whole, his work furnishes more abundant food for thought than objects of _naïve_ esthetic enjoyment; but, like Grillparzer's, his plays were written for the stage; and proper enactment has seldom failed to produce with them an effect of power worthy of his powerful personality, which swam against the tide, knowing that the tide would turn and that the flood would bear him to the haven. * * * * * _FRIEDRICH HEBBEL_ * * * * * MARIA MAGDALENA DRAMATIS PERSONÆ Master ANTONY, _a joiner_ _His Wife_ CLARA, _his daughter_ CARL, _his son_ LEONARD _A Secretary_ WOLFRAM, a merchant_ ADAM, _a bailiff_ _Another bailiff_ _A Boy_ _A Maid_ _Place. A fair-sized town_ MARIA MAGDALENA (1844) TRANSLATED BY PAUL BERNARD THOMAS ACT I _A Room in the Joiner's House._ SCENE I _Enter_ CLARA; _the_ MOTHER. CLARA. Your wedding dress? Oh, how well it becomes you! It looks as if it had been made today! MOTHER. Yes, child, fashion keeps on going forward until it can go no farther and has to turn around and go back. This dress has already been out of style and in again ten times. CLARA. But this time it is not exactly in style, dear mother! The sleeves are too wide! It must not annoy you! MOTHER (_smiling_). I should have to be you for that! CLARA. And so this is the way you looked! But surely you carried a bunch of flowers too, didn't you? MOTHER. I should hope so! Else why do you think I nursed that sprig of myrtle in the pot for so many years? CLARA. I have often asked you to, but you have never before put it on. You have always said: It is no longer my wedding dress; it is my shroud now, and that is something one should not play with. I got so that I couldn't even look at it any more, because, hanging there so white, it always made me think of your death, and of the day when the old women would try to pull it on over your head. Why then today? MOTHER.