The Sun and the New York herald., 1920-07-11

w.,
is the most dramatic from the point OF view
Of the spectator and he would seem to pos
sess the most temperament In fact. he Is
calm and his work Is done scientifically and
without furore. divine or human. He is of
the French school to which Sarah Bern
hardt and Lucien Guitry, in another branch
of art. belong. and this schools first law is
that the artist who means to control his
audience must first Of all control himself
To be able 10 do so after long and deliberate
practice does not by any means destroy
temperament. 1t would be possible, so II is
said for NJ. Wolf TO answer a question while
his mind is concentrated say, on the score
OF his opera The Blue Bird"
While this power Of restraint is inculcated
by the Conservatoire and an effort to ac-
quire II is perennially being made by its
students. not all of them succeed in killing
the original man. In the records Of many
famous French composers, the artistic tenn
perament is proved to have been OF tre-
r:endous Importance In their career.
Hector BerlioZ is case in point, although
mis- connection with the Conservatoire was
eight In his memoirs it is possible TO see
that by yielding to that temperament he in
creased often his own difficulties. But with
out indulgence of this sort in his musical
compositions as In his writings both would
have lacked the force and elan for which
they are noted.
Variation a Curse.
ITO vary from the kindly race Of men"
has been a curse from the days Of Prone
theus and the eagles have not ceased to
pluck at the liver Of mems benefactors. The
artistic temperament Is a curse to those who
possess it, curse that lights on the best and
ncbest of mankind. For It is not an empty
compliment to refer to the artists who create
sor us by the use Of such superlatives and
their individual curse is the same, difficult to
Eear, no matter what they create. All great
and high art is purchased by suffering. 1t
is not the mechanical product Of dexterous
craftsmanship.
People, ignorant of the facts, applied at
one time these words "dexterous craftsman
ship to designate the quality of the work
Of Henrik Ibsen. Now that they know his
life and how the least condition unsuited to
him deprived him of the power to produce.
as, for instance, when his wife and son by
chance saw a scenario by him, and this
chance killed the play In oUo. they have to
withdraw the words. In a line or two of
The Master Builder" Ibsen reveals how the
tense strings that give the highest ana
sweetest notes are in greatest danger of
being overstrung. The Master Builder says:
Then l saw plainly why God had taken
my little children from me. 1t was that I
should have nothing else TO attach myself
to, no such thing as love and suffering, you
understand. Il was to be only a master
builder-nothing else
Which would one prefer to have, the be-
atified condition of the oyster or the misery
of human existence? Whatever Aristotle
may say of the oysters easy life. most Of
us would prefer our hardships with sense
of what ameliorates them. And the pro-
gression is constant and there are compen-
sations. The animal has consciousness. man
has self-consciousness. and the artist has
over consciousness. The curse Of the last
is what many would welcome.
Temperament makes one an individual and
an excess of 1t an artist. Applied universally
it would reform the race quicker than pro-
hibition viii do it, there would be no more
mental or physical, left in this
survival of the fttest, instead there would
be restored to earth the olympian gods