by the way, has very slight regard for the Stagirite.

Mr. Courtney presents the leading idea of tragedy as a conflict (p. 43): the essential character of the Greek drama lay in the conflict between the human will and fate (p. 43), in the Shakespearean drama between man and the laws of the universe (p. 70). So far his treatment is consistent enough, though probably not sufficient. But when we come to modern tragedy, the idea seems to be different. Mr. Courtney says of Ibsen, whom he regards rather dubiously, that his idea of tragedy is "the failure on the part of a given individual to achieve his mission" (p. 124), and he adds that this "might be the description of every tragedy in the world's history." But this later formula does not seem precisely the same as that which we had before, though presumably not inconsistent with it. Nor, if we return a moment to "The Second Mrs. Tanqueray,' shall we find that it is to be called a tragedy (let alone a great one) by this definition or by the earlier one. What is it that makes Paula Tanqueray a tragic figure? That her life is a conflict? that she fails to achieve her mission? Not at all she has no mission, nor is her life more of a conflict than is usual. Mr. Courtney does not say why she is to be thought of as tragic: he says (p. 129), "The character of Paula Tanqueray is one of the most triumphant creations which has ever been composed for the stage," but he does not say why she is to be thought of as a tragic figure; and a careful study of his three lectures shows that if we ac cept his views, Mrs. Tanqueray is not what he thinks she is.

My own idea of tragedy is somewhat different from Mr. Courtney's. It is, I am sorry to say, rather a cloudy, sometimes even a muddled, idea, but such as it is, it takes in Mrs. Tanqueray better than Mr. Courtney's idea does. So I shall try to explain it.

There is a great deal in the relation of individuals to the world in general that appears to us very strange. Sometimes things go exactly right, just as we expect, wish, hope, or think or admit they ought to go. There is no tragedy in such matters, although these things are not always pleasing. Often they are very sad. For example, the death of a noble young fellow in war is in itself not tragic. It may become a tragedy when we think of its effect upon his widowed mother whose life had been absorbed into him, or upon somebody else. But in itself such a death, although one of the

very sad things of life, is a wholly noble and fitting end to a devoted and unselfish life. It is not tragic: Mrs. Browning was quite right when she spoke of the young Lombard soldier in the hospital as "young and pathetic with dying." And like such a death is many an event in life which we cannot refuse to acknowledge precisely what it ought to be, and these events, happy or unhappy, we do not call tragic.

But there are also many events in life, many combinations of individual and universe as we might say, which we do not understand thoroughly, which appear to us quite incongruous, paradoxic, inconsistent, and not at all explainable according to our previous ideas. These combinations may be ridiculous when they are trivial, may be interesting when they are not trivial but still of no great import, may be both from different standpoints, and are tragic when they concern the great interests of those who have our sympathy. Thus Edipus, to use one of Mr. Courtney's examples, is a tragic figure, not because free will struggles with fate, but because we have here a good man who has unwittingly got into a horrible plight, he has done things so horrible that to try to realize them makes the heart almost stop beating. And why? No answer: good men ought not be involved in such difficulties; we would not even wish bad men such luck. wish bad men such luck. And such a spectacle chills one (much as Aristotle says): it is one of those cases where the human mind says to itself that in spite of every precaution,—all prudence, sagacity, far-seeing wisdom,—one may fall into horrible evil. And that is tragedy, for we cannot say why it should be so.

Then take Hamlet, to get something typical of Shakespeare. Here is a man who has almost everything of the best kind given him to begin the world with, position, brains, heart; he should be one to make his mark. Instead, he finds himself in such a position that he hurries along the course of events and is murdered. That is tragic, not as being a conflict, not even because the man is broken against one of the laws of the universe. It is tragic because when the conditions are once given we do not deny a single step, yet we cannot see why it should have happened at all. Granted that Hamlet was too weak of will, how did he get so? By too much thinking? Is not thinking the great faculty of man, the thing that raises him above the beasts? Why should too much thought put the thinker in the power of the circumstances around him? We do not understand these things. No one understands

"Hamlet"; as soon as one understands it, it ceases to be tragedy.

