is struck by _Johanna_ in "The Lonely
Way." "I want a time to come when I must shudder at myself--shudder as
deeply as you can only when nothing has been left untried," she says to
_Sala_ in the fourth act. This note sounds much more clearly--one might
say defiantly--through the last two acts of "Intermezzo." And when
_Amadeus_, shrinking from its implications, cries to _Cecilia_ that
thereafter she will be guarded by his tenderness, she retorts
impatiently: "But I don't want to be guarded! I shall no longer permit
you to guard me!" In strict keeping with it is also that Schnitzler
here realizes and accepts woman's capacity for and right to creative
expression. It is from _Cecilia's_ lips that the suggestion comes to
seek a remedy for life's hurts in a passionate abandonment to work. In
fact, the established attitudes of man and woman seem almost reversed
in the cases of _Amadeus_ and _Cecilia._

Significant as this play is from any point viewed, I am inclined to
treasure it most on account of the subtlety and delicacy of its
dialogue. I don't think any dramatist of modern times has surpassed
Schnitzler in his ability to find expression for the most refined
nuances of thought and feeling. To me, at least, it is a constant joy
to watch the iridescence of his sentences, which gives to each of them
not merely one, but innumerable meanings. And through so much of this
particular play runs a spirit that can only be called playful--a spirit
which finds its most typical expression in the delightful figure of
_Albert Rhon_, the poet who takes the place of the otherwise inevitable
physician. I like to think of that figure as more or less embodying the
author's conception of himself. All the wit and sparkle with which we
commonly credit the Gallic mind seems to me abundantly present in the
scenes between _Albert_ and _Amadeus_.

The poise and quiet characterizing "The Lonely Way" and "Intermezzo"
appear lost to some extent in "The Call of Life" (_Der Ruf des Leben_),
which, on the other hand, is one of the intensest plays written by
Schnitzler. The white heat of its passion sears the mind at times, so
that the reader feels like raising a shield between himself and the
words. "It was as if I heard life itself calling to me outside my
door," _Marie_ says in this play when trying to explain to _Dr.
Schindler_ why she had killed her father and gone to seek her lover.
The play might as well have been named "The Will to Live," provid