The same man also, as a rule, wrote the words, which did not remain in my memory because I understood them so little, seeing that they dealt with thoughts and feelings which in our day we take small notice of. That this must be so is easy to see; for every age concerns itself with a different relation of man to what is outside him. We are now, to be sure, beginning to do what they were doing,[10] in dealing with man’s relation to man’s idea of what he is; that is, so to say in the plain words of Albertus Magnus, seeking “the causation of causes in the causes of things.” But these plays bewildered me, as I own without shame, for would not Dr. Johnson himself have been adrift at a play by Signor Pirandello? And since there was so much I could not fathom, I should only impart a false twist to the meaning however much I tried to give a true account.
[10] In 2,100 O. S.
But I fear these plays disordered me, for the unnatural is a sort of poison, and I have never since been able to feel real pleasure at any drama of to-day even in the best theatres in Paris, New York, or London. Indeed I have almost conceived an aversion from our stage; and it is only the importunities of my friends that make me go to a play once or twice in a year, so as not to seem unsociable. If the choice is left to me, we go to the English version of a French farce, for these are usually free from any meaning at all: and if one expects nothing, one cannot be disappointed.
Transcriber’s Notes:
Punctuation and spelling inaccuracies were silently corrected.
Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved.