tantrum. The characters of _King Lear_
and _Ivan the Terrible_ have much in common. One might almost believe
that the writer of _Ivan_ had felt the incompleteness of _Lear_, and had
seen the absurdity of making a melodramatic bid for sympathy in behalf
of this old man thrust out by his daughters.

Lear, the troublesome, Lear to whose limber tongue there was constantly
leaping words unprintable and names of tar, deserves no soft pity at our
hands. All his life he had been training his three daughters for exactly
the treatment he was to receive. All his life Lear had been lubricating
the chute that was to give him a quick ride out into that black
midnight storm.

"Oh, how sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless
child," he cries.

There is something quite as bad as a thankless child, and that is a
thankless parent--an irate, irascible parent who possesses an
underground vocabulary and a disposition to use it.

The false note in _Lear_ lies in giving to him a daughter like
_Cordelia_. Tolstoy and Mansfield ring true, and _Ivan the Terrible_ is
what he is without apology, excuse or explanation. Take it or leave
it--if you do not like plays of this kind, go to see Vaudeville.

Mansfield's _Ivan_ is terrible. The Czar is not old in years--not over
seventy--but you can see that Death is sniffing close upon his track.
_Ivan_ has lost the power of repose. He cannot listen, weigh and
decide--he has no thought or consideration for any man or thing--this is
his habit of life. His bony hands are never still--the fingers open and
shut, and pick at things eternally. He fumbles the cross on his breast,
adjusts his jewels, scratches his cosmos, plays the devil's tattoo, gets
up nervously and looks behind the throne, holds his breath to listen.
When people address him, he damns them savagely if they kneel, and if
they stand upright he accuses them of lack of respect. He asks that he
be relieved from the cares of state, and then trembles for fear his
people will take him at his word. When asked to remain ruler of Russia
he proceeds to curse his councilors and accuses them of loading him with
burdens that they themselves would not endeavor to bear.

He is a victim of amor senilis, and right here if Mansfield took one
step more his realism would be appalling, but he stops in time and
suggests what he dares not express. This tottering, doddering,
slobbering, sniffling old man is in love--he is about to wed a young,
be