of the distressing errors amid
which they move and which they themselves by no means escape. Yet
others, finally, taking refuge in the contemplation of the past,
rediscover there the same circle of misfortunes and of hopes--rediscover
the "eternal cycle." They cloak their grief in the fashions of other
days, thus ennobling it and despoiling it of its poisoned dart. From the
lofty eyrie of the ages, set free by art, the soul contemplates
suffering as in a vision, no longer aware whether that suffering belongs
to the present or to the past. Stefan Zweig's _Jeremias_ is the finest
contemporary specimen known to me of this august melancholy which,
looking beyond the bloody drama of to-day, is able to see in it the
eternal tragedy of mankind.

Not without struggle can such serene regions be attained. A friend of
Zweig before the war, his friend to-day, I have witnessed all that was
endured by this free European spirit whom the war robbed of that which
he had held most dear; robbed him of his artistic and humanist faith,
thereby depriving him of any reason for existence. The letters he wrote
me during the first year of the war reveal his agonising torments in all
their tragical beauty. By degrees, however, the immensity of the
catastrophe, communion with the universal sorrow, restored to him the
calm which resigns itself to destiny; for he came to see that destiny
leads to God, who is the union of souls. Of the Hebrew race, he has
drawn his inspiration from the Bible. It was easy to find there
analogous instances of national madness, of the fall of empires, and of
heroic patience. One figure, above all, attracted him, that of the great
forerunner, Jeremiah the persecuted prophet, foretelling the woeful
peace which was to flourish upon the ruins.

Zweig devotes to Jeremiah a dramatic poem, which I propose to analyse,
making extensive quotations. The work consists of nine scenes. It is
written in prose mingled with verse, sometimes free, sometimes rhymed,
the transition from prose to verse occurring when emotion breaks from
control. The form is ample and rhetorical. There is a majestic balance
in the exposition of the thought; but the poem would perhaps have been
better for condensation, for this would have left more to the reader's
imagination. The common people play a leading part in the action. Their
sallies and counter-sallies jostle one another; but at the close their
voices unite in measured choruses, breathing the thoug