(1831) In Change, therefore, there is nothing terrible, nothing supernatural; on the contrary, it lies in the very essence of all life and our lot in this world. * Change, indeed, is powerful; yet even needful: and if Memory have its force and worth, so also has Hope. Nay, if we look well to it, what is all Derangement and necessity of great Change, in itself such an evil, but the product simply of increased resources which the old methods can no longer administer." Lest one good custom should cor- He cares, if ancient usage fade, By changes all too fierce and fast As a starting point for this study, I set forth the fact that Carlyle and Tennyson enjoyed a long and intimate friendship, during which time they discussed literary, social, political, and philosophical questions. It is noteworthy that after the beginning of that friendship in the late thirties there is, in the subject-matter and style of certain poems, a change a change which seems to reflect the interests, and to some extent the method, or style of Carlyle. The various parallels, or near-parallel, passages I have listed from the two authors reveal a close kinship in attitude of mind and expression of thought. I have tried to show that in each instance the utterance of Carlyle preceded that of Tennyson on a given question. My study, though not conclusive, offers evidence that Carlyle did exert a genuine and not inconsiderable influence on Tennyson's thinking. The poems that seem to me to show most decidedly the influence of Carlyle are Locksley Hall (1842), Maud (1847), Aylmer's Field (1864), Wages (1868), The Higher Pantheism (1869), Flower in the Crannied Wall (1869), De Profundis (1880), Vastness (1885), and Locksley Hall Sixty Years After (1886). T0Characteristics. "Morte D'Arthur. "The Statesman. "Gordon, p. 147. PORTO-RICHE: PATHOLOGIST OF LOVE BY ROBERT COLEMAN GAY, JR. Georges de Porto-Riche was born at Bordeaux in 1849. His parents were middle-class people of Italian extraction. The sensitive boy spent his early youth in unhappiness, as he himself tells us in some of his early verses. He was essentially a dreamer, with a trend toward the romantic and mysterious. It must have been a shock to the sensitive youth when his mother called him "De Trop." And this seems to have been the general attitude of his parents toward Georges, for he tells us that his mother never showered the usual motherly caresses on him. It is no wonder that his boyhood was a sad one under such circumstances, and he must have suffered from being deprived of that almost essential stimulator of egotism, mother love. One cannot but feel sorry for a lad who spent his childhood in this manner and grew up to write concerning it, Je fus de ceux-la qui demeurent Seuls au dortoir, un été plein. Ce n'est pas quand les parents meurent, There seems always to have been an organized conspiracy in all parts of the world to force promising youths to take up the study of law. Porto-Riche was one of the many who began this study and later became famous in the world of literature. Like so many persons who take up law as a profession, he soon found that it was not at all to his taste. Consequently he abandoned his early plans to adopt a more congenial life. Literature appealed to him more than anything else, and he decided to adopt it as a life work, being encouraged in this by his father. This consideration on the part of the father, together with the fact that Porto-Riche dedicated his first verses to his mother, father, and brothers, would seem to in dicate that, although his home life had not been the happiest in the world, there was at least some bond of sympathy between Georges and the other members of his family. When Porto-Riche was twenty-three years of age, Prima Verba, his first book of verses, appeared. This was in 1872. From that year until 1877 appeared Pommes d'Eve and Tout n'est pas Rose. At this time he was definitely aligned with the romantic school, and the influence of Victor Hugo and others may be seen in these early works. "For political reasons" the young poet was imprisoned, for his verses seemed to be a bit dangerous, and it was thought unwise to allow their author to remain at large. Even in these early works it is possible to see the note that was to be heard in every one of his plays. The subject of his verses was love, fleshly and ethereal, and, as we shall see, this remained for him one of the outstanding features of life. Porto-Riche now went to Italy and France. It is not difficult to realize that the atmosphere of those fabled lands of the romanticists stirred and quickened his imagination. Indeed, from the deep and passionate tone of some of the scenes of his later plays, we may well believe that the spirit of love and romance so permeated him that he was never able