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SOPHOCLES IN LONDON 131
our eccentricity to an overdeveloped moral
sense. To be frank, we do not believe that
Prof. Reinhardt or M. Bakst has more to say
than the creators of our best musical ballets.
But, while the latter modestly pretend to
nothing more than the flattery
of our senses
by means of form and sound and colour, the
wizards of " the new art " claim to express
the most profound and subtle emotions. We
prefer " 1830 " to The Miracle, because it is
unpretentious and sincere. We prefer (Edipus
to the pantomime because it is prettier and
shorter. As works of art they all seem to us
about^equal.
II
THE players of Bedford College are winning The
for themselves a place of honour amongst
those who help the modern world to under- " The
stand Greek drama. The traditional opinion Court-"
that the Athenians were a race of fools with Jfanaum
a sense of form, who wrote tedious verse to
perfection, has been ousted by a new doctrine,
less false, but even more dangerous. A race
of scholars arose who assumed, reasonably
enough, that plays written by intelligent men
for an intelligent public could not be quite so
and though to
dull as tradition proclaimed ;