New-York tribune., 1905-02-05
Gbe Netu11lork Gribm,re
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY s, 1905.
ILLUSTRATED SUPPLEMENT.


outside his native land, but when the rumor
was spread that he was likely to be hanged
for his relation to the recent disturbances.
voices were everywhere raised in protest, and
the exposure of the rumOr as an absurdity was
welcomed with feeling indicating the univer-
sal solicitude for the fate of n man of books.
Nothing quite like the manifestation of sym
pathy shown for Gorky in the press has
occurred since the time of kiplings illness In
New York. The history of authorship in Russia
is sown thick with incidents going to show the
pertinacity with which the government has re-
strained the efforts of the writing tribe to exert
same influence on public affairs. We all know
what the censor in that country has done to
keep the pen and the printing press within
bounds and doubtless he knows how he is
regarded elsewhere in the world. That redoubt-
able functionary, whoever he may be, must eX-
perience some queer sensations when the news
reaches him of the uproar over the Gorky
rumor and that individual himself, by the way,
must be touched when he comes to realize how
far his name has travelled and how generously
he is considered But Russia has known for
some time how jealous the world is of the
safety of her literary celebrities Foreign opin-
ion has surely had something to do with Tol-
stoy's immunity from interference.
Apropos of Russia, an amusing controversy
has been going on in the London Saturday Re
view" over the translation of Tolstoy's play,
1.-The Power of Darkness, made by Mr.. Aylmer
Maude Max, ~The Saturdays" clever dra-
matte critic, found the version inadequate,
whereupon Mr. G. B. Shaw hastened to assert
that If the effect of his article should be to dis
credit Mr.. Alymer Maude as a translator Max
had better have hung an average daily criticism
round his neck and cast himself into the Ser
pentine" His demand for "a canon of trans
lation for plays written in dialect has moved
the resourceful Max to elaborate an amusing
argument. Mr.. Maude has made one of TOl-
stOy's peasant characters use the phrase, "Selp
me- as preface to assertions which she fears
might not be accepted. Max protests that this
instantly makes us think of an English instead
of a Russian speaker. He does not care how
accurate the phrase may be. He maintains
that it calls attention to itself as question of
language, and, he adds "the duty of a trans
lator for the theatre is very much akin to the
duty of an oral interpreter. When two men
meet each ignorant of the others language, it
is the interpreters business to maze them un-
derstand each other as fellow men, not to pro-
claim the exact width of the gulf that separates
them as foreigners" In other words when we
see "The Power of Darkness" we should be al
lowed to see it not so much as an English or
Russian play, but just human play. Who
shall say that Max is wrong?
Mr.. George Moore, the novelist has been ac-
knowledging his debt of inspiration to Zola
You know" he wrote the other day, "how
well / knew Zola, and how much indebted
am to him. He was, as it were, the spring
board from which 1 jumped into the world of
letters" Though the confession tells us nothing
that is precisely new, we cannot help pausng
upon it for the sake of what it suggests. In
the author of Evelyn Inness" we have per-
feet example Of the man who knows how to
profit by the work of another without initiating
it. When, as a young man in Paris, he came
into contact with Zola, Manet and other figures
in the naturalistic movement which seriously
influenced French art and literature, he emu
lated them, after his fashion. But even then it
was his fashion, and as time has gone on Mr.
Moore has shown in the substance and in the
style of his work how the value of a principle
depends upon what you do with it Too many
of Zola's followers have assumed that all they
needed to do was to copy their master. Mr.
Moore adopted his friends methods only as n
means to an end, and he has reaped his reward
1t took the public long time to apprehend the
merit of his novels. Because there were hints
of Zola in his earlier books they assumed that
he was all for French realism" and the world
well lost Latterly they have discovered the
truth and know that whatever he may have
drawn from Zola his books are emphatically
his own, and good books into the bargain