IN the first of these honors theses, Miss Croman studies the evolution of the novelist Galsworthy "through the interpretative medium of mood and mental attitude." The three chief figures in "The Man of Property" she takes as symbols of certain prime, moving ideas: "The Will to Property," "Beauty, impinging on a possessive world," and "the eternal force of Passion." The tragic clash of these three, in its grimness and covert intensity, is compared to Greek tragedy. How cleverly the authoress has argued her parallel may be seen by this sentence: "An instinctive dread, a premonition of danger, seizes the Chorus (the lesser Forsytes) even before the appearance of this strange and unsafe creature (Bosinney). It is perhaps straining a point for the sake of consistency to carry over this symbolical hierarchy into all of Galsworthy's work: the essay manages it with but little implausibility. If the symbolistic explanation seems to quaver in some places, it is balanced by first-rate exposition, of the theme of Forsytes possessiveness, of the links between Forsyte character and the changing world outside its demesne.
The esay is unsatisfactory only in a certain inconclusiveness. It would have benefited by more careful definition and closer scrutiny of the abstract will-e-the-wisps which Galsworthy and his characters alike pursue. Its analysis of social questions is clear enough, but one would like to know as definitely as possible what is Galsworthy's idea of "the beauty and the loving in the world." Again, what is the peculiar disability that in spite of his recognition of the modern scene leaves him at a loss to resolve it either in his mind or in his art? If intellectual analysis of this sort is worth doing, it must be carried to a finish.
The first few pages of "John Galsworthy" give evidence of serious "introduction trouble," an ill not uncommon among thesis writers. These pages say very turgidly much that there is no need to say, and thus becloud the necessary paragraphs. It would be unfortunate, though, if they should keep anyone from reading this otherwise admirable study.
In "The Witch of Wych Street," Mr. Waitzkin sets himself the task of rescuing an almost foundered reputation, and he has not wholly escaped the dangers of the attempt. If Madame Pestalozzi Vestris is so well forgotten as she is, she is probably not worth remembering. But Mr. Waitzkin thinks otherwise, and he makes out an original case for Vestris' social and intellectual on the English drama of her time.
Even if the most optimistic view of The Witch is taken, she is a figure of sociological and historical not artistic significance. The drama of her time was such a deadweight of triviality and gew gaw that at her greatest she could not cast it off for essential reforms. Her one move that might have stood out in the history of English theatre, her encouragement of Boucieault came to practical naught in "The London Assurance." She is really no more than a forerunner and a portent. Her history is interesting to the biographically minded and to specialists. This version of it shows up incidentally but rather well, the stodginess of the reviewers in the earlier nineteenth century, the nearly complete lack of public taste, and the banality of stagecraft Despite its deft writing, it is a depressing little pamphlet, revealing more than one likes to see of the awful depths to which even the bravest and best of English dramaturges have sunk.
