thor of
plays in some of which she appears. His drama _The Harp of Life_ has as
its theme the love of two women, his mother and a courtesan, for a
nineteen-year-old boy, and their willing self-sacrifice that he may go
forward unbroken and unsmirched. The interesting thing, aside from the
strength of the play and its vivid study of adolescence, is the portrait
of the mother. And now his play, _The National Anthem_, which caused so
much discussion, is procurable in book form.

Here I have been talking about _East of Suez_ and _The Love Match_ and
have said nothing about _The Circle_ or _Milestones_! But I suppose
everyone knows that _The Circle_ is by Maugham and was markedly successful
when it was produced in New York; and surely everyone must know that
_Milestones_ is by Arnold Bennett and Edward Knoblauch--one of the great
plays of the last quarter century. I must take a moment to speak of Sidney
Howard's four act play, _Swords_. I think the best thing to do is to give
what Kenneth Macgowan, an exceptionally able critic of the drama, said
about the play:

"_Swords_ is as remarkable a play as America has ever produced. It is a
drama of action on a par with _The Jest_, fused with the ecstasy of
inspiration and the mysticism of the spirit and the body of woman. It sets
Ghibelline and Guelph, Pope and Emperor, two nobles and a dog of the
gutters fighting for a lady of strange and extraordinary beauty who is the
bride of one noble and the hostage of the other. With the passions, the
cruelties, and spiritual vision of the middle ages to build upon _Swords_
sweeps upward to a scene of sudden, flashing conflict shot with the mystic
and triumphant ecstasy which emanates from this glorious woman."

American lovers of the drama have a special interest in the two volumes of
_The Plays of Hubert Henry Davies._ At the time of his first success Mr.
Davies was working in San Francisco, whither he had come from England. It
was Frohman who made him an offer that brought him to New York and began
the series of productions which ended only with his death in 1917 in
Paris. These two volumes, very beautiful examples of fine bookmaking,
contain the successes: _Cousin Kate_, _Captain Drew on Leave_, and _The
Mollusc_. Among the other plays included are: _A Single Man_, _Doormats_,
_Outcasts_, _Mrs. Gorringe's Necklace_, and _Lady Epping's Lawsuit_. Hugh
Walpole has contributed a very touching introduction.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE BOOKM