pieces for a theatre that existed only in his own imagination.

It was in 1833 that de Musset became involved in his famous affair with Georges Sand. Their trip to Italy took place in December of that year, and lasted till April, 1834, when de Musset returned to Paris. His final rupture with the famous female novelist took place in 1835. It was precisely at this period — and, for the most part, during the Italian tour- that de Musset wrote nearly all the comedies composed for the theatre of his dreams. Even as a closet-dramatist [if a critic of the living theatre can stoop to use that hated, self-defeating word], de Musset's work was finished for all time when he was scarcely twenty-six years old. It is only fair, in any posthumous appraisement, to remember that the comedies of Alfred de Musset were written not only for a non-existent theatre but written also by a young man in his early twenties.

The poet lived till 1857, when he was forty-seven years of age; and, before he died, the theatre of his time began to find him out. His one-act play, Caprice, was the first of all his comedies since La Nuit Vénitienne that was acted in his life-time. It was first presented, far away from France, in the French theatre of Petrograd; and its success was so striking that the piece was soon re-imported to Paris by Madame Allan. This was in November, 1847,- nearly fifteen years after Caprice had been composed. Within the next four seasons, the poet witnessed the production of half a dozen of his other plays in Paris; and, subsequent to his death, his career as a contributor to the current

theatre was continued. On ne Badine pas avec l'Amour -which has remained in the repertory of the Comédie Française was first produced in 1861. Barberine - which was acted in New York in 1918 by the company of Le Vieux Colombier - was not presented for the first time till 1882,- nearly half a century later than the period in which it was composed.

The biography of Barberine is unique in the history of the theatre. This piece was written, in his early twenties, by a man who had retired from the theatre before the date of his majority and was almost totally unknown to his contemporaries as a dramatist. It was acted for the first time fifty years after it was written and twenty-five years after the author had been laid away in his resting grave. Yet in 1918- when de Musset, to count the ticking of the clock exactly, was one hundred and eighteen years of age-Barberine pleased many English-speaking people in a city half the world away from Paris. To students of the theatre, the record of this fragile, unpretentious play is more remarkable, in many ways, than that of Hamlet. That sickly little willow-wand in Père-Lachaise need no longer weep and wither: a breeze is blowing from the west to cause its leaves to overturn their silver sides in a ripple of delighted laughter.

Barberine is delicately entertaining; and the appeal that it makes to the aesthetic sensibilities is representative of the appeal that is inherent in all the comedies composed by Alfred de Musset. Disdaining the theatre of his time, this poet understood more clearly than the celebrated author of the Preface to "Cromwell" the

meaning and the method of the comedies of Shakespeare. Alone among all modern playwrights, he has recaptured and restored the magic atmosphere of the Forest of Arden,— an atmosphere which marries to identity the usually antithetic moods of loveliness and wit. He flutes a little melody upon a slender reed; but this music wakens echoes from an organ which resounds with the diapason of eternity.

The story of Barberine is suggestive of any of the hundred tales of Boccaccio, which date from a period when narrative was naïve and had not yet become selfconscious and sophisticated. Count Ulric is married to a perfect wife. A dashing, attractive, and selfconceited youth-Astolphe de Rosenberg- makes a bet with Ulric that he can seduce the later's wife while her husband is away from home; and the laying of this wager is witnessed by the Queen of Hungary. The Baron Rosenberg goes to the castle of Count Ulric, secures admittance as a guest, and tries his arts against the Countess Barberine; but he is unexpectedly repulsed by the clever Countess and locked up in a room to which both food and water are denied except upon condition that Rosenberg shall devote his entire time, without remission, to the woman's work of spinning. In this ridiculous predicament, the incarcerated Baron is discovered ultimately by Count Ulric and by the gracious Queen of Hungary.

This is a story of the sort that according to our modern standards may be described as a tale intended to be written in words of one syllable. But the author has embroidered it with many interesting

corollaries and has told it with an art that is reminiscent of that sudden and surprising wisdom which comes occasionally from the mouths of babes. The whole play is so child-like, yet so utterly delightful, that it makes us fumble for a reason to explain the purpose of the manifest complexity of the majority of modern dramas.

Most of de Musset's plays provoke a similar response. Their merit is so simple and so obvious that it remained unrecognized for half a century. It was deemed impracticable to expect a gathered public to enjoy a sort of day-dream that a poet had narrated to himself in a mood of self-enjoyment. The tardy and almost accidental discovery of the fact that the fantastic comedies of Alfred de Musset are stageworthy, after all, is an incident unparalleled elsewhere in the whole history of dramatic literature.

XV

IN PRAISE OF PUPPET-THEATRES

Tony Sarg

Life in New York is more fleet-winged and transitory than life in any other city; and natives of New York who are less than forty years of age can look back to a now-departed period with that luxury of reminiscence that comes only, under usual conditions, to people who have passed the traditional threescore and ten.

Twenty years ago, or thereabouts, there used to stand in Spring Street, a little westward from the Bowery, an Italian puppet-theatre that was eagerly frequented by enthusiastic newsboys; and, just around the corner in Elizabeth Street, a little to the northward, there was another puppet-theatre, up a flight or two of stairs, which also carried on a high tradition inherited from medieval Italy. In those days, it used to be a great delight for a native of New York to go down to "Little Italy " and spend an evening with the animated dolls. The present writer used to be a welcome guest at both these institutions; and, in the Spring Street theatre, he served, on more than one occasion, as a puppeteer.

In these Italian puppet-theatres a continuous tale