In "The Legacy" (_Das Vermaechtnis_) we meet with a forcible presentation and searching discussion of the world's attitude toward those ties that have been established without social sanction. A young man is brought home dying, having been thrown from his horse. He compels his parents to send for his mistress and their little boy, and he hands both over to the care of his family. That is his "legacy." The family tries hard to rise to this unexpected situation and fails miserably--largely, it must be confessed, thanks to the caddish attitude of a self-made physician who wants to marry the dead man's sister. The second act ends with the death of the little boy; the third, with the disappearance and probable suicide of his mother. The dead man's sister cries out: "Everything that was his is sacred to us, but the one living being who meant more to him than all of us is driven out of our home." The one ray of light offered is that the sister sees through the man who has been courting her and sends him packing. It is noticeable in this play, as in others written by Schnitzler, that the attitude of the women is more sensible and tolerant than that of the men. The physician is one of the few members of that profession whom the author has painted in an unfavorable light. There is hardly one full-length play of his in which at least one representative of the medical profession does not appear. And almost invariably they seem destined to act as the particular mouthpieces of the author. In a play like "The Lonely Way," for instance, the life shown is the life lived by men and women observed by Schnitzler. The opinions expressed are the opinions of that sort of men and women under the given circumstances. The author neither approves nor disapproves when he makes each character speak in accordance with his own nature. But like most creative artists, he has felt the need of stating his own view of the surrounding throng. This he seems usually to do through the mouth of men like _Dr. Reumann_ in the play just mentioned, or _Dr. Mauer_ in "The Vast Country." And the attitude of those men shows a strange mingling of disapproval and forbearance, which undoubtedly comes very near being Schnitzler's own. The little one-act play "The Life Partner" (_Die Gefaehrtin_) is significant mainly as a study for bigger canvases developing the same theme: the veil that hides the true life of man and woman alike from the partner. And the play should really be named "The Life Partner That Was Not." Another one-act play, "The Green Cockatoo," is laid at Paris. Its action takes place on the evening of July 14, 1789--the fall of the Bastille and the birth of the Revolution. It presents a wonderful picture of social life at the time--of the average human being's unconsciousness of the great events taking place right under his nose.