lately before fifteen thousand Scottish troopers at Arras. He sang it again in the Lexington Theatre; but it sounded now as if all Scotland had burst spontane ously into song. And then the audience began to see the transfiguration of a great artist into a great man; for something had happened to the Harry Lauder that we used to know; and it was this: Death had touched him with its accolade, and bidden him rise up as a knight-errant in a stricken world, where now he lives the life of two. Sir Harry went down to Camp Upton to entertain our soldiers. He told them of the flowers of France, and how they grew in full profusion right up to the line that the Huns had marked with desolation. He told them of his love for France, the second home and foster-mother of all the artists of the world, who worship Beauty, Truth, and Righteousness. Then he paused, and added,—“ I own a bit of France now: my boy is buried there." III HERO-WORSHIP IN THE DRAMA 66 Abraham Lincoln " Hero-worship, as Carlyle has told us, is a fundamental instinct of the human mind; and this is particularly evident whenever people are gathered together in crowds. Nothing else so strongly stirs emotion in a multitude as the visible presence of a hero, whatever be the nature of his prowess. Line Fifth Avenue with congregated thousands; let General Pershing ride adown that human lane on horseback; and only the walking dead will be callous to resist that gulping in the throat which is the prelude to enthusiastic tears. In the good old days of baseball, this phenomenon could often be observed at the Polo Grounds, when Christopher Mathewson was called upon in the ninth inning to save a game that hung tremulously in the balance. It was beautiful to see him as he strolled serenely to the center of the diamond, apparently unconscious of the plaudits of the crowd. He was a great man in his own profession; and he had the dignity of greatness. He excelled all other pitchers; and this excellence was testified immediately to the eye by the unusual simplicity and ease of his bodily movements. His two arms swept superbly upward in an absolute curve that reminded the spectator of Græco-Roman statues of athletes in the Vatican; and that was all. He had perfect personal poise; he was never nervous, never flustered, never angry. Mathewson made himself a hero not merely by his prowess, but also by his personality. The multitude adored him. And, by awakening this adoration, he bestowed a benefit upon uncounted crowds; for nothing more effectually emancipates the average man from his dreary prison-cell of self than a wished-for opportunity to worship some big person who does something - it does not really matter what it is much better than that same thing could be done by himself or by anybody else. The almost tragic need for heroes accounts for the abiding popularity of such otherwise inconsequential games as baseball, football, and boxing. Prize-fighting justifies itself when it permits a world of men and boys to worship such a hero as Georges Carpentier. Worship, in itself, uplifts the soul, as men are helped by prayer, regardless of the god to whom they pray. Clemenceau - old in years, assailed by an assassin, smashed up in an accident, but still the Tiger of France does good to his country by merely continuing to be, and thus permitting millions to adore him. Most of us are lowly people, and lead lowly lives; and, in order to "carry on," we need the spiritual sustenance of lifting our hearts up to the hills, whence cometh our strength. In view of this fact, it is hard to understand why the theatre should persistently neglect its easy op portunity to exhibit figures of heroical dimensions. Every audience is a crowd, and is subject to the incentives of crowd psychology. Design a set of Gothic buildings, suggestive of mediæval Orleans; throng the stage with supernumeraries; decree an entrance of Jeanne d'Arc, clad in silvery armor and seated high upon a snow-white horse; and the audience will cheer, and the most case-hardened of dramatic critics will have a hard time trying to hold back his tears. For this is drama. The drama began in the church,— an institution which exists for the purpose of stimulating a wished-for mood of worship in a gathered multitude, to the end that souls of men may be uplifted toward their ultimate salvation. What is the use of fiction if it cannot show us imaginable people who, in one way or another, are bigger than ourselves? The opportunity of the theatre is immense; for it may unlock for us the ivory gates that give upon immensity. Is it, after all, worth while to pay five dollars for the privilege of seeing the heroine of a bedroom farce dive under a bed, when the same expenditure of time and money might procure the great experience of awakening within us that quick response to the heroic which is evermore instinctive in a gathered crowd? "When the high heart we magnify, Because of the obtuseness of our American managers for our managers are more to be blamed than our playwrights for the vacuity of our American drama — it remained for an English poet, John Drinkwater, to discover the simple fact that a great emotion could be evoked from the gathered public by exhibiting upon the stage a hero so generally known and so unanimously worshiped as Abraham Lincoln. Mr. Drinkwater has drawn a portrait of Lincoln that is faithful to the truth—if not, at all points, to the facts of history. That is, very nearly, all that he has done; but it is enough. It is better to spend two hours in the imagined presence of one of the greatest heroes of all time than to spend a hundred evenings at the Winter Garden; and this the public knows. Mr. Drinkwater's play is so extremely simple that either it is artless or else it is one of those rare works in which the highest sort of art succeeds in concealing itself. It exhibits six successive episodes in Lincoln's career. These episodes are not related logically to each other; but each of them shows the hero at some moment when he is required to make a decision that shall determine not only his own future, but also the future of his country. On past occasions, I have sometimes disagreed with the theory of William Archer that the element of crisis is the one most indispensable element of the drama; but, on this particular occasion, I am constrained to agree with Mr. Archer, because Mr. Drinkwater has undeniably succeeded in setting forth a satisfactory portrait of Lincoln by adopting the easy expedient of showing him at six successive turningpoints in his career. |