The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-05-10
WE ARE STILL IN THE PATENT MEDICINE
 PERIOD OF POLITICS. 7 SAYS DR; GRIGGS, IN
 DISCUSSING WAR DRAMA AND DEMOCRACY
By DOLLY DALRYMPLE


 .iNNN my way to meet Dr. Edward tW y Howard Grlggs, the distinguished
 scholar and man-of-letters yes-
 terday, it occurred to me that he would
 be the first successful lecturer that could recall Interviewing" and the thought filled me with a very real trepid- ation.
 Successful lecturers, I opined, have a certain kinship with art which spells high browism," that makes them espe- cial1y inaccessible to diletante; there's s something awe-inspring about them just as there is about some masterpieces of stone which the sculptor has carved; but to my delight found that pr. Griggs was long way below that pinnacle of ! inaccessibility which I had built about him, for more human, a more charming, 1 a more companionable gentleman, I have i seldom met, in spite of the fact that his emnence as a lecturer a scholar, and a writer, is such that few men of today have ever climbed any where fear it. 1 Dr. Griggs needs no introduction from me to Birmingham people, for his pres- ence here during the past few years has been so vital, his work so effective, that few regard him as a stranger; indeed, Dr. Griggs belongs to Birmingham, if one is to judge by his popularity and the numbers of genuine, close, warm friends he has made here during his lecture courses.
 Naturally dhe subject of his lectures this season being "Maeterinck-the Poet and the Mystic') I asked him some ques- tions about this great genius who has built about himself "a temple of art this wonderful outstanding figure among Belgian writers today who has won world audience and particularly a wide response in English-speaking lands And of the war, and what it's effect would be upon the literature and the drama of the world.
 Dr. Griggs began to speak in that soft, deliberate, musical intonation of his-so familiar to his audiences-and it was only what you and I might have said about the weather; for it struck right into his human love of things-the sunlight-the fresh air, the universal and tinged with such charm of expression, that the sincerely and the earnestness of his work life work was insistent in it's appeal
 If Maeterlinck isn't crushed by the war his genius should be deeply inspired by it. said Dr. Griggs 'ands~we may expect work in the future from him better than anything that he has ever yet achieved He has not, of course, the smit- Ing power of Ibsen; Maeterlincks early dramas of subtle moods and haunting dreams, though perhaps his most original work, are tinged with morbidness in con ceiving human lives as always enthralled in the web of malevolent Fate. This mood, permanent in many French sym bolists was for Maeterlinck, but a pass ing phase. His Flemish inheritance, his study of the great mystics and, above all, the redeeming love of a strong and balanced woman, made transient the youthful pessimism and wakened him to recognition of the beauty and reality of life. From the dramas of death as fate, he passes to the sane, optimistic phil osophy of wisdom and destiny. with it's artistic counterpart Monna Wanna, a drama strongly gripping human reality and portraying noble, exalted woman, wholly modern in character. To study him is to commune with one of the most open, candid, variously gifted, most gen. erous of minds reflecting the life, the last thinking and the central problems of the modern world"
 And what will be the effect of this world war now waging upon the drama, 1 and literature in general?'' I asked curi- 1 ously.
 All wars for unity and justice have been stimulating to people, said Dr. Griggs Tn nearly every case there has been great period in literature following the past two years, people have been thinking far more earnestly, and now that we are actually involved in the war, l their serious thought must develop very rapidly. The next 50 years ought to be a |