For the present in her resentment of his willingness to abase his genius
before Godolphin, or even to hold it in abeyance, Mrs. Maxwell would not
walk to supper with her husband in the usual way, touching his shoulder
with hers from time to time, and making herself seem a little lower in
stature by taking the downward slope of the path leading from their
cottage to the hotel. But the necessity of appearing before the people
at their table on as perfect terms with him as ever had the effect that
conduct often has on feeling, and she took his arm in going back to
their cottage, and leaned tenderly upon him.
Their cottage was one of the farthest from the hotel, and the smallest
and quietest. In fact there was yet no one in it but themselves, and
they dwelt there in an image of home, with the sole use of the veranda
and the parlor, where Maxwell had his manuscripts spread about on the
table as if he owned the place. A chambermaid came over from the hotel
in the morning to put the cottage in order, and then they could be quite
alone there for the rest of the day.
"Shall I light the lamp for you, Brice?" his wife asked, as they mounted
the veranda steps.
"No," he said, "let us sit out here," and they took the arm-chairs that
stood on the porch, and swung to and fro in silence for a little while.
The sea came and went among the rocks below, marking its course in the
deepening twilight with a white rope of foam, and raving huskily to
itself, with now and then the long plunge of some heavier surge against
the bowlders, and a hoarse shout. The Portland boat swam by in the
offing, a glitter of irregular lights, and the lamps on the different
points of the Cape blinked as they revolved in their towers. "This is
the kind of thing you can get only in a novel," said Maxwell, musingly.
"You couldn't possibly give the feeling of it in a play."
"Couldn't you give the feeling of the people looking at it?" suggested
his wife, and she put out her hand to lay it on his.
"Yes, you could do that," he assented, with pleasure in her notion; "and
that would be better. I suppose that is what would be aimed at in a
description of the scene, which would be tiresome if it didn't give the
feeling of the spectator."
"And Godolphin would say that if you let the carpenter have something to
do he would give the scene itself, and you could have the effect of it
at first hand."
Maxwell laughed. "I wonder how much they believe in those contrivances
of the carpenter themselves. They have really so little to do with the
dramatic intention; but they have been multiplied so since the stage
began to make the plays that the actors are always wanting them in. I
believe the time will come when the dramatist will avoid the occasion or
the pretext for them."
"That will be after Godolphin's time," said Mrs. Maxwell.
"Well, I don't know," returned Maxwell. "If Godolphin should happen to
imagine doing without them he would go all lengths."
"Or if you imagined it and let him suppose he had. He never imagines
anything of himself."
"No, he doesn't. And yet how perfectly he grasps the notion of the thing
when it is done! It is very different from literature, acting is. And
yet literature is only the representation of life."
"Well, acting is the representation of life at second-hand, then, and it
ought to be willing to subordinate itself. What I can't bear in
Godolphin is his setting himself up to be your artistic equal. He is no
more an artist than the canvas is that the artist paints a picture on."