boots with holes'; and to go home, 'a pinched black jacket and old black sailor hat'. These directions suggest in brief the type of which he has given a full-length portrait in The Mother (A Commentary, p. 205 ff.). 'The Mother', too, has a 'skimpy figure'... 'Her face, with tired brown eyes, and hair as black and fine as silk under a black sailor hat, was skimpy too... When she arrives at the house where she is to work, 'having taken off the black straw hat, and changed the black and scanty dress for a blue linen frock which nearly hid her broken boots, worn to the thickness of brown paper, she was deemed ready for her labours'. Mr. Galsworthy is not merely borrowing from himself; he has conceived a type, even to the worn refinement of its physical characteristics, and the very clothes that express penury struggling to keep decent; and since Mrs. Jones and the Mother are twin sisters in character and fate, he cannot help making them alike in looks and dress.

Thus in the smallest detail of technique Mr. Galsworthy's work reveals the same motives and conceptions that guide him in choosing material and in shaping plot and character. No artist is more consistent. He sees a vision of life and he forces us to see it. We may question its completeness. We may criticize Mr. Galsworthy for what he is not. It is wiser to accept the limits of work

which within those limits is at once delicate and strong;
noble in purpose, vigorous in conception, tactful in arrange-
ment, distinguished and finely finished in workmanship;
the sincere artistic expression of a personality sensitive,
sympathetic, and courageous. Let Mr. Galsworthy's own
words name the two divine gifts which his plays reveal as
his own.
'If I had one prayer to make', says Ferrand, ‘it
would be, Good God, give me to understand.' The second
prayer has no dramatic disguise :

If in a Spring night I went by
And God were standing there,
What is the prayer that I would cry
To Him? This is the prayer:

O Lord of Courage grave,

O Master of this night of Spring,
Make firm in me a heart too brave
To ask Thee anything.

AR. SKEMP.