"Fauts and Folly"
A Poet* Was Willing to be Gallantly Damned
The Plot. In six scenes scattered through the last twelve years of Robert Burns' life, John Drinkwater has tried to give not so much an historical as a spiritual biography in play form. Yet the story is not maltreated. The first scene shows him as a young plowman already cheerfully confronting woman and the unco godly in the persons of Nell and Holy Willie-- laughing and singing:
There's naught but care on ev'ry han',
In every hour that passes, O:
What signifies the life o' man,
An' 'twere na for the lasses, O?
Two years later he is toping and caroling in an inn, faced with ruin and the loss of Jean Armour, whose father will not let him marry her. Rather than be arrested he decides to print his songs. Again he is in Edinburgh, lionized after the publication of his first poems but unwilling to stoop for patronage. There he meets the diffident boy, Walter Scott; there as in the country he teaches the lasses to sing:
O whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad,
O whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad;
Tho' father and mother and a' should gae mad,
O whistle. and I'll come to you, my lad.
There, likewise, he goes carousing with city friends as he has with country friends. Again he is in the country, married to Jean, neglecting his farm for song, woman and drink, as poor as ever. Finally he gives up to go to Dumfries as an excise officer.
Last scene of all is laid in Dumfries, as the gallant spirit wavers in a body only 37 years old. Holy Willie comes to taunt him, chanting:
But, Lord, remember me and mine.
Wi' mercies temp'ral and divine,
That I for grace and gear may shine,
Excell'd by nane,
And a' the glory shall be Thine,
Amen, Amen!
But Burns' spirit still has the fire to reply:
O ye wha are sae guid yoursel,
Sae pious and sae holy,
Ye've nought to do but mark and tell
Your neebours' fauts and folly.
Slowly his spirit fades. He turns to Jean:
Fare-thee-weel, thou first and fairest!
Fare-thee-well, thou best and dearest!
But he goes out to more courageous music:
Scots, wha hae wi' Wallace bled,
Scots, wham Bruce has aften led;
Welcome to your gory bed,
Or to victorie!
The Significance. There are few dramas of action in which the climax comes as the hero dies from natural causes; but the drama of Burns is the drama of his spirit. Mr. Drinkwater has "cribbed," freely and wisely, from Burns' poetry,* but so well that the play is not just a setting for its songs. Probably no other poet's life (excepting Villon's) could be dramatized with the use of so much of his poetry without artificiality. Burns' songs were, however, part of him, and they rise naturally from his lips--such songs as:
O, once I lov'd a bonnie lass,
Ay, and I love her still. . . .
John Anderson, my jo, John,
When we were first acquent. . . .
O, saw ye bonnie Lesley
As she gaed o'er the Border?. . .
We are na fou, we're na that fou,
But just a drappie in our e'e;
O, my luve is like a red, red rose,
That's newly sprung in June. . . .
Since Mr. Drinkwater has made use of Burns' poems, there is besides Robert Burns probably only one other play in the English language--The Beggars' Opera-- with an equal number of good ballads.
The Author. Poet and dramatist and one of the founders of the Birmingham Repertory Theatre (formerly The Pilgrim Players), John Drinkwater has gained most of his fame in America from his historical plays: Abraham Lincoln. Mary Stuart, Robert E. Lee. Besides these he has written Oliver Cromwell and now Robert Burns. His earlier plays were in verse, and he has in addition several volumes of poems. Today, only 43 years old, he seems to be at the height of his career.
