The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1906-10-14
fHE ADVENT or ". Y. MOODY.
sFHE GkEAF DIVIDE" A DEMAR-
ATI0N IN HIS GROWTH.
Ehe Drama OF self.RishteOuS PuritAnIsm
- W. N Rough Right OF Might-Anti-
pc Imperialism and Manifest Destiny
ID h the Great American Playf

~ VI
W. the Rough Right OF Might-Anti-
Imperialism and Manifest Destiny
the Great American Playf
In the first enthusiasm OF the production
AZ The Great Divide at the able hands
of Henry Miller and Margaret Anglin. the
temptation was strong to proclaim II as
marking a new and better epoch in the
Anarlcan drama. Here was a play on a
vital and permanent theme of our life,
deeply imagined and wrought out with
d skill which. while modest and simple,
was as strongly dramatic as literary.
Beside IL the cleverness and tho mirth OF
our previous best, its satire, it's heroisms
and its sentiment seemed to shrink, and
even the masterworks Of the dominant
school OF the English stage looked pale.
Ten days have not lessened the impression
or essentially altered il. But one swallow,
As has been remarked in another page OF
this paper, does not make a drink-from
fhe highball or the high Pierian spring.
For the present it may be as well TO look
backward rather than forward The certain
fact In that The Great Divide" marks a
new stage in the progress Of its author.
Whether it has any larger significance
depends on the hnslity with which he ia
on with his old loves.
Mr.. Moody has not always been content
% brew his own liquor. Body and favor
both have been under suspicion Of alien
origin. In the days when he was an under
o graduate Poet (allow him the capital. good
oompoeitor; it was about the only capital
any Of US had) one Of the intellectual leaders
OF Cambridge society, a lady Of fervent
appreciations, said that his poems were
so good that you could hardly tell them
from the minor poems of Browning, The
rest of us undergraduates, who had the
vanity to write nothing but ourselves,
however thin, smiled at this.
. But even then, as l think we all admitted,
the bead Of his liquor was his own. What
sver or whoever he was, he was always a
parsonage OF might. There was fire in his
heart. and his mind was a clear cut die that
stamped out phrases ike Greek coins
To-day more than one of our literary critics
have proclaimed him the strongest and most
original OF the younger American poets.
With that / have nothing to do. 1t is enough
to point out that he has still. as a poet, been
under the influence Of the printed page.
There is that terrible example Of The
Observation-Disclosures because if it had not
been an example it would have been a work
Of consummate imagination and humor.
You remember what it is about-or il you
don't you ought to be told. A balmy citizen
has fingered too long at the circus, and
before he is turned out of the tent has had
the balm Of his rotations turned to spiritual
d. T. in ~philosophic contemplation Of the
animals-the huge and grotesque expert
ment of evolutionary nature in the process
Of producing her reputed masterpiece, man.
Here. round about me. were her vagrant
births;
Sick dreams she had, fierce projects she
essayed;
qualms. her fiery prides, her crazy mirths:
The troubllngs OF her spirit as she stray ed,
cringed, gloated. Knocked, was lordly, was
afraid.
On that long road she went to seek mankind.
But Why should they, her botohwork. turn
about
Aid stare dlsdain at me. her finished jobp
Why was the place one vast. suspended shout
or laughter? Why did all the daylight throb
With soundless gursw and dumb-stricken
sob?
Helpless stood among those wful cages;
Tho beasts we're walking loose. and / was
baRgedi
], ], last product Of the totins ages,
Goal OF heroic feet that never Jagged
A little man in trousers. slightly jagged.
%
n you're q sweet thing In a nower-bed hat,
Or her best fellow with your tie tucked in,
Don't souander loves bright springtime
girding at
In old chimpanzee with an Irish chin.
There may be hidden meaning in his oriaI
That poem is the work Of q man whose
imagination kindled its own fame and
whose mind burns the smoke. But even
n the height OF the vernacular. don't you
recognize. the dominant voice? Wait for
the opening stanza, and you will.
Thank God my brain is not inclined to cut A
Ouch capers every day! I'm just about
Aellow. but then-There goes the tent flap
shut.
Rejns fl the wind. Thought so. every snout
Vas twitchinS when the keeper turned me out.
II you are still in doubt, turn to IVY
East Duchess" o almost any Of the dram
ado lyrics. II Is Browning at his best, and
With even an added touch Of humor-but
yet Browning.
And there are others. The Fire Bringer'
h to all tntents a Greek drama. The
dyamGtis persona are creatures of Hellenic
myth; there are lyric chorlsee. Here,
however. Mr.. Moody, though still an
imagination Of might and a voice Of potent
music, Is less than his originals. Eschylus,
Sophocles and Euripides all knew their
kheatre, wrote for il, enlarged it's bonds.
But Mr.. Moody's play, in spite Of a certain
crude dramatic quality in the fable, is
wholly, at times almost ludicrously, I'M
playable. The real p~rotagonist is the
scenery, and its greatest achievement is
no cease being murky and become bright
with the stolen fire. Prometheus does a
great deed, but it is OF the stage. On it he
end all the rest p~hilosophize in blank verse
and rejoice or sorrow in lyrics. When
hey are at their most poetical they are
describing the changes Of light that take
place on the back drop.
HMr. Moody's most celebrated poem Is
SAn Ode in Time Of Hesitation which, as
bil be remembered, was inspired by the
eAint-Gaudens 10 Shaw and his
negro soldiers, was written during the
Philippine insurrection and first appeared in
tbe Atlantic Monthly. To me at least il Is
en- its Rsthetic side an echo Of the odes OF
James Russell Lowell; and its anti-imperial-
lam is derived from the outcry raised by
howell two generations ago against the
Mexican War. Doubtless there is an in
ApRion also Of the tracts Of Edward Atkinson
Snn the sonnet OF the p~oetical champion Of