Page:Notes by the Way.djvu/51

xxvii JOSEPH KNIGHT. among the most fearless advocates of freedom of thought. His friends were men of capacity and eminence, and if some of his boldest utterances were, on account of licence or even obscenity, so emasculated that the world even now is not in possession of his geniune works, it is because, though Cyrano, like Rabelais, was prepared to speak the truth and the whole truth, jusqu'au feu exclusivement, his friends, to whom the care of his reputation was left, and especially his clerical editor, were neither so bold nor so enlightened."

In the notice of the play as performed at the Lyceum, which appeared in The Athenæum on the 9th of July, 1898, Knight accords to M. Rostand full praise for the high quality and conspicuous merit of the play, although its merits are not wholly or principally dramatic:—

"As literature its position is unassailable, and the beauty and flexibility of its versification are held to promise a new lease of life to a form of composition that is necessarily conventional, and in this country has been regarded as artificial. . ..

"The deeds of Cyrano as preserved in history constitute the greater portion of the play; his imaginary adventures in the sun and the moon are introduced into the action; and the style, 'pointu et précieux à sa plus haute expression,' as Gautier says, is admirably caught. In showing Cyrano in love with a précieuse and animated by a spirit of self-denial the most exemplary, not to say inconceivable, in literature, M. Rostand is, of course, justified. Cyrano was in fact a libertine as well as a swashbuckler and a ruffler. He was also, as his portraits attest, a handsome man of a Southern type, with a nose large, no doubt, but in nowise preposterous not larger, for instance, than that of M. Hyacinthe, over which Parisian wits made merry a generation ago. Jesting on the nose of Cyrano was the readiest way to obtain four inches of steel in the ribs, and was accordingly seldom practised. .. .

"As a whole, however, 'Cyrano de Bergerac' is picturesque and spectacular rather than dramatic. It has scenes that are dramatic, and others that are tender. It must be remembered, moreover, that the work was written for the Porte Saint-Martin, and not for the Comedie Francaise. It supplies M. Coquelin with a part into which, as M. Rostand tells us, the soul of Cyrano has passed. Without opposing a statement the full significance of which we scarcely comprehend, we concede that M. Coquelin's performance is remarkable in picturesqueness, and marvellous as a revelation of method. Happier in portraying the comic aspects than the romantic, he fails to assign the part the distinction which is, at least, among its potentialities. He reminds us of Don Annibal or of Antient Pistol rather than of Don Quixote or D'Artagnan."