The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1903-04-05
THB TANNING or Mr.. R. 4. DAVIS
HIS COMEDY PROVES TO BE ONLY
A MEDIOCRE Production.

Vi A MEDIOCRE Production.
led Eject Of the Pfnkness OF American
Fiction Upon the American Drama-ln-
nueuce OF w. ID. Howcils On His Juniors
Tho Dramatist and t1e "Boys."
There was one new play and several
revivals the past week THE Tanning oil
Helen,' Lovers Lane Message From
MARI and my Partner Mr.. Richard
Harding Davis heads the list. In company
with Audrey and .Gretna Green HIS
comedy is one OF the three mediocre pro-
auctions OF most mediocre season. 1t Is
not 10 rocco as Audrey nor does II con-
tain such intense lines as Audrey Of the
witch-hazel eyes'-didnt a speech run
something like that3-yet is The Tanning
Of Helen" tame performance, as tame
'as kitchen cat on houseboat. We have
not read the earlier Davis story. THE
LION and the Unicorn; the play is said to
be built upon It. 1t matters little one way
or the other. Compared to IL THE Bird
In the Cage and even April Weather
are both masterpieces. Mr.. Fitch couldn't
II he tried erect so shapeless a dramatic
structure as the piece now at the Savoy,
and God knows he is not Master Builder!
In q little volume OF essays entitled
sCriticism and Fiction Mr.. Howells once
wrote QS93)' 1T used to be one OF the dis
advantages Of the practice OF romance in
America, which Hawthorne more or less
whimsically lamented that there were few
shadows and inequalities in our broad
level OF prosperity; and 1t Is one Of the re-
Elections suggested by DostoIevsky's novel,
THE Crime and the Punishment" that
whoever struck a note so profoundly tragic
I'm American fiction would do false and
mistaken thing-as false and as mistaken
IN its way as dealing In American fiction
with certain nudities which the Latin
peoples seem to find edfying.'
In q certain superficial way Mr.. Davis,
who Is certainly one Of our popular pur-
veyors of fiction, adheres to the Howells
formula; In his technical practice he Is miles
from it. He Is a romancer-that Is, dis
torter Of facts. We care but little for the
hard and fast classifcations OF idealist,
realist, romanticist, psychologist, SYM
bolist and the rest OF the phrases which
are only 80 much superfiuous baggage for
literary camp followers. All great ro-
mancers are realists, and the converse Is
true You see it In Dumas and his gorgeous,
gathering tales-improbable. but told in
terms Of the real. For my part. I often
find them too real, with their heroes that
smell Of the slaughterhouse and their
ltisty wenches. Turn now to Flaubert,
master of all the moderns without excep-
ton; you can trace the romancer dear to
the heart OF Hugo, or the psychologist In
Madame Bovary, the archaeological novel
in .Salammbo." or cold gray realism as In
-LEducation Sentiment ale, while his very
style, with its sumptuous verbal echoes,
it's resonant, rhythmic periods-is not this
the beginnings of that symbolism carried
TO such lengths by Verlaine I'd his fol-
lowersi Shakespeare himself ranged from
gross naturalism to the curing of cherubim.
Walter Scott was master realist II you
forget his old-fashionc operate scenery,
costumes and epoch. Ii is TO Jane Austen
we must go for the realism admired Of Mr..
Howells-and justly. Her work Is all Of
piece. The wonderful Russians are realists,
but with a difference; and that deviation
forms the school. Taking Gogol as the
norm OF modern Russi an fiction-Leo
wiener's admirable anthology will surprise
you with its specimens of earlier men
we see the novel strained through the
rich, mystic imagination Of Dostoievsky;
viewed through the more equable. artistic
and also pessimistic temperament OF Tur-
genev, until II is seized by Leo Tolstoy.
q giant In power, and passionatey bent
20 serve his own purposes. Realism?
Yes, such as the world has never before
seen, and yet at times as idealistic as
Shelley. 1t is not surprising that MIR. John
N. Robertson wrote, as far back as 1891:
Sin that strange country where brute power
seems to be throttling all the highest life OF
the people there yet seems to
be no cessation in the production of truthful
literary art for justice Of per-
ception, soundness and purity Of taste.
and skill of workmanship, We in England.
with all our freedom. can offer no parallel
Perhaps freedom is the reason
And what will this rare critic among
critics say of the De Profundis OF Maxim
Gorky? Are there still darker depths TO
be explored? Little wonder he calls Kip
ling's sthe art of great talent with cheap,
culture and a fashy environment There
fore to talk OF such distinctions as realism
and romance is sheer waste Of time. 1t Is
but a recrudescence Of the old classic VS..
romantic conflict Of seventy-five years ago.
Some one once said that a classicist was
dead romanticist. II still holds good.
But here In America, -the colorless shadow
land Of fiction is there no tragedy in Gilead
for souls not supine? Some years ago Mr..
James Lane Allen. who cannot be accused
OF any hankerings after the heshpots OF
lola, wrote an energetic protest against
what he demonstrated the feminine prin-
ciple in our fiction. He did not mean the
books necessarily written by women-in
sooth, they were for the most part boiling
over with the joy Of life-but he meant the
feminism Of so much Of our novel writing,
and, as a rule. put forth by men. Still
stronger were the utterances OF that very
forcible woman and writer Gertrude
Atherton. With a candor that made some
vince she openly proclaimed the fact that
American fiction was drivel, that no matter
the talent man possessed he would sooner
or Later become emasculte-else not earn
a bare subsistence. All this was no news
Lots OF live men and women knew IL; but
Mrs. Atherton said II aloud.
IL fiction here Is a sanctuary for the old
lumber and dry rot OF the romantic
school, our stage is even worse. Love.
unless II be treated as a joke or a social