WHAT LOVE MEANS TO ME

New Zealand Times, Volume LIII, Issue 12453, 22 May 1926, Page 11

WHAT LOVE MEANS TO ME

t look upon Love as the chief guidig force. To my mind it is the one <oulding influence that matters. The :cart in which Love dwells, or even or the briefest spell has made its :onie, is a heart inhabited by the rarest and most wonderful thing. I look upon Love r.s a grand procession. It is a thread of gold running through and lighting up the grey and the drab. ITue, the thread may be, and often is, rudely snapped and lost. But it vanishes only for a little while, and when it emerges again is stronger and brighter than ever. Most intriguing and mysterious are the many ways of Love. I have called it a grand procession. There is the love of parent and child; the love of learning; the love of nature, of the beautiful and artistic; the love of work, of creation and conquest; and, most formidable and decisive of all, the love of man and woman. LOVE UNDEFILED Childhood love is natural affection. It is love undefiled, because it is love undeveloped. I wish, rather, to take up this golden thread when it has made itself understood and becomes something real, something tremendously vital. The love that has meant so much to me, and that I would write about, did not come to me until I had attained the distinction of womanhood. Not for me was there any schoolgirl fluttering of the heart, or blushful, innocent flirtations with a tall, dark-haired, blue-eyed boy who may have lived in the next street. It is my firm belief that no man or Woman can ever win through without the aid of Love; and, further, that no individual, however brilliant, can ever be a creative artist and rise to the heights of achievement unless the test of heartbreak Tins been endured. None is better able to judge philosophically and intimately of life than the actor, for, after ail, the world that Shakespeare called a stage is very near the footlights. NO BOUNDARIES Nowhere are the clashes of temperament and the vagaries of human nature so exemplified as in the profession of the theatre. Nowhere does Love—

By

Gwen Ffrangcon-

Davies

(The Famous Actress Who Played Thomas Hardy** " Tess ”

mtiiiiiiiiiiiiiHiimiiiminiiiiniiminiiiiimniitiiiiiiiiiiiiiniiiiimiii “Man’s love is of man's life a thing apart, ’tis woman’s whole existence,” wrote Byron. Miss Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies, who gives her views, is known to thousands as the Tess of the dramatised version of Thomas Hardy’s great novel. She is also a well-remembered Juliet. Tess and Juliet! Is there a height of Love’s happiness she has not climbed, or a depth of Love’s bitterness she has not plumbed in her stage work? In her private life she knows, too, for she confesses that she has suffered “not one but two or three broken hearts.” And this is her firm belief: “No man or woman can ever win through without the aid of Love; no individual* however brilliant, can ever be a creative artist and rise to the heights of achievement unless the test of heartbreak has been endured.”

whether it.be tbe love of art, with its glamour and make-believe, or the lov© between the partners in the motley—play a more prominent part in the shaping of destiny. Love knows no boundaries. Winch actor who gives thought to the subject will deny the existence of a strong bond of sympathy or kindly understanding between him and those on the other sfckToF the footlights? This thread of Love I bare ever made my ideal, and it is when I look hack to the early days of my career that I can see how much it has meant to me. Was it ability alone which gave me that wonderful chance at the Glastonbury Festival, or brought me to London in Shakespeare (when 1 played “Juliet”) and Shaw and-in “The Immortal Hour”? Do you think that love and its influence had no say in my art and progress? I do*not think; I am sure it had. THOMAS HARDY’S “TESS’i Or, again, take my recent appear* ance in “Tess of the D’Urberrilles,” and particularly the performance held for the benefit of its great author in the drawing-room of his cld world home at Dorchester. A memorable scene, indeed, that company of actors interpreting, with a drawing-room carpet as stage, one of the world’s master novels before the eyes of the master. Is it to be seriously doubted that Love ruled that atmosphere? Could acting be merely artificial in such conditions? My tears (I found myself crying quietly from beginning to end), and the tears in the eves "of most of my colleagues, provide the best answer to these questions. NOVELIST’S EMOTION Even Mr Hardy, on sTiaking my hand at the conclusion, could not conceal his emotion, although he excused himself by assuring me that it wa3 “ridiculous on my part, you know.” I loathe the atmosphere of hate and discord. To me hate is a destructive, hopeless thing. Strange as it may seem to many whose faith lias been rudely shaken, in moments of acute bitterness and selfish anger I find my safest refuge in the Golden Rule. “Love is enough.” That is what it means to me. And I know that tbe whole world is aching, clamouring for it.