(_They surround and help him. They show signs of deep feeling at the

sight of the missing arm. Murmurs of astonishment and compassion._)

_Many_

Woe ... woe ... woe....

_Others_

Money ... money ... money....

_The Rabbi_

Now will I go and appear before God.... Now I will ask him.... (_He

vanishes through the gate._)

_Many_

He will get no answer ... he will get no answer.

_One of the Dead_

(_With feeling._) They who are in life still stand at the same point.

Generation dies after generation and all remains as it has been. As it

was aforetime, so it was in my time and so it is today.

_Many_

Money ... money ... money....

And yet it must lead to something. Surely there must be a goal.

Only God knows that....

And man must learn what it is.

That will be his greatest victory.

Man's greatest victory.

_Several_

Man's....

_Others_

The living one's.... And we?

(_A ghostly breathing of laughter and sighing_.)

_The First_

Man's greatest victory ...

_Curtain_[9]

Staging this, several facts will confront us. We certainly shall not let

different actors of the group speak different lines on successive

nights. That is, each supernumerary will be given one speech or more. If

certain speeches seem to belong together, they will be given to one

actor, and characterization will emerge as he speaks his lines.

Unquestionably, too, if speeches which seem in themselves

uncharacterizing are given to marked physical types, such as stout, very

thin, very tall, or very short people, persons of markedly quick or slow

physical movement, some of the speeches may seem unfitting. Rarely,

then, is there any value in the unassigned speech. It may pass in the

reading, as has been admitted, but the public prefers the assigned

speech, and still more the speech so characterized that it must be

assigned. Compare this passage from _Julius Caesar_ with its assignments

to the First, the Second, the Third, and the Fourth Plebeian with the

passage from Andreiev's play. Can there be any question that

Shakespeare's assigned speeches are somehow clearer, more dramatic?

SCENE III. _A Street_

_Enter Cinna the poet, and after him the Plebeians_

_Cinna._ I dreamt tonight that I did feast with Caesar,

And things unluckily charge my fantasy.

I have no will to wander forth of doors.

Yet something leads me forth.

_1. Plebeian._ What is your name?

_2. Plebeian._ Whither are you going?

_3. Plebeian._ Where do you dwell?

_4. Plebeian._ Are you a married man or a bachelor?

_2. Plebeian._ Answer every man directly.

_1. Plebeian._ Ay, and briefly.

_4. Plebeian._ Ay, and wisely.

_3. Plebeian._ Ay, and truly, you were best.

_Cinna._ What is my name? Whither am I going? Where do I dwell? Am I a

married man or a bachelor? Then, to answer every man directly and

briefly, wisely and truly: wisely I say, I am a bachelor.

_2. Plebeian._ That's as much as to say, they are fools that marry.

You'll bear me a bang for that, I fear. Proceed; directly.

_Cinna._ Directly, I am going to Caesar's funeral.

_1. Plebeian._ As a friend or an enemy?

_Cinna._ As a friend.

_2. Plebeian._ That matter is answered directly.

_4. Plebeian._ For your dwelling,--briefly.

_Cinna._ Briefly, I dwell by the Capitol.

_3. Plebeian._ Your name, sir, truly.

_Cinna._ Truly, my name is Cinna.

_1. Plebeian._ Tear him to pieces; he's a conspirator.

_Cinna._ I am Cinna the poet, I am Cinna the poet.

_4. Plebeian._ Tear him for his bad verses, tear him for his bad

verses.

_Cinna._ I am not Cinna the conspirator.

_4. Plebeian._ It is no matter, his name's Cinna. Pluck but his name

out of his heart and turn him going.

_3. Plebeian._ Tear him, tear him! Come, brands, ho! fire-brands! To

Brutus', to Cassius'; burn all! Some to Decius' house, and some to

Casca's; some to Lingarius'. Away, go! (_Exeunt._)[10]

It may almost be stated as a general principle that assigning a speech

is the first step in focusing the attention of an audience on that

speech. The value of such focusing has been discussed earlier under

"Characterization." In exceptional cases, as the citation from _The

Treasure_ shows, there may be some justification for unassigned

speeches, but in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, when any lines of

the play seem not to need assigning to any particular person, they lack

the characterization which belongs to them.

The thesis play or the problem play, which have been so current in the

last few years, have brought into special prominence a common fault in

so-called dramatic dialogue. The speeches narrate, describe, expound or

argue, and well, but not in the character of the supposed speaker.

Rather the author himself is speaking. Such dialogue, whether it be as

clever as some in Mr. Shaw's plays, as beautiful as certain passages by

George Chapman, or as commonplace as in many modern instances, should be

rewritten till the author can state the desired idea or facts as the

imagined speaker would have stated them. This was the fault with the

extract from the John Brown play, and whether it has its source in an

intense desire of the author to present his own ideas, or to phrase his

sense of beauty, in lack of characterizing power or in mere

carelessness, it is reprehensible. In the following instance, the writer

is so absorbed in his own ideas that he forgets characterization.

