The action moves, and moves always in an interesting, even in a telling,
way. But at the same time I cannot but feel that something has been
lost. The speeches, which were once so short as to be enigmatical, are
now too long, too explanatory; they are sometimes rhetorical, and have
more logic than life. The playwright has gained experience, the thinker
has gained wisdom, but the curious artist has lost some of his magic. No
doubt the wizard had drawn his circle too small, but now he has stepped
outside his circle into a world which no longer obeys his formulas. In
casting away his formulas, has he the big human mastery which alone
could replace them? "Monna Vanna" is a remarkable and beautiful play,
but it is not a masterpiece. "La Mort de Tintagiles" was a masterpiece
of a tiny, too deliberate kind; but it did something which no one had
ever done before. We must still, though we have seen "Monna Vanna,"
wait, feeling that Maeterlinck has not given us all that he is capable
of giving us.
THE QUESTION OF CENSORSHIP.
The letter of protest which appeared in the _Times_ of June 30, 1903,
signed by Mr. Swinburne, Mr. Meredith, and Mr.
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