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images; but she is a "little indistinct" now, "we cannot see her quite so clearly"; for Mary rose from the past.

But the poor, ageing father presented once again with the renounced longings of the heyday of his youth is overcome and overwhelmed. He finds that desire has failed, love is cold; and refuses to dwell longer on the old time phantasy: "Please don't talk of it to me, I am...an old man," and he falls back on his interest in "the little things of life... cannot cope... cannot cope." And all too regretfully he asks himself, "Do you think she should have come back" to mind?

Nevertheless the brilliant author goes one step further. He hints too, that so great is that yearning-the wish of the parent for a child(Morland for Mary: Mary for Harry)-that the desire of our thoughts outlives their expression; nay outlives their expressor, that is the mortal frame, and lingers for eternity in the everlasting Mind....For when all the household are dead and gone, she-"a little ghostie"-remains behind; unwanted on earth and forgotten in heaven-to haunt the aged house of long ago....It is that sacred Wish which is symbolised in the spirit of Mary Rose, who solemnly remains a ghost till her Master Creator (Heaven) draws her back into its mind.

The Motif of the Call.

As the CALL to Mary Rose forms the psychological rallying point of the whole play, it may be desirable to consider its real significance at rather greater length than as hinted at in the discussion of the sacred drama, p. 188. We have claimed that while Mary Rose is the daughter, Simon is the son. One is the true daughter, but unreal; the other, adopted son, but real. Despite this, the incestuous union between them even in thought seems to be disturbing, and in part accounts for the artifice of unreality. But it is permitted on the surface because the whole is a dream-creation and morality does not enter into dreams, let alone those of a rough private; and further we are fairly clearly given to understand that the marriage is never consummated, and as far as earth is concerned Mary remains a virgin. In the depths of the Unconscious its bar is not countenanced. The Call overcomes it. The call denotes the real union-a union with the Father creator of the phantasy— thrice in the course of the play. For he himself is enamoured of his dream-daughter-she is attractive, "she draws," and he in turn "fishes around her island" the while. He cannot for a moment permit any other to have intercourse with her even in thought. This accounts for his obvious harshness to Simon at the scene of the proposal, and probably

also Simon's harshness to his son. Therefore after permitting the tenderest of love-making scenes between them (Act II), and allowing the son to approach her-the sparks of the fire he has made ever rising anew as the other beats them down-another and unholy "organ visits the virgin island of his dreams; with a whistling wind along its pipes, and ever "increasing in volume" till she is drawn away by the love-call and disappears from the boy's sight, the spot indeed becoming "the scene of the crime." This means the author of her being, the fathercreator, has kept her for himself and his pleasure, has drawn her back into his mind and ultimately suppressed her from consciousness, even as he did years before, when first she became the object of sexual desire in the fullness of his youth-lost her in the mists of the Unconscious. She is forgotten, she exists no more to her earthly husband, to her friends, and even to her father.... What happens when he revives the old phantasy and finds desire has failed, we already know; he cannot face her, he is disturbed only because she revives the question..."Where is her mortal child?" "Where is the child of their union?" He is no longer to be found a baby. For as we are left to discern, at the moment he has grown up to be a man, a man of the same age as the squire when first he married, who stands before the same girl once again; Mary, no older than she whom Morland first conceived, and the plaything, too, of Simon and Harry, each in turn. It is 'as if' the hour-glass sands were rolling back; and the father, through her agency has recognised in Harry, for the first time, the emblem of his rejuvenated self. This is too much for him, and the shock of its meaning brings the dream to a close.

Punctuations of the Poet.

Now, judged as Literature, Mary Rose might well be considered unique among the plays of Barrie, for the high level of poetry, symbolism, and simplicity of diction which it maintains. It is not our purpose herein to praise or appraise its literary worth, nor to linger over the play's intrinsic beauty. But in passing, we cannot but pay tribute to the success of the gradual unfolding of the theme and the delicacy of suggestions let fall; to the skilful handling of dramatic irony, and the preservation of atmosphere (whether joy, anger or the mysterious); and to the poetic vocabulary and metaphor Barrie has in places so fittingly employed. At times he even ascends to lyric verse:

I wish to Gód you would and lét her rést.

The gates had clósed, and shé remémbered nóthing.
I can see the twilight rúnning across the fields.

The loveliest time of all will be

When he is a man and takes me on his knee.

Some misty, eerie highland story.

You and your bogies and wraiths, you man of the mists.

And he coins such beautiful expressions, melodious and sweet as "Your poor lonely island"...“A rare and lovely flower"... "The last time of anything is always sad."

...There are worse things than not finding what you are looking for, finding them so different from what you had hoped.

"The birds came...

very pretty sound?"

..to listen to the silence"..."Don't you think laughter is a

Whilst the stage directions at each of the two "calls" are gems of poetic description (close of Acts II and III).

THE PROBLEM OF SYMBOLISM AND ITS PART IN THE PLAY.

The deliberate impress of the hand of the poet on the play brings us to that licence usually conceded to them, and herein employed with consummate skill-the use of symbolism; that is the expression of a train of thoughts, or reference to a living being by an inanimate (symbolic) object. Three or four such stand out in the play and call for explanation, for only if we understand them aright can we grasp the real significance of the play. These seem to be earth, air, fire and water; or (to be more exact), Tree, island of the mists, Trench-knife and Sea; and tireless are the references to each throughout.

Sea.