to rid himself of it. Porto-Riche then returned to Paris, where he lived the true vie Bohême, in company with men like Maupassant and others of less note. There were the usual number of rejections for the young poet, his plays being turned down by manager after manager in turn. In 1883 he wrote La Chance de Françoise, and this likewise was rejected. There was in France at this time the beginning of a revolution against the "well-made" play which had dominated the French theater since the time of Scribe, but this movement was apparently making little progress. There was no attempt on the part of the play 'Clark, Barrett H., Contemporary French Dramatists, p. 41. Cincinnati: Stewart and Kidd Company, 1915. wrights of the day to do more than construct a play that was perfect in mechanics; the business of putting art and reality into the drama had received but scant attention. Such a condition was not calculated to encourage the younger writers who were seeking to get away from the theatrical artificiality that prevailed. Modern French drama is inseparably linked with the name of André Antoine, who, disgusted with the current conventional plays, conceived and organized & society for the purpose of producing plays of real worth and merit. On the evening of March 30, 1887, the society-which had been called by Its founder the Théâtre Libre"-presented its first offering. After some discouragements, the Free Theater succeeded in es. tablishing itself, and it gained a foothold on the French stage that completely revolutionized modern French drama. After a decade of usefulness, its very success killed it, for there was no longer need for it. The same condition is met with to a large extent in the United States today, where managers must ever keep an eye on the box-office, to the detriment of meritorious dramatic works. The Little Theater is attempting to do for America what the Free Theater did for France and Germany. The Free Theater deserves the credit of presenting much of what is now considered best in French drama, and offering a medium for the plays of Jullien, Curel, Porto-Riche, Ancey, and others. It was in the Free Theater in 1888 that La Chance de Françoise was first presented to an audience. It has been revived several times, so successful has it been. Porto-Riche now found that he had easier sailing, and he wrote and produced, in order, L'Infidèle, Amoreuse, and Le Passé, which will be considered in later pages of the present paper. His most ambitious work is Le Vieil Homme, a bulky play which was produced in 1911. Porto-Riche is still living, and it is understood that he is working on a series of four plays. In 1898 he published his four most representative plays in one volume, bearing the very appropriate title of Théâtre d'Amour. And it is impossible to think of Porto-Riche in any other setting. His theme is love-licit and illicit, emypreal or lustful, in matrimony and out. This point can best be illustrated by a careful study of the four plays contained in Théâtre d'Amour. La Chance de Françoise is a delicate bit of light comedy, a one-act play containing a searching analysis of the characters of a man and a woman. It is finished, polished, and extremely penetrating in its observation. The story, briefly is as follows: Marcel Desroches is a handsome young man of thirty-five, what is known in popular parlance as a ladies' man, and a painter of talent. He has married Françoise for love. Françoise at times almost regrets having married him, for he is so very egoistic that he violates with tranquility, as Lemaître says, the pact that is presumed in every marriage, and especially in a love marriage. But if Marcel is remiss in his part of the marriage contract, Françoise amply compensates for it by her fidelity. In spite of this rather awkward relation, he loves her. She appeals to his artist's eye, for she is a comely woman; she feeds his vanity with her devotion, and she furnishes an altar upon which he can lay sacrifice for atonement. But Marcel does not like to see his wife suffer, and he takes pains to conceal from her his little indiscretions. If we cannot like Marcel, we can, besides feeling a great sympathy for Françoise, admire her intensely. She is adorable, so fine and so tender, so passionate and energetic with a sort of frail gentility. She is aware of the real nature of Marcel, yet she loves him, and she depends always on the "luck of Françoise" to prevent him from going too far. As he ruefully admits, each time he is about to overstep the proper bounds, something happens an insignificant thing, but one which effectually stops his party. Into this household come two friends of Marcel's bachelor days, M. and Mme. Guérin, returning from Rome after an absence of three years. Madeleine, his wife, has at one time |