Page:The great Galeoto; Folly or saintliness; two plays done from the verse of José Echegaray into English prose by Hannah Lynch (IA greatgaleotofoll00echerich).djvu/14

 as Madrid. It has no originality whatever, and offers nothing as compensation for dulness. It is of the Middle Ages, but without the captivating atmosphere of those plumed and belted centuries. It runs complacently along the old dusty highroad; swords clash, knights march off to glory and the Turkish wars, and beauty at home struggles with parental enmity, is sore distraught and belied, and while we are reminded in the high tone of the ancient singers, that

we are confused by the stupidity of everybody.

This repertory is extended, but can hardly be called varied. The one note of undiluted drama runs through all, and while the poet declaims upon a lofty level, it may be said that he chiefly reaches poetry through means of the felicitous vocables of the language he has the privilege to write, rather than by reason of any real genius as a poet. He is concerned more with striking situations than with development or revelation of character. In this line he is totally lacking in diversity and subtlety. He apprehends woman in none other but the crude, mediæval form. To him she is simply a personality of divine and inexhaustible love—an exalted and inalterable ideal; and whether she wears modern raiment or the garb of remote centuries, she is never anything but a spiritualised stain-glass outline, which affords gross and barbaric males—Velasquez' heroes and high-toned villains—much opportunity to rant of saints and angels, and is a subject for continuous worship, ill-treatment, misunderstanding, and devotion to death. x