{"product_id":"2940013278837","title":"THE INTRUDER, a play","description":"Scanned, proofed and corrected from the original edition for your reading pleasure.It is also searchable and contains hyper-links to chapters. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e***\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTHE INTRUDER belongs to the morbid quartette of plays, of which the other three are \"The Blind\", \"The Seven Princesses\", and \"The Death of Tintagiles\". Each is a study in the approach of death, and the emotions which are experienced by the subject, or which affect the onlookers. In The Intruder, we are introduced to a family circle seated about the table, talking in low whispers so as not to disturb the Mother lying ill in the adjoining room. In a corner a few feet removed, sits the old, blind grandfather, who, because the hour *of his own dissolution is near at hand, is more sensitive to every sound and presence than the lively, healthy group at the table. The old man is keenly alert, scenting the presence of death in their midst as surely as cats are said to realize the approach of the shadowy wing of the dark angel. There may be a physiological basis for the ability to perceive the approach of death. There is an odor peculiar to those who are dying, and some who have more highly developed organs of smell may detect this aroma, and so have the ability which ignorant people would term second-sight or clairvoyance; it is well-known that the trained physician often detects the nature of a disease by the odor; in this same way he oft informs himself of the actual progress of a disease. Or, the grandfather may have felt death simply because his senses were keener owing to his lack of sight, and his acute ear detected movements of the nurse in the adjoining room, which conveyed to his mind the impression that all was not well.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe old man is the one important figure in this play. The others seem preternaturally obtuse and-of dulled sensitiveness. It is strange that not one seems to care to be near the Mother who lies so very ill, but that all should sit talking about the table. But strangest of all is the fact that they leave alone the tiny baby in the lonely bedroom. Maeterlinck makes a very fine comparison of the close rapport of childhood and senility (second-childhood), by making the grandfather feel the presence of death, and the babe cry out in terror at the final moment when the angel passes by. Here again we must draw upon the mystical for an explanation. Says Mr. Henry Frank, \"This bioplasm (\"soul\")—is so completely a duplicate of the opaque visible body, of which we are constantly conscious, that could this outer shell be removed, leaving only the inner, invisible body, we would have a rarefied duplication of ourselves, which if it were phosphorescent and should be overtaken in the dark would be a sublimate semblance of our bodies very much in appearance what people think a ghost to be.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAll matter is material, and this bioplasm is also material. Therefore, the \"soul\" is material, and physical, although of so fine a substance that it is transparent and invisible. As science now admits the presence of living matter in compass too small to be evident to the human eye even with the aid of the most powerful glass yet invented, so should we admit the existence of the soul, that which is usually termed the \"spiritual.\" As some natures throw off a luminous radiance of phosphorescence which forms a halo, visible to some eyes, so do souls project a phosphorescent radiance of simulacrum to the fleshly body, and this simulacrum is visible to the eyes of some mortals of unusual or further developed spiritual vision. Chemistry has been the great demonstrator of physical truth, and there lies the hope that not far distant Chemistry will reveal the existence of this ethereal body, the soul. An extremely sensitive camera plate will catch impressions which go unnoticed by the human eye with its physical limitations. Already scientists claim to have recorded upon a sensitive plate the umbra of a dying rodent. Further experiments are being pressed in certain French Laboratories, and at any moment we may hear of triumphal success in catching a glimpse of the departing human soul.","brand":"Leila's Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47079367835888,"sku":"2940013278837","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013278837_p0.jpg?v=1763579087","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013278837","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}