Firstly the sea: This is essentially a sea-play, and it is from the ocean-depths that it borrows much of its metaphors and similes. From the moment when Mary rose from the sea into life, until Simon ends his life by drowning at sea, the noise of water never really leaves us. The keynote of the play is in the father's remark: "His work (the sea) took her place": the loss of Mary Rose is only forgotten in the sea-life Simon leads, which "he wouldn't exchange for any other in the world." The sea has come to take some woman's place in many people's lives, for it seems to have an attraction and meaning all its own. First it will be noted that each of the characters in turn is mentioned as 'going down to the sea in a boat.' Mary Rose in the punt, Cameron in the ferry boat, Harry in his coracle, or in dry-dock (bassinette), Morland in the fishingboat, and Simon as sailor rising through an interesting succession of ships; indeed the sea-craft of Lieut. Sobersides in many ways reflects the progress of his life.

He is first heard of putting to shore off his ship the Gadfly among the islands of the outer Hebrides; he is seemingly that Gadfly alighting, or landing on the grazing cow' as the 'placid isle' is called. Next he is in the Punt which he capsizes in the river so that he may rescue Mary Rose from the water. When he wins Mary Rose it is like winning Trafalgar, and being on the Victory, with a senior officer indicating from the bridge "England expects her lieutenant this day to do his duty." Next he is with the Valiant, but on his wife's supposed delivery he is posted to Plymouth (the Armada: the Mayflower): and later H.M.S. Britannia is his ship, i.e. He is aboard the 'mother who rules the waves,' 'the mother of the free.' When home on leave— for "Simon is often away at sea," we meet him playing the part of the Castaway, wrecked upon an island, i.e. (Robinson Crusoe) with his adopted son as savage (Act 1). Finally he captains the Bellerophon-"the child of the sea"-the ship that took Napoleon to a lonely island of the Waters; or best known to us classically as the "son of the sea," "the child of Neptune." On this he took his last voyage, and is drowned in the depths, leaving a son to follow in his wake. Harry already as a baby was "learning swimming" at home, and as soon as old enough "ran away to the (blasted) ocean"-the salt is in the blood!

Water is variously portrayed in the play; as the water of the loch that separates the daughter-island from the bigger mother-isle—an island compared in itself to the size of the "Round Pond." There is the water of the little pool or lake, on the island itself "from which a stream flows"; also the sea on which the 'sea-dog' Simon lives; and the ocean where Harry goes to make his fortune-and the ocean of heaven with its thousands of island stars; and incidentally wireless is only of value in that we can talk "to ships on the ocean." The semblance of Mrs Morland is embodied in the "water fall "in a house" where you cannot hear the sound of the sea at all" (cf. also water in metaphor: "the talk that leaves no ripple": "like one taking his bearings," "Come aboard, Sir!" 'whaling-station," etc.). Thus in more ways than one the play seems super-saturated with water, but there is no one solution of its symbol.

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Albeit, it is the figure of the Ship on river and ocean that stands out, and the symbol is fairly plain. Each of the characters is pictured-it will be remembered, as rowing his own boat. The ships are ourselves, each in his own degree of (sea) worthiness, and the ocean and river are the waters of Time. Across this loch or sea, our bark must sail; from the still waters of the port whence as children we set off to make our fortune on the...ocean. For long we cross that stretch of deep that separates us from eternity, saving ourselves as best we may from wreckage on the rocks of life, up to the last port of call-"the island that likes to be visited." Thence there is no return and all "are afraid to visit it." We are ships on the waters

A wanderer is man from his birth

He was born on a ship on the breast of the River of Time...;

and of his sailing out and coming home to land we remember
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turn again home.

The sea in the play means all this, and the metaphor of the lifecourse across the waters is plain sailing. We steer our course till, like the sun at setting or the son (Simon) at the end of his life, we sink into the waters, whence we first, like Mary, rose. And only the dawn of another day shall see us rising from the other horizon where earth and heaven meet....Even the little pool and its tiny stream on the island have a like meaning, as we shall show; its waters like the ocean seem to be our birth place. For we are children "rocked in the cradle of the deep," or rising from the Font of life, swelling and sinking with its depths, till we come to live again. This is the symbol of the waters.

Barrie's own mixed feelings and adoration for the river may be well seen in a recently delivered speech to young school girls on the LINCLADEN. The river is his only partner in life-the best of women he knew. A few of its gems are:

When you and I were young they were our partners at the ball....We must always have something in common that others cannot have, if we sat out a dance with the Claden....She was my favourite partner of all, and sometimes she sang to me and sometimes I had a book with me to improve her mind...

Still I see the river dimple by

Holding its face up to the sky.

I wooed her in a canoe, but she was a capricious mistress, and went off with the canoe, leaving me with the water....The next time one of you goes in pursuit of her...I wish you would give her my love and say that I never think of her without feeling regret.

The Symbol of the Two Islands.

Tantalising a symbol as it is, the Island beyond the mists leaves us baffled, even at the end, as to the significance it is intended to convey; and there is no allusion or illusion in the play capable of so many possible interpretations. Probably each is right, for the island embodies no one thought, but a thousand-ultimately moulded into a composite living whole. Earlier in this essay we tried to follow how our author takes us back into his home and atelier, watching his phantasy figure in process of creation and a Galatea in the sculptor's hands; and we hinted that we were presently to be taken into the sculptor's master-mind and watch the birth of his mental image. The Second Act is in part this beautiful revelation.

The island represents that void in our thought-life filled by degrees with the harvest of all the senses, the images of the past and manners of life long forgotten; a world complete in itself, the island of the Unconscious. It is an unreal thing of which we are most often unaware, an island that is not ever present to our scrutiny: "It was not always here, then one day it was here." "There are some who say...'the Island...goes for

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