The Fertile Flatness
THE EMIGRANTS--Johan Bojer-- Century ($2.00). From land that is steep and stony to soil that is flat and fertile, from the hills and fiords of Norway to the North Dakota prairies, leads the road of the emigrant--the struggling peasant family, the fiddling goatherd from the hills, the Colonel's daughter, the son of a small farmer and fisherman of the Lofotens. Them and others of several kinds, three families and four bachelors, Mr. Bojer follows across the sea to the virgin plain; follows them as they turn the first furrow in the prairie sod, as they build sod houses, as they suffer and labor and grow wealthy, as wooden houses replace their sod huts, as they grow old and die, dreaming of snowclad mountains, of waterfalls and steep fiords; follows, too, those who go back to their homes in Norway and those who return again to their homes in North Dakota, always homesick for homes across the sea wherever they may be and nearly always driven back to the flat prairie, the land of opportunity and fertility. "Now I see," says Jo Berg, the dissatisfied old schoolmaster, "why it required mountain folk and sailors to conquer the prairie! Their knapsacks and their hearts were full of the wild scenery of the old country, and they lived on it summers and winters alike! The mountains and the sea rescued the plain."
Revaluation
--AND THEY LIVED HAPPILY EVER AFTER !--Meredith Nicholson-- Scribners ($2.00). Mort Crane was a printer in Indianapolis, and his wife Alice owned a fourth interest in the printing business in which he was Vice President and Secretary. He loved his work and his wife loved the profits--or she would have loved them if they had been larger. So Alice after 17 years began to think Mort was a futile little man, that Howard Spencer, who owned three fourths of the "Press," was a very fine man, and that the "Press" should be expanded. Mort Crane could not think in that way. So there was a parting of their ways, which turned out to be a good thing for Mort and a poor thing for Alice, for she found that Howard Spencer was not all she desired. Mort found another woman, who was all he desired, and that is how he and Alice came in the end to be reconciled. Presumably they did live happily--not that the currency of their love ever rose again to par; it was revalued and stabilized on a gold basis without doing violence to the realistic end of an effective story.
Wit and Rapier
MICHAEL SCARLETT--James Gould Cozzens--A. & C. Boni ($2.00). Varlet and lord, playwright and swordsman, revel once more in a bold Elizabethan frolic. With wit and a rapier Michael Scarlett, young Earl of Dunbury, fought his way through stirring Elizabethan times. Marlowe, Nash, Shakespeare, Donne, Jonson, were his cronies. Essex and Southampton were his friends. Elizabeth's favor and her disfavor were his fortune. A fair lady was his love. And death was his portion, and Marlowe's.
Assorted Remdiese
THE POETRY CURE--Robert Haven Schauffler (Editor)--Dodd, Mead ($2.50). The Poetry Cure, as Mr. Schauffler explains, is no more a cure for poetry than the Keeley Cure is a cure for Keeley. He asks, "Why add one more to the myriad existing anthologies of the world's best poetry?" He has not added "one more." He explains with becoming lightness that he has tried to pick poems for their mental reaction on the reader; for example, if a person suffers from mental malnutrition, he might prescribe spiritual vitamines. The subtitle of his book is "A Pocket Medicine Chest of Verse." He furnishes 14 packets of medicine for specific mental ailments: "Stimulants for a Faint Heart (Poems of Courage)"; "Mental Cocktails and Spiritual Pick-Me-Ups (Poems of Laughter)"; "Massage for a Muscle-bound Spirit (Poems of Emancipation)"; "Poppy Juice for Insomnia (Soothers and Soporifics)"; "To Deflate the Ego (Ingredients for a Humble Pie)"; etc. Although the editor offers them half with tongue- in-cheek, there is no reason why his prescriptions should not effect cures quite as marvelous and as numerous as those produced by innocuous sugar pills. Incidentally, his selection of poems is well made although far from exclusively of the best verse. It covers a wide range --poems from F.P.A., A.E., Thomas Bailey Aldrich, Matthew Arnold, Hilaire Belloc, William Rose Benet, William Blake, Emily Bronte, Robert Browning, Robert Burns, Byron, Lewis Carroll, S. T. Coleridge. Hilda Conklin, William Cowper, King David (three Psalms) etc., etc. Those who are accustomed to finding most anthologies a great bore, may well be pleased by this.
*ROBERT BURNS -- ($1.50). John Drinkwater -- Houghton Mifflin ($1.50).
*The music for the lyrics has been composed by Frederick A. Austin, but is not included in the published play.