in the plays of Ibsen.

In his introduction to "The Heather Field," which was published before
its presentation, Mr. Moore writes, "Although all right and good sense
are on the wife's side, the sympathy is always with Carden." So it was
on the presentation of the play in Dublin, Mr. Yeats writing in "The
Dome," "Our Irish playgoers sympathized with this man so perfectly that
they hissed the doctors who found that he was mad." Such an attitude is
characteristically Irish; and equally characteristically English was the
reception of this play when Mr. Thomas Kingston presented it at a
matinee at the Strand Theatre in London. Mr. Yeats is again the
authority: "The London playgoers ... sympathized with the doctors, and
held the divine vision a dream." Mr. Moore praises "The Heather Field"
more forthrightly in "Samhain" of October, 1901, holding that "'The
Heather Field' has been admitted to be the most thoughtful of modern
prose plays written in English, the best constructed, the most endurable
to a thoughtful audience." Patriotism or kinship, love of paradox or
desire to assuage feelings hurt by the rough treatment of "A Tale of a
Town," may any or all of them be called upon to explain so sweeping a
statement. But none of such motives could account for its praise by Mr.
Beerbohm in the London "Saturday Review." "Max" is often paradoxical,
but he is not paradoxical here: "Not long ago this play was published as
a book, with a preface by Mr. George Moore, and it was more or less
vehemently disparaged by the critics. Knowing that it was to be produced
later in Dublin, and knowing how hard it is to dogmatize about a play
until one has seen it acted, I confined myself to a very mild
disparagement of it. Now that I have seen it acted, I am sorry that I
disparaged it at all. It turns out to be a very powerful play indeed." I
have quoted Mr. Yeats and Mr. Moore and Mr. Beerbohm, not only because
I have not seen the play on the stage but because, on reading it, its
effect is one that puts my judgment at sea. Years ago as I read it it
gripped me hard, but when I read it now and think it over now, I am at a
loss to see why, done as it is done, I should have been so moved by it.
Now I am moved greatly by but two situations. Both of these are in the
last act. One of them is Tyrrell's revulsion against the bad news that
his brother Miles brings from Dublin of the mortgagee's refusal to
extend. His wife tells their friends that she is rui