subdues the despairing heart, that reconciles man to his universe, and
that slays the imperiousness of self. Thus Henry, firmly individualised
as he is, becomes in some sense, like all the greater protagonists of the
drama, the spirit of man confronting eternal and recurrent problems. The
minor figures--Gottfried, Brigitte, Ottacker--have the homely and
delightful truth that is the gift of naturalism to modern, literature.

Hauptman's next play was a naturalistic tragedy, one of the best in that
order, _Rose Bernd._ Then followed, from 1905 to 1910, a series of plays
in which he let the creative imagination range over time and space. In
_Elga_ he tells the story of an old sorrow by means of the dream-technique
of _Hannele;_ in _And Pippa Dances,_ he lets the flame of life and love
flicker its iridescent glory before man and super-man, savage and artist;
in _The Maidens of the Mount_ he celebrates the dream of life which is
life's dearest part; in _Charlemagne's Hostage_ and in _Griselda_ he
returns to the interpretation and humanising of history and legend.

The last of these plays is the most characteristic and important. It
takes up the old story of patient Grizzel which the Clerk of Oxford told
Chaucer's pilgrims on the way to Canterbury. But a new motive animates
the fable. Not to try her patience, not to edify womankind, does the
count rob Griselda of her child. His burning and exclusive love is
jealous of the pangs and triumphs of her motherhood in which he has no
share. It is passion desiring the utter absorption of its object that
gives rise to the tragic element of the story. But over the whole drama
there plays a blithe and living air in which, once more, authentic human
beings are seen with their smiling or earnest faces.

A stern and militant naturalistic drama, _The Rats_ (1911), and yet
another play of the undoing of the artist through the woman, _Gabriel