n
are as adroitly distorted (the better to expose their comic
possibilities) as the drawings of Max Beerbohm. Beginning with the
Bible and the Odyssey (_Helena's Husband_ and _Sisters of Susannah_
for the Washington Square Players) he has at length, by way of
Shakespeare and Bacon (_The Roadhouse in Arden_) arrived at the
Romantic Period in French literature and in _Madame Sand_, his first
three-act play, he has established himself at once as a dangerous
rival of the authors of _Caesar and Cleopatra_ and _The Importance of
Being Earnest_, both plays in the same _genre_ as Mr. Moeller's latest
contribution to the stage. The author has thrown a very high light on
the sentimental adventures of the writing lady of the early Nineteenth
Century, has indeed advised us and convinced us that they were
somewhat ridiculous. So they must have appeared even to her
contemporaries, however seriously George took herself, her romances,
her passions, her petty tragedies. A less adult, a less seriously
trained mind might have fallen into the error of making a sentimental
play out of George's affairs with Alfred de Musset, Dr. Pagello, and
Chopin (Mr. Moeller contents himself with these three passions,
selected from the somewhat more extensive list offered to us by
history). Such an author would doubtless have written _Great
Catherine_ in the style of _Disraeli_ and _Androcles and the Lion_
after the manner of _Ben Hur_! Whether love itself is always a comic
subject, as Bernard Shaw would have us believe, is a matter for
dispute, but there can be no alternative opinion about the loves of
George Sand. A rehearsal of them offers only laughter to any one but a
sentimental school girl.

The piece is conceived on a true literary level; it abounds in wit, in
fantasy, in delightful situations, but there is nothing precious about
its progress. Mr. Moeller has carefully avoided the traps expressly
laid for writers of such plays. For example, the enjoyment of _Madame
Sand_ is in no way dependent upon a knowledge of the books of that
authoress, De Musset, and Heine, nor yet upon an acquaintance with the
music of Liszt and Chopin. Such matters are pleasantly and lightly
referred to when they seem pertinent, but no insistence is laid upon
them. Occasionally our author has appropriated some phrase originally
spoken or written by one of the real characters, but for that he can
scarcely be blamed. Indeed, when one takes into consideration the
wealth of