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The story in this play was to be the reunion of the lovers after the experiment of renunciation of self had failed, also the reunion after the discord of the Elaine episode. As “The Marriage of Guenevere” embodies his thought about the influence of parents over the marriage of their children, and “The Birth of Galahad” shows the deeper experiences of mother and wife in what he calls “The True Family”; as Taliesin deals with art and the Graal with the problem of renunciation and chivalry, so “Astolat” was to show forth the intricacy of personal experience. It was a late addition to the series and was planned for the purpose of touching the psychology of the discords in a love.

The greater the love the better the environment required to keep it in that growth which is its only life. The great difficulty of adjusting love to its environment, however, must not hide the possibility of destruction from within, the danger treated in “Astolat.” Until two lovers are perfect humans every love has dangers from within. For love is harmony, and love is at every point dependent upon every point of the lover's love and every quality of the lover's character.

Love is at once the ultimate desire and ultimate gift of the lover. Doubt of the entire gift or the entire desire is the foundation of jealousy, and this does not of necessity need a third person to be the object of envy or hatred. But the third party externalizes the situation and is dramatically valuable, especially in a poem intended for the theater, as was “Astolat.”

To a women like Guenevere, to whom love represented the inevitableness of the nature of things, a real jealousy would have meant destruction of all she had experienced of the harmonies of life, and have brought about, not temper like the jewel scene of Tennyson's Guenevere, for example, but tragic deeds. Destruction doubtless, perhaps of Launcelot, perhaps of the network of relations between them; possibly of the small and helpless Elaine, who would have had to be put out of the possibility of harming a great love like theirs, as one might dismiss any intrusive, unrelated thing from a great presence. Guenevere was too sure of Launcelot's love to envy any tenderness he seemed to give Elaine or any other, but her anger, that, in the face of feelings of such mystic might, there should be any moment of a lesser emotion, any cause for fear of a discord in the harmony, was natural; and such a nature as Launcelot's would in all loyalty have been beautifully tender and sympathetic to the lovelorn Elaine, giving thus more than provocation to any half understanding of his character in Guenevere.

An inherent element of jealousy comes from the wound to personal dignity, a thing it is one of the

chief objects of life to attain. Personal worth represents the sum of living. It is the stewardship of the soul, the measure of the deeds of a life. Proud natures suffer most in jealousy. The poignancy of pain is for loss of self-respect as well as for loss of love. When personal dignity is lessened, resentment is natural.

The greater, or rather the more complex and mystic and miraculous, the nature of a love, the greater is its value. Thus is it worthy of a greater care. But of more importance still is the seldom considered truth that the greater is its need of protection. In another play, “The Lady of the Sonnets,” the author had planned to show what happened in a Shakespeare's heart when faith died. “Astolat” was to show what was requisite to obliterate jealousy from the life of a Launcelot and Guenevere.

Up to a certain point the elaboration of a structure, be it man, animal, or the intricately knit up relations of two souls, strengthens the unit. But there is, still beyond, a degree of harmony, which becomes a kind of specialization of function and ministers to life in its highest phases, yet is less self-preservative than forms in the earlier stages of evolution, and thus it is with great loves. The long continuance of a love then is not, as popularly considered, the test of the greatness of the love. The character of a love, the joy it gives, the inspiration it is to either lover, the beautiful births it leads to, in offspring or in the two personalities, measure its worth. These things show its quality. Time can only increase its number of opportunities.

The common use of the word jealousy covers many shades of meaning. Confusion sometimes arises as to the dividing line between envy and jealousy. One is jealous of a thing he considers his own and wishes to keep. One is envious of that which he wishes to have for his own, although he admits it to be another's. One who is envious is a would-be thief, one who is jealous is only selfish. The selfishness may even degenerate into greed. So far as the one he loves is concerned it is pure selfishness unrelieved by those magnanimous, generous and loving attitudes in which he would be willing to let the loved one have the small liberties of kindness and sympathy toward others, or to receive the gift of the love of others. These are the exacting ones about the payment of that which was originally a free gift. It would seem that the sense of ownership should be held loose enough to give personal liberty, and the possibility of continual giving without demand. Jealousy becomes more ignoble in proportion as it contains envy. The ignoble elements in jealousy are suspicion, selfishness, the meagre faith, all implying doubt of the loyalty of the loved one, also doubt of self-worth, the last degradation possible, and the last insult to one who has loved us. A lesser love is proven and a greater insulted by jealousy.

There is but one cure for jealousy—love. Love for the intruder, or such love of the loved one as gives gladness of his delight even at personal loss.

How a wise and generous person's ability to conquer the passion by rousing through great love some

overmastering kindly emotion; how love of the offending rival may drown jealousy; how generosity, pity even, and all the kindly passions furnish the means of conquering jealousy; were sure to have been embodied in “Astolat,” where Launcelot's obligation of gratitude and friendship to Elaine were to cause Guenevere's jealousy. The all-conquering love that breeds a faith that has no fear, that submerges even pride and arms against scorn and ridicule, was the type of love exampled by Launcelot and Guenevere in the culmination of their lives in the “Poem in Dramas.” How jealousy may be prevented by clear sight of one's worth in the eye of the beloved object, by consciousness of the gift one gives, of its suitability to the need of the other, by unswerving continued gift, even under circumstances that might cause fear of loss, was part of the theme of “Astolat.”

Psychological jealousy demands mental perception of value and enthusiasm or emotional force in enjoying the perception. A character is also capable of guarding jealously a loved thing in proportion to its capacity for appreciation. All human passions admit of evolution into more and more exalted phases, according to the great admixture of qualities in the persons or the complexity of environing events, and jealousy is not an exception. In considering jealousy as a lower passion, it might be suggested that even love would seem so if only its commonest phases were considered. All the poets have written of love at its loveliest development. But jealousy has been thus far chiefly described in its

simplest and most brutal conditions. One might say that jealousy is as yet unwritten by the poets. The contending reindeer drives off the other male to win his doe. The jealous man of little moral and intellectual growth kills his rival to have a clear path to his love. Othello, grandest of jealous heroes in English poetry, goes a step higher, paying Desdemona the compliment of blaming her, and also the compliment of not being willing to live when she is dead and proven innocent. This is jealousy at its worst, producing all the destruction possible—death to both Othello and Desdemona.

The passions may be considered as destructive or productive. Jealousy, if mainly destructive, is also preservative of that exclusive unity of relation which is doubtless beneficial to the magnetic conditions, in the exclusion of inharmonious magnetisms so important to the sensitive states of motherhood.

The reason then why we require all the attentions of a lover is an instinct resulting from racial experience and through social necessity.

No passion wholly painful, and so largely destructive, could have reached the present development of jealousy as a human attribute had it not some inherent necessity for being.

As with other bad passions, is not jealousy the excessive development of a good one?

This purity of relationship, mystic and magnetic as well as emotional, seems to have lain in the author's mind as an ultimate attainment for which no sacrifice was too great a price to pay;—the empire, the church, friendship, and loyalty to a royal

friend, all being here set over against the preservation of the true family.

Since the marriage of Guenevere made the attainment of this condition more difficult than in the usual family, jealousy adds another element to the tragedy.

Here in the merest sketch of the theme are a few of the many facets Richard Hovey would have reflected the light from in “Astolat.”