_Senator Morse._ ... What great motive--?

_Mary._ One more imperious than empires or coalitions--(_Mary turns to

Mrs. Morse_)--one that mothers know--(_Mary turns to Senator

Morse_)--and fathers, too. It is the commonest thing in the world, and

the one most completely overlooked. Woman's love and faith and charity

are the motives of that great, imperious impulse by which nature is

trying to rule this world and perpetuate the human soul. Individual

self-control and the governance of the world are themselves in

embryo.... Creation is from God and _it_ is _divine_. It is the thing

and the only thing that kills wantonness and makes love pure. The

higher modesty is the peculiar inheritance of our race. It is our duty

to understand it, respect it, make it sacred, and have it raised out

of the darkness of ignorance and mystery in its true dignity as

patriotic impulse and made the true basis of society, its government,

and its provision for the general welfare.

Does this sound like an individual woman or like the author using one of

his characters for the sounding phrases of his own thinking?

In the next illustration, from _George Barnwell_, the colorlessness

comes from the lack of quickening sympathy with character which marks

most of Lillo's work.

_Thorowgood._ Thou know'st I have no heir, no child but thee; the

fruits of many years successful industry must all be thine. Now, it

would give me pleasure great as my love, to see on whom you would

bestow it. I am daily solicited by men of the greatest rank and merit

for leave to address you; but I have hitherto declin'd it, in hopes

that by observation I shou'd learn which way your inclination tends;

for as I know love to be essential to happiness in the marriage state,

I had rather my approbation should confirm your choice than direct it.

_Maria._ What can I say? How shall I answer, as I ought, this

tenderness, so uncommon even in the best of parents? But you are

without example; yet had you been less indulgent, I had been most

wretched. That I look on the croud of courtiers that visit here with

equal esteem, but equal indifference, you have observed, and I must

needs confess; yet had you asserted your authority, and insisted on a

parent's right to be obey'd, I had submitted and to my duty sacrificed

my peace.

_Thor._ From your perfect obedience in every other instance, I fear'd

as much; and therefore wou'd leave you without a byass in an affair

wherein your happiness is so immediately concern'd.

_Ma._ Whether from a want of that just ambition that wou'd become your

daughter, or from some other cause, I know not; but I find high birth

and titles don't recommend the man who owns them to my affections.

_Thor._ I wou'd not that they shou'd, unless his merit recommends him

more. A noble birth and fortune, tho' they make not a bad man good,

yet they are a real advantage to a worthy one, and place his virtues

in the fairest light.

_Ma._ I cannot answer for my inclinations, but they shall ever be

submitted to your wisdom and authority; and, as you will not compel me

to marry where I cannot love, so love shall never make me act

contrary to my duty. Sir, I have your permission to retire?

_Thor._ I'll see you to your chamber. (_Exeunt_.)[11]

Too often even somewhat skilled dramatists are led astray by the belief

that to write in a style approved at the moment, or which they

themselves hold beautiful, is better than to let the characters speak

their own language. Examining the early plays of John Lyly--_Alexander

and Campaspe_, _Sapho and Phao_, _Endymion_[12] (1579-1590)--we find in

the more serious portions both action and characterization subordinated

to standards of expression supposed at the time to be best. Contrasting

the lovers' dialogue of _Love's Labor's Lost_ with the scenes of Orsino

and Viola in _Twelfth Night_, we see perfect illustration of the greater

effectiveness of dialogue growing out of the characters as compared with

dialogue which puts style first. The Heroic Drama of the second half of

the seventeenth century rested upon theory rather than reality. Here is

the way in which Almahide and Almanzor state strong feeling.

_Almahide._ Then, since you needs will all my weakness know,

I love you; and so well, that you must go.

I am so much oblig'd, and have withall

A heart so boundless and so prodigal

I dare not trust myself, or you, to stay,

But, like frank gamesters, must foreswear the play.

_Almanzor._ Fate, thou art kind to strike so hard a blow;

I am quite stunn'd, and past all feeling now.

Yet--can you tell me you have pow'r and will

To save my life, and at that instant, kill![13]

All that these two worthy people are trying to say is

_Almahide._ I love you; and so well that I dare not trust myself or

you to stay.

_Almanzor._ Can you tell me you have power and will to save my life

and at that instant kill!

Dryden makes Almahide describe her own emotional condition and, as is

proper at any critical moment in Heroic Drama, drop into simile.

Almanzor, too, confidently diagnoses his own condition and apostrophizes

fate. All this was quite correct in its own day, not for real life, but

for the people of the myth land conjured up by the dramatic theories of

the _litterati_. Did people under such circumstances speak in this way?