And to come down to Ibsen. Mr. Courtney mentions a number of plays, let us take "An Enemy of the People." Is Stockmann a tragic figure? Certainly, if conflict be the essence of tragedy, for he is always in a conflict. But I fancy no one will finish the play with the idea that they have seen a tragedy: they have seen a resolute battle between one man and a hundred or more; the man gave as good as he got and at the end was ready to go on. He is not a tragic figure (although a fine one) nor is the play a tragedy. When we turn to " A Doll's House," we find something different. We have here a conflict, certainly, between man and wife: but that is not tragedy, we understand that well enough for practical purposes; a brawling house is not tragic. But in "A Doll's House" it was an extraordinary case, or perhaps it only seemed so because of the skill in putting the case. Here were two people who might have lived happily, in the main that is, with no more disagreement than is well enough to accentuate trust and affection. And why did they not? Well, the world is going on nowadays and people are acting under influences that often they do not understand. A hundred years ago Nora and Thorvald would have understood each other well enough. To-day they do not, and we are not far enough from them to do much better. Therefore, as they are both our friends, they are tragic in our sight. There might have been happiness, but there was unhappiness. Was it by accident? Could they help it? Do we understand it? No, to all three. We do not understand Nora, and, as Mr. Courtney remarks, when interpreted by Duse we understand her less than ever.

Such is tragedy always, a pursuing of a pursuing of some of the strange and unexplainable courses of life. The finer and nobler the actors, the greater and more universal the evil which they do not escape, the greater the tragedy. This is the tragic element in the story of the Duc de Reichstadt. He is, on the whole, an attractive man with a good head and heart and great ambitions. People love him: he ought to do well. Now he does not do well at all, because although he has an immensely daring imagination, he has also a besetting triviality that prevents his ever understanding what it really is that he is trying to do. It does not appear that he had the remotest comprehension of what it meant to be Napoleon Bonaparte. He

knew that his father had been a glorious conqueror, and he knew accurately the uniforms of his father's army. But he does not seem to have known much more. The figure offers, then, one of those incongruities which are always painful to us in those who arouse our sympathy. In fact, the incongruity is not confined to the Duc de Reichstadt: it is so painfully apparent to each one of us when we think of ourselves and our own ideals, that it cannot but have for us an absorbing interest. The idea being, therefore, something that absorbs our interest, and having this characteristic of strange unexplainableness about it, we call it tragic. So much for an idea of tragedy different from Mr. Courtney's. Now for Mrs. Tanqueray, who will probably be remembered by many who have not Pinero's plays at hand. She is not a tragic figure by reason of any conflict nor any unfulfilled mission. She is tragic for another reason.

Mrs. Tanqueray was a woman who had come to a certain age and had got tired of her life. It had not been a happy one; we may blame it or not, that is beside the immediate question: there comes a man who loves her and believes in her, and she conceives a future very different from the past and much happier, and the play begins. In the play she finds that she cannot get rid of her past; it comes up against her more and more insistently and unbearably, and she finally kills herself. What is the tragedy? Merely this: that although we know that she could not have turned over a new leaf (gluing the old ones down), we are not at all clear as to why she could not. It seems as if she should have had a chance. Why cannot a woman like Paula Tanqueray wipe out the past and begin again? First, because the particular kind of past that she had cannot be wiped out, and second, because no past at all can be wiped But although we know this well enough we do not understand it, and so the particularly poignant or general cases make great tragedies. The Duc de Reichstadt was a peculiarly poignant and general case of an incongruity of life, poignant because the character has an intense personality, and general because his case is the case (to some degree) of every idealist. Mrs. Tanqueray, on the other hand, was neither poignant nor general; she was more the first than the second, but not truly either. So the play is not a great play, nor is any other play of Pinero's great, for the same

out.

reason.

