ion, may be said to
have no outward action, except in one scene where Tiburzio breaks in
suddenly to defend Luria, who, like a wounded stag, stands at bay among
the dogs and hunters who suspect his fidelity to Florence. It is a drama
of inward action, of changes in the souls of men. The full purification
of Luria is its one aim, and the motive of Luria himself is a single
motive. The play occupies one day only, and passes in one place.

Luria is a noble Moor who commands the armies of Florence against Pisa,
and conquers Pisa. He is in love with the city of Florence as a man is
with a woman. Its beauty, history, great men, and noble buildings
attract his Eastern nature, by their Northern qualities, as much as they
repel his friend and countryman Husain. He lives for her with unbroken
faithfulness, and he dies for her with piteous tenderness when he finds
out that Florence distrusts him. When he is suspected of treachery, his
heart breaks, and to explain his broken heart, he dies. There is no
other way left to show to Florence that he has always been true to her.
And at the moment of his death, all who spied on him, distrusted and
condemned him, are convinced of his fidelity. Even before he dies, his
devotion to his ideal aim, his absolute unselfishness, have won over and
ennobled all the self-interested characters which surround him--Puccio,
the general who is jealous of him; Domizia, the woman who desires to use
him as an instrument of her hate to Florence; even Braccio, the
Macchiavellian Florentine who thinks his success must be dangerous to
the state. Luria conquers them all. It is the triumph of
self-forgetfulness. And the real aim of the play is not dramatic. It is
too isolated an aim to be dramatic. It is to build up and image the
noble character of Luria, and it reaches that end with dignity.

The other characters are but foils to enhance the solitary greatness of
Luria. Braccio is a mere voice, a theory who talks, and, at the end,
when he becomes more human, he seems to lose his intelligence. The
Secretaries have no individuality. Domizia causes nothing, and might
with advantage be out of the play. However, when, moved by the nobleness
of Luria, she gives up her revenge on Florence, she speaks well, and her
outburst is poetical. Puccio is a real personage, but a poor fellow.
Tiburzio is a pale reflection of Luria. Husain alone has some
personality, but even his Easternness, which isolates him, is merged in
his