There is some good work in the play, an atmosphere of beautiful wistfulness, tenderly combined with the bumpkin clump and flit. The dance in the big barn has its full effect of mystic and rustic beauty; there is infinite pathos in Strangway and Cremer setting out for a long tramp together in the link of their bruised hearts—and Galsworthy has done nothing more kindly-humorous than the meeting at the village inn, with Sol Potter uneasily in the chair.
The play is beautifully written, but it would seem as if the author had scarcely a clear idea himself of Strangway, and a little more planning might have saved him from one or two banalities. The extreme individuality, so to speak, of the curate’s problem—for no one can deny that his was an exceptional case—is a bit in the way of a writer whose chief concern is the social and general. But we must give a particular welcome to A Bit o’ Love, because it is Galsworthy’s first real experiment in Place, and one has a feeling that here is a grand new road for him to tread.
There remain two plays, which are called respectively “A Fantasy” and “An Allegory”—The Pigeon and The Little Dream.
The first is a fantasy based on sober facts. Indeed it would be rightly called a satire. It is a study—carried through in a spirit of comedy, in spite of drunkenness, vice, poverty, and suicide—of three irreclaimables, and of those who would reclaim them. Old Timson, the drunkard; Mrs Megan, born light of love, who even while drowning thinks of dancing; Ferrand, the vagabond, the wanderer of quaint philosophy—they are a fantastic trio, because the sorrow and sordidness of their lives is all hazed over by this half-comic, half-satiric glow in which their creator chooses to see them. In themselves more hopeless and tragic than any of the characters in Strife or Justice, they raise smiles instead of tears. It would seem almost as if the tragedy of the outcast had stirred in Galsworthy those depths beyond sorrow, which can find no expression save in laughter.
Various theorists argue about these three outcasts, and one good-natured man befriends them. Wellwyn is a kindly study, and his easy methods, however much his practical little daughter may blame him, do more to humanise the poor wretches than the sterner tactics of Professor Calway or Sir Thomas Huxton. But as a matter of fact no generosity will meet the case, no theory. We can only laugh, and through laughter learn a little more of pity.
There is some delightful humour in The Pigeon. As a rule Galsworthy’s humour is too deeply tinged with bitterness to ring true; when it is not embittered it is often ineffective or trivial, as in Joy or The Eldest Son. In The Pigeon, however, there are scenes of genuine humour and fine satire, both in situation and in dialogue. The various conceptions of character too are essentially humorous, which is seldom, if ever, the case in the other plays. It is a sharp stroke which right at the end of the play avenges the kindly Pigeon whom everyone has plucked.
Chief Humble-man [in an attitude of expectation]. This is the larst of it, sir.
Wellwyn. Oh! Ah! Yes!
[He gives them money; then something seems to strike him and he exhibits certain signs of vexation. Suddenly he recovers, looks from one to the other, and then at the tea-things. A faint smile comes on his face.]
Wellwyn. You can finish the decanter.