Apply the test, however, to Ibsen's "Ghosts":

you will find that Mrs. Alving is a figure before which the imagination calms and quiets down and cools, so as to leave one in that state of mental insensibility that comes of pressing a question until we find there can be no possible answer to it. Or Sudermann's "Heimat." The play is not precisely a tragedy because no real evil befalls Magda. But it is a tragedy as far as concerns her father, not because he is a poignant case, but because he is such a general one: he is the father who cannot understand his child, the burger who cannot understand the world outside the city wall, the man of the past who cannot understand the present. Or Hauptmann: Hannele is a better instance than Heinrich in "The Sunken Bell"; Hannele, for whom the world is too brutal and who dies in a fantastic reminiscence of past imaginings. Rostand we have already tested: Cyrano would have done as well as the Duc de Reichstadt. Cyrano is a perfectly general type, the person who does not get his due (i. e., every one of us), but he is also a personality. Maeterlinck I must leave out because it seems almost a piece of folly to speak of not understanding the action presented in his plays. He surrounds his characters with such elements of mystery that it would be an exaggeration to say that we truly understood anything about them. That is why they are all ridiculous.to some people, tragic to others.

Mr. Courtney, then, might have found modern dramatists who illustrated the idea of tragedy better than Pinero. It must be remembered that he does speak of Maeterlinck

and Ibsen, and also that he delivered these

lectures before the appearance of "L'Aiglon." Also before Mr. Arthur Symons had translated "La Città Morte" and before Mr. Stephen Phillips had presented "Herod."

I have left myself too little space for these very interesting books. Of D'Annunzio's play, undoubtedly a powerful and emotional piece, it must be enough to confess that to its intoxicated, rarified, isolated atmosphere my criterion of the tragic has about as much relation as an ordinary foot-rule. In a certain way, perhaps, we might speak of it, but it would take too much explanation. "Herod," on the other hand, offers a somewhat better illustration. Herod is a man of ambition and of action, a man quite able to deal easily with every combination of the involved politics of his time. He is definite and direct, perfectly self-confi dent, perfectly adaptable to each new necessity,

But

never unready, and therefore powerful. he is in love with Mariamne, and so much in love with her that she is more important to him than anything else. That in itself is a tragic situation and one that nobody can understand. But in the case of Herod, the situation is further intensified by his own misapprehension. He is keen-sighted in politics but not with women. He does not seem clearly to understand whether he loves Mariamne better or his power; he certainly does not rightly understand her. With his absolute self-confidence he cannot see how a plan of his can go astray. Therefore he orders the death of Mariamne's brother. Mariamne finds him out and hates him. He is tricked into ordering her death, and then he finds out how much he loved her. All this is presented in very beautiful classic verse and the effect is very strong. Incongruity, paradox, inconsistency, and yet such as we cannot deny when we grant the facts at bottom, and so a tragedy. Whether a great tragedy or not will depend ultimately upon the breadth of the motive, the wideness of the general appeal. The play has the preserving power of style, but of course something more is needed for immortality.

EDWARD E. HALE, JR.

THE CHURCH IN THE PHILIPPINES.*

It has been one of the greatest of misfortunes for both the United States and the Phil

ippines that their relations should have drifted into the bubbling chaldron of American politics, making misrepresentation the rule and investigation a practical impossibility. But not the exception, and rational knowledge and an equal misfortune is promised in the possi bility of a sectarian aspect being given to the question through the attitude of the Filipinos toward the Friars of their islands and the attitude of the American government toward the Friars. The question is a delicate and somewhat complicated one, but its details are so little a matter of public knowledge that the recent books by Messrs. Sawyer and Robinson deserve especial attention from the light they throw on it and the excuse they give for dwelling on that phase of the general topic at this time.

Mr. Frederic H. Sawyer is an Englishman

* THE INHABITANTS OF THE PHILIPPINES. By Frederic H. Sawyer. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.

THE PHILIPPINES: THE WAR AND THE PEOPLE. By Albert G. Robinson. New York: McClure, Phillips & Co.

resident in Luzon for the last fourteen years, and a traveller from time to time through the archipelago. He is in keen sympathy with the Americans in their general design of bringing the islands under their control, though sharply critical of the methods they have used up to this time. Mr. Albert G. Robinson was the efficient correspondent of the New York "Evening Post" in the islands from July, 1899, to February, 1900, and his volume is made up for the most part of letters sent during that time to his paper, revised in the light of the latest information within his possession. To the seeker after truth both volumes are invaluable; to the partisan anxious only to conceal facts they will, it is to be feared, prove unwelcome, so certain is it that the taint of Europeanism and imperialism brings distrust of enlightenment.

