[162] Better than Shakespeare? Preface to Three Plays for Puritans.
[163] In Berlin the play was given in its entirety at the Neues Theater; in London, at the Savoy Theatre, it proved quite feasible to give the play omitting the entire third act. And yet the third act, according to M. Jean Blum (Revue Germanique, November-December, 1906), contains the dramatic climax! Compare also, Dramatische Rundschau, by Friedrich Düsel, Westermann's Monatshefte, June, 1906.
[164] Bernard Shaw and the Heroic Actor, in The Play, No. 62, Vol. X.
[165] Cf. Genealogy of Morals (Translated by William A. Hausemann, the Macmillan Co.), where Nietzsche points out that in the case of “noble men,” prudence is far less essential than the “perfect reliableness of function of the regulating, unconscious instincts or even a certain imprudence, such as readiness to encounter things—whether danger or an enemy, or that eccentric suddenness of anger, love, reverence, gratitude and revenge by which noble souls at all times have recognized themselves as such.”
[166] Cæsar and Cleopatra, in respect to its revolt against the dogmas of classical antiquity, against the accepted conventions in the reconstitution of past epochs, has been classed by Herr Heinrich Stümcke with the Cäsar in Alexandria of Mora and Thoele's Heidnischen Geschichten. In a skit, Cäsar (ohne Cleopatra), by the German dramatic critic, Alfred Kerr, and dedicated “an Bernard Shaw mit freundlichen Grüssen,” this feature is wittily satirized, in these two verses:
“Könnt ich den Zweck des Blödsinns ahnen!
Ich führte manchen schweren Streich,
Bezwang mit Mühe die Germanen—
Trotzdem kommt Sedan und das Reich.
“Ein Zauberer, ihr grossen Götter,
Ist jener nordische Poet;
Herr Arnold Rubek bleibt mein Vetter:
Dich, Leben! Leben! spur ich spät....”
[167] The New York Times, November 20th, 1904.
[168] “Mansfield was always especially sympathetic with the character of Napoleon, and, indeed—however extravagant the statement may seem at first glance—his personality comprised some of the attributes of that character—stalwart courage, vaulting ambition, inflexible will, resolute self-confidence, great capacity for labour, iron endurance, promptitude of decision, propensity for large schemes, and passionate taste for profusion of opulent surroundings.”—William Winter's Life and Art of Richard Mansfield, Vol. I., pp. 222-223; Moffat, Yard and Co., New York, 1910.
[169] Richard Mansfield: The Man and the Actor, by Paul Wilstach, p. 264; Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1909.
[170] Ellen Terry, by Bernard Shaw. Neue Freie Presse, January, 1906; English translation, Boston Transcript, January 20th, 1906.