The New York herald., 1922-06-25

10 du dilfllNtrSdIy. Arthur
Schnitzler celebrated his sixtieth
birthday on May Is. They take
these things very seriously in Cen
trail Europe. They make them the
occasion of critical summing up, the
establishment of historic perspec-
tive, the Interpretation of progress
or the reverse. They do it more than
ever now. Think of the changes in
the lives of the Central European
peoples spanned by the careers of
their elder authors? Schnitzler and
Vienna-those are almost two names
for one thing. And what of Vienna?
Is the distracted. starving capital
still the old imperial city," as its
good natured inhabitants loved to
call it? Is it still the city of
Mozart. Beethoven, GrillparLer-
Arthur Schnitzler?
Well, whether it is or not, the
best of Vienna lives and will live
on in the plays and stories of
Schnitzler. These are appearing in
new editions with supplementary
volumes of his later works, and,
though his audience has always been
enormous, it has increased still
more. In America Schnitzler has
been talked about and written about
and a few plays and fewer stories
have been translated. Yet the great
Austrian is practically unknown. For
he is a stylist; you cannot separate
his matter from his manner, his sub
stance from his form.
SchnitzIer, Analyst of the Soul.
Imagine Henry James, all delicacy,
subtlety, finesse. verbal beauty that
is never obtrusive. And then imagine
him plus passions. without preju-
dices, hesitancies, exclusions-prob-
ing to the uttermost depth of every
problem with the infinitely precise,
cool, tender, pitiful touch of great
surgeon. That is Schnitzler. whose
father was a physician, who is a
physician himself and who has never
ceased to be in his deepest con-
sciousness an analyst. diagnos-
tician of the ills of the body and,
above all, of the soul. The stories
ought to be translated-all of them.
They would be a fruitful influence
on our new fiction. am glad to
see that the Dial promises DIR.
Graessler." But that is late. The
early ones count for more.
The plays have not been seen on
our stage. / think they will be. We
are getting to be more concerned
than we were with what Schnitzler
calls the vast domain" of the soul,
with its contradictions, intricacies.
aches. A public that buys $4,000
copies of Hergesheimer's "Cytherea"
yearns. without knowing it, for The
Fairy Tale" THE Light O. Love"
"The Lonely Way" "The Vast Do
main" Prof. Bernhard" The
sage's Wife" "Twilit Souls" "The
WAY Out" Miracles and Masks" !"
But both the stories and the plays
mast be artistically translated.
Schnitzler's dramatic dialogue is
exouisitely finished and musical. The
finish and the music must be kept.
But his American day is coming.
German Revolutionary Literature.
It is not likely that We shall get
very much out of the revolutionary
literature of the moment in Germany.
There are fine things in it like
Georg Kaiser's From Morn to Mid
night" which the Theater Guild has
Just produced so beautifully and in
telligently at the Garrick. But many
of the works Of the new movement
are as distracted as the finances OF
the country. They are striving after
a new form, but they have not
found it; they have substituted
flight for goal, ecstasy for truth TO
nature, speed for rhythm.
The Drama of the Present.
An admirable and highly informa-
tive work just published is Max
Freyhan's "The Drama OF the Pres
ent" 1T is to be heartily commended