It has been pointed out before that the treaty of Paris, while it settled no question of human rights, devoted Articles VIII. and IX. to maintaining the property and other material rights of the religious orders in the Philippines. Mr. Sawyer believes the Americans to have been imposed upon in this regard, and it is certain that the advice of Mr. John Foreman concerning the matter was deliberately rejected. "As soon as the effect of the treaty was known," Mr. Sawyer adds, "Archbishop Nozaleda, who had fled to China from the vengeance he feared, returned to Manila. seemed to have a good deal of interest with General Otis, and this did not please the natives, nor inspire them with confidence." When it is realized that this prelate was held responsible by the Filipinos for the enormities of the 1896 massacres, including the martyrdom of Josè Rizal, it is apparent that a mistake has been made from the point of view of everyone except the Friars, of whom the Archbishop, himself a Dominican, is the representative.

He

For in the Philippines, as in Cuba and Porto Rico, the natives, though devoted sons of the Church, are not pledged to any admiration for the Friars or the Spanish clergy generally. Their uniform ambition has been to have clergymen of their own race, secular priests, not religious. It is a matter of common knowledge that the evils which run in the train of beneficed Friars were one of the principal causes of the Lutheran Reformation, and that the Church recognized the justness of the universal complaints in the Council of Trent by forbidding Friars to hold benefices. Un

run.

fortunately the Philippines, like the United States, are in partibus infidelium, and in them the decrees of the Tridentine Council do not The complaints of Europe in Luther's time are the complaints of the Filipinos to-day. They are devoted to their native priests, and their revolt is not against the faith but the discipline of the Church, nor are they open to criticism from Roman sources any more than those wise ecclesiastics who sought to do away with such abuses by forbidding Friars from benefices at Trent in the sixteenth century. Against these abuses the Tagals arose again and again, laying down thousands of their lives to be free. Yet it is with the Friars that the American government has allied itself, and it is with them its army and navy is acting at the present time, as its policy has been dictated by them since the occupation of Manila, particularly since the return of Archbishop Nozaleda upon the signing of the treaty at which Filipino representation was forbidden. It is this that causes Mr. Sawyer to exclaim:

"More important still was it to take care that the Tagal insurrection should not have been in vain. That rebellion probably cost fifty thousand human lives, immense loss of property, and untold misery. It was fought against the Friars and was at last triumphant. The Spanish Friars had been expelled and their lands confiscated. Were the Americans to bring them back and guarantee them in peaceable possession, once more riveting on the chain the Tagals had torn off? This seems to have been General Otis's intention. I think he might have stood upon the accomplished fact. But he did not." (The italics are ours.)

When Mr. Sawyer comes to sum up the blunders of the Peace Commission he sets them down as follows:

"1. They took General Merritt's opinion that the Tagals would submit, and accepted Mr. Foreman's assurance of Tagal plasticity and accommodating nature.

"2. They disregarded the intimation of Don Felipe Agoncillo, the accredited agent of the Tagals, that these would accept no settlement to which they were not parties.

"3. They treated several millions of civilized Christian people like a herd of cattle to be purchased with

the ranch.

"4. Under Article VIII., they guaranteed the religious orders the possession of estates already taken from them.

"5. Under Article IX., they gave the expelled friars the right to return and exercise their profession."

Concerning the abuses of the Friars, it will, perhaps, clear up the situation if the reader consult the pages of Mr. John Foreman's book, -remembering that Mr. Foreman is himself a devout son of the Church, or such extracts from it as are given by Mr. Herbert Welsh in his "The Other Man's Country" (Lippin

cott, 1900), or in Mr. Dean C. Worcester's "The Philippine Islands" (pp. 343 et seq).

