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Nevertheless, because he was what he was genial, complimentary, affectionate, but a playboy, merely, and a soldier of fortune, with no desire to make over her life for her on any new basis she was now grieving over the futility of this romance which had got her nowhere, and which, in all probability, had alienated Cowperwood for good.
I liked 'The Shadow of the Glen' better than 'Riders to the Sea' that is, for all the nobility of its end, its mood of Greek tragedy, too passive in suffering; and had quoted from Matthew Arnold's introduction to 'Empedocles on Etna, Synge answered, 'It is a curious thing that "The Riders to the Sea" succeeds with an English but not with an Irish audience, and "The Shadow of the Glen" which is not liked by an English audience is always liked in Ireland, though it is disliked there in theory. Since then 'The Riders to the Sea' has grown into great popularity in Dublin, partly because with the tactical instinct of an Irish mob, the demonstrators against 'The Playboy' both in the press and in the theatre, where it began the evening, selected it for applause.
"Guess now they had 'em aboard to pull the wool over the eyes o' any customs men that happened to board the sloop lookin' for contraband stuff meant to claim they was fetchin' mahogany logs to a States market. Gee whiz! they sure are a tough proposition to move around but here's the cutest little fort any playboy could wish for.
It is this which makes him find the masterly conclusion to Riders of the Sea, when old Maurya, lamenting the death of her sons, comforts herself, "No man at all can be living for ever, and we must be satisfied;" it is this which gives Naisi the ancient love of life, "It's a hard and bitter thing leaving the earth;" which produces so admirable a proverb as, "Who would listen to an old woman with one thing and she saying it over?"; and enables Pegeen, in The Playboy of the Western World, to perceive, if only from pique, the preposterousness of her infatuation "There's a great gap," she says and this is the gist of the matter "between a gallous story and a dirty deed."
For, where there is a seeming blend of lyricism and naturalism, it will on examination be found, I think, to exist only in plays whose subjects or settings as in Synge's "Playboy of the Western World," or in Mr. Masefield's "Nan" are so removed from our ken that we cannot really tell, and therefore do not care, whether an absolute illusion is maintained.
But never does such common sense stay the flight of the poetic dream. Pegeen may know the difference "between a gallous story and a dirty deed," but that does not stop her from breaking out into wild lamentations: "Oh, my grief, I've lost him surely. I've lost the only Playboy of the Western World."
There is a corpse on the stage in Riders to the Sea, and a man laid out as a corpse in In the Shadow of the Glen, and there is a funeral party in The Playboy of the Western World. Synge's imagination dwelt much among the tombs. Even in his comedies, his laughter does not spring from an exuberant joy in life so much as from excitement among the incongruities of a world that is due to death.
It must have facts, and again facts, not only in the present and the past, but in the future. And it demands facts of that, which alone cannot glibly give it facts. It goes on asking facts of Art, or, rather, such facts as Art cannot give for, after all, even "flower of author" is fact in a sort of way. Consider, for instance, Synge's masterpiece, "The Playboy of the Western World!"
Bear in mind that we do not mean a playboy temperament or a mercenary attitude, but rather a genuineness in human contacts. When the problem was laid before them, a program was laid out for them to follow. Parsons and his wife called on everyone they felt should not be neglected, later inviting to their own home those who seemed in a position to help them.
Now I'm minded of it, their cook did tell me that the Bishop had a son that was a regular playboy. "He's not a playboy," I retorted. "He's splendid and please Mary Ellen, there's something I want you to do for me. You must let me go this minute to see Margery and find out if she wants him back again." "Oh, she'll have him, no fear." This with a broad smile. "But I've got to ask her. I promised.
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