The weekly times-record. (Valley City, N.D.) 1912-1922, 1921-03-24
WILLIAM MOODY is
SUBJECT OF PAPER

Miss Gubeiman addressed the fac
ulty Club at it's last meeting on Will
liam Vaughn Moody and his work as
a dramatist. ...
VIM. Vaughn Moody was one of the
famous literary lights produced by
the Hoosier state. He was born in a
small Indiana town in 1862 After
graduating from Harvard he became
an instructor in the University of Chi
cago. Among the students he was
considered dreamer.
While he was still in college he
began to write lyric poems. Later he
wrote some poetic dramas and in the
last five years Of his life he wrote two
prose dramas.
shall contine my discussion of his
drama to the prose dramas, "The
Great Divide" and ''The Faith Healer"
"The Great Divide" was produced
in New York in 1906 with Henry Mil
Ter as Stephen Client and Margaret
Anglin as Ruth Jordan. 1t attracted
the favorable attention Of theatre
goers and made enough money for it's
author to enable him to give up his
work as an instructor in the Univer-
sity Of Chicago and devote all his time
to his writings.
The story deals with New England
girl who had gone to Arizona to help
her brother in business enterprise.
To save herself from the violence of
three brutes, whose passions were in
famed with liquor, she picks out the
least Objectionable Of the three and
agrees to marry him if he will save
her from the others. She realizes that
it is ignoble to accept life upon such
terms and tries to kill herself but can
not force herself to do so. She says,
II ought to die. / have right to die.
But Il cannot, l cannot! love my life
I must live. In torment, in darkness
it doesn't matter. I want my life.
I will have it," In his poetic drama.
"The Masque of Judgment" one of
the characters expresses the same at
titude toward life:
Who loves not life
Receiveth not life's gifts at any hand.
After the man has saved her, the
girl pleads with him not to hold her
to her promise but he insists, 'and she
goes with him. Thus ends the first.
act.
In the next act we see the two in
their home eight months later. The
man has prospered in business way,
but he has not been able to make his
wife forget the way in which they met.
At the end of the act, she tells him of
the hope she had entertained during |
the first few days Of their life togeth-
err that they would be able to cleanse
/ l..,, al, hn cto Nf
sordid agreement, and begin life that
was worth while, but she declared that
they have failed to do so: She then
leaves him and goes with her brother.
The scene of the last act is the girls ;
home, and the time
six months later. When nothing serves
to arouse in the girl any interest IN
life. not even her baby. her brothers
wife proposes that they send for the
husband, who had come east on the
next train after her departure. The
TWO are brought together and the stu
alton is cleared up. ,,.
The girl thus explains her attitude
during their life together: another
woman would have gone straigt to
her goal. You might have found such
: one. But instead you found me,
woman in whose ears rang night
and day the cry of an angry heaven
to US both-FCleanse yourselves Ana
I went about doing it in the only way
knew-by wretchedness. by selt7tor-
ture, by trying blindly to pierce your
careless heart with pain"
The man then describes the miracu-
lous transformation which he had un-
dergone through his meeting with her;
He Compares It to the "second Birth"
of which he had heard a munster
speak: "The way ne went on ne
might have been behind the door IN
that little justice den at San Jasln1o
saying to the Recording Angel: 10
YOU see that rascal? Take notlce!
There amt an ouce Of bone or drop
of blood in him but what's new man. -.
OF her theory of suffering and sacrl-
fee, he says: "What have we got 70
do with suffering and sacrifice? mat
NAV be the law for some and I've
tried hard to see it as our law ana
i ought I had succeeded. But
haven't" He declares that even the
whiskev, the sun, and the Devil las
he puts it( which had brought him TO
her cabin had proved blessing to
him since he had thus met her. he
says: ..,.o,,,
"The only thing you can't throw
back at me is the man you've. made
of me, the life and the meaning OF
the life you've showed me the way TO-
At the end she admits that she has
been wrong: "You had risen IN one
hour to wholly new existence, wn!ch
flooded the present and the future win
brightness, yes, and reached back into
our past and made of it-made OF all
of it-something to cherish. You
have taken the good of our lives and
grown strong. I have taken the evll
and grown weak, weak unto death.
Teach me to live as you do So every
thing ends happily. ;,
Such a play could not fail to call |
forth many criticisms: Ehz. Luther
Cary, writing in the Century. says it
shows proof of the authors creative
power and takes announcement. from
the fact that the talent. from which
the play grew, like its hero, is "un-
finished She predicted great things
from Mr.. Moody as dramatist:
e Another critic said of this play
- 4Lo Gooth "of Tho ALL