Mr. Robinson is not so explicit, but his meaning is not open to doubt when he says:

"I do not care to go into details concerning the

charges of gross immorality, wrong, and oppression, that are brought against the Orders as organized bodies and against the members of the orders as individuals, from the archbishop [Nozaleda] downward. The charges are brought openly, and there can be no question that many of them are capable of the fullest sub

stantiation."

He then enters into a consideration of the advent of the Most Reverend Placide Louis Chapelle, archbishop of New Orleans, at once the apostolic delegate of His Holiness Pope Leo XIII. and the commissioner of President McKinley. He arrived in Manila. A public reception in the nature of an official welcome was given him by Archbishop Nozaleda at which the American authorities, military and civil, were the principal attendants. Soon after El Progreso, the newspaper leading the attack upon the Friars, published an interview with him, never denied to this time, in which up Archbishop Chapelle was quoted as saying (the translation is Mr. Robinson's):

"The four public lectures given by Father McKinnon caused President McKinley to realize the necessity for the monastic orders remaining in the Philippines. I come to Manila with ample authority for everything. The friars of the Philippines have alarmed themselves without any reason. I know their importance and am openly predisposed in their favor. If the friars occupy the parishes they will be considered as elements of order and therefore as American agents."

That the Friars are in the saddle may be read in an authorized interview with Archbishop Chappelle, published as a special dispatch to the Chicago Tribune" on March 4, 1901, in which he is quoted as saying (the italics are ours):

66

"First, I came here to reorganize Church affairs on American lines, and to place her in a position similar to the one she holds in the United States.

"Second, to accomplish this I will do my utmost to bring American priests here as soon as possible, and the friars will not oppose them. On the contrary, they will be pleased if a goodly number come, and they promise to do everything towards their maintenance and their instruction in the character and needs of the Filipinos."

It is, therefore, doubly certain that, since Archbishop Chapelle's coming to the islands of the East the Friars, returning in great numbers from the surrounding countries to which the Filipinos had driven them, have been dictating the policy there of both church and state, of both Leo XIII. and William McKinley. This is the more to be remarked, because

this same prelate had previously been the apostolic delegate to Cuba and Porto Rico, where all his influence had been used in favor of the insular as distinguished from the peninsular clergy, leaving those islands of the West fairly in the hands of their native secular priests and in the way of becoming fully so, with the Spaniards returning to Europe and freedom buttressed by just that much-the opposite in every particular of his procedure and its results in the unhappy Philippines. Tyranny loves company the world over; but who could predict that the Stars and Stripes would ever march to the tune of the Spanish Inquisition?

WALLACE RICE.

THE EARLY POEMS OF TENNYSON.* Mr. John Churton Collins has recently edited the early poems of Tennyson with the purpose of giving all their variant readings. He understands by the early poems, the editions of 1830, 1833, 1842, the prize poem "Timbuctoo," 1827, and a few scattering pieces, one or two of which appeared as late as 1851. Of his work he speaks in the Preface with charming modesty :

"I must, I fear, claim the indulgence due to one who attempts, for the first time, a critical edition so perplexingly voluminous in variants as Tennyson's. I can only say I have spared neither time nor labour to be accurate and exhaustive. . . . I am not conscious that I have left any variant unrecorded, but I should not like to assert that this is the case."

Mr. Collins is wrong (and this is a remarkable oversight) when he says that "attempts for the first time" as the Cambridge Tennyson (reviewed in THE DIAL December 16, 1898) was the pioneer in this field. The Bibliography is good, though by no means entirely correct or complete. As was pointed out in a communication to THE DIAL, May 16, 1899, no Tennyson bibliography yet published is free from errors and numerous omissions.

As to the variants, the editor has done his work quite well. No one who has not compared texts with the purpose of noting every variation however trifling can have any idea how onerous the task is, and how many things provokingly remain unseen after one has looked long. While, however, the work has been done

*THE EARLY POEMS OF ALFRED LORD TENNYSON. Edited, with a critical Introduction, Commentaries, and Notes, together with the various readings, a Transcript of the Poems temporarily and finally suppressed, and a Bibliography, by John Churton Collins. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons.