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I mention the matter here to make the point that the one measure which prudery permits so that indeed it may even be mentioned upon our highly moral stage, and passed by the censor, who would probably be hurried into eternity if M. Brieux's Les Avariés were submitted to him, and who found "Mrs.

'They can't be as poor as that, she reflected, and turned to the books on the table. "Weiniger's Sex and Character," she announced, "Brieux's Maternite, Lavedan, Stendhal, Strobel on Child Life, well, you do read! And this?" She held up a yellow volume of French plays. "What do you do with this when the, Bishop comes?" "The Bishop is used to me now.

The conception of a play as the exhaustive demonstration of a thesis has never taken a strong hold on the Anglo-Saxon mind; and, though some of M. Brieux's plays are much more than mere dramatic arguments, we need not, in the main, envy the French their logician-dramatists.

It is pathetically moving and the part of the unhappy girl, who is half crazy because of her passion for her singing-master, is a rôle for an accomplished actress. If the public can endure Brieux's Damaged Goods, why not Musik? The latter is a typical case and is excellent drama; the French play is neither.

But no thinking person, with the most casual interest in current social evils, could listen to the version of Richard Bennett, Wilton Lackaye, and their associates, without being gripped by the power of Brieux's message. It is a wonder that the world has been so long in getting hold of this play, which is one of France's most valuable contributions to the drama. Its history is interesting.

One of the most notable of modern plays is Brieux's Les Avariés . This distinguished dramatist, himself a medical man, dedicates his play to Fournier, the greatest of syphilographers.

It is possible, no doubt, to name excellent plays in which the theme, in all probability, preceded both the story and the characters in the author's mind. Such plays are most of M. Brieux's; such plays are Mr. Galsworthy's Strife and Justice.

Shaw has not yet been able to use the theatre in this way, and still less, Brieux. Brieux's influence in France is mainly due to the fact that he is a brilliant and eloquent lecturer. Mr. Shaw's influence in England is due to his essays, speeches, conversations, personal vehemence, and ubiquity.

Even to a mere outsider, an idle bystander of the boulevards, this complete exposure of the social, moral, and political hypocricies of a nation seemed exceptionally brutal. Les Affaires sont les Affaires is pure theatre, perhaps, but it might be considered the best play produced in France between Becque's La Parisienne and Brieux's Les Hannetons.