Surely not.

This scene from _George Barnwell_, 1731, illustrates the same

substitution of an author's idea of what is effective because "literary"

for a phrasing that springs from the real emotion of perfectly

individualized figures.

SCENE 7. _Uncle. George Barnwell at a distance_

_Uncle._ O Death, thou strange mysterious power,--seen every day, yet

never understood but by the incommunicative dead--what art thou? The

extensive mind of man, that with a thought circles the earth's vast

globe, sinks to the centre, or ascends above the stars; that worlds

exotick finds, or thinks it finds--thy thick clouds attempts to pass

in vain, lost and bewilder'd in the horrid gloom; defeated, she

returns more doubtful than before; of nothing certain but of labour

lost.

(_During this speech, Barnwell sometimes presents the pistol and

draws it back again; at last he drops it, at which his uncle starts

and draws his sword._)

_Barnwell._ Oh, 'tis impossible!

_Uncle._ A man so near me, arm'd and masqu'd!

_Barn._ Nay, then there's no retreat.

(_Plucks a poniard from his bosom, and stabs him._)

_Uncle._ Oh! I am slain! All-gracious heaven regard the prayer of thy

dying servant! Bless, with thy choicest blessings, my dearest nephew;

forgive my murderer, and take my fleeting soul to endless mercy!

(_Barnwell throws off his mask, runs to him, and, kneeling by him,

raises and chafes him._)

_Barn._ Expiring saint! Oh, murder'd, martyr'd uncle! Lift up your

dying eyes, and view your nephew in your murderer! O, do not look so

tenderly upon me! Let indignation lighten from your eyes, and blast

me e're you die!--By Heaven, he weeps in pity of my woes.

Tears,--tears for blood! The murder'd, in the agonies of death, weeps

for his murderer.--Oh, speak your pious purpose, pronounce my pardon

then--and take me with you!--He wou'd, but cannot. O why with such

fond affection do you press my murdering hand!--What! will you kiss

me! (_Kisses him. Uncle groans and dies._) He's gone forever--and oh!

I follow. (_Swoons away by his uncle's body._) Do I still live to

press the suffering bosom of the earth? Do I still breathe and taint

with my infectious breath the wholesome air! Let Heaven from its high

throne, in justice or in mercy, now look down on that dear murder'd

saint, and me the murderer. And, if his vengeance spares, let pity

strike and end my wretched being!--Murder the worst of crimes, and

parricide the worst of murders, and this the worst of parricides!

Cain, who stands on record from the birth of time, and must to its

last final period, as accurs'd, slew a brother, favour'd above him.

Detested Nero by another's hand dispatched a mother that he fear'd and

hated. But I, with my own hand, have murder'd a brother, mother,

father, and a friend, most loving and belov'd. This execrable act of

mine's without a parallel. O may it ever stand alone--the last of

murders, as it is the worst!

The rich man thus, in torment and despair,

Prefer'd his vain, but charitable prayer.

The fool, his own soul lost, wou'd fain be wise

For others good; but Heaven his suit denies.

By laws and means well known we stand or fall,

And one eternal rule remains for all.

_The End of the Third Act_.[14]

Have you noticed that people under stress of strong emotion stop to

depict their emotional condition, to analyze it, or neatly to

apostrophize fate or Providence? The more real the emotion the more

compact and connotative, usually, is its expression. People under high

emotional strain who can tell you just what they ought to feel, or who

describe elaborately what they are feeling are usually "indeed exceeding

calm." Dryden's Lyndaraxa builded better than she knew when she said:

By my own experience I can tell

Those who love truly do not argue well.

Bulwer-Lytton was thinking of the weakness of self-descriptive woe when

he wrote Macready, while composing _Richelieu_, "In Act 4--in my last

alteration, when Richelieu, pitying Julie, says, 'I could weep to see

her thus--But'--the effect would I think be better if he felt the tears

with indignation at his own weakness--thus:

'Are these tears?

O, shame, shame, Dotage'--"

Emotion, if given free way, finds the right words by which to express

itself. When a character stands outside itself, describing what it

feels, the speaker is really the author in disguise, describing what he

is incompetent, from lack of sympathetic power, to phrase with simple,

moving accuracy. M. de Curel has described perfectly the right relation

of author to character and dialogue.

During the first days of work I have a very distinct feeling of

creation. Later I move on instinctively and that is much better. When

the sentiments of my characters are in question I am absolutely in

their skins, for my own part indifferent as to their griefs or joys. I

can be moved only later in re-reading, and then this emotion seems to

arise from the fact that I have to do with characters absolutely

strange to me. I experience sometimes, and then personally, a feeling

of irony, of flippancy, in regard to my characters who tangle

themselves up and get themselves into difficulties. That transpires

sometimes in the language of some other character who, at the moment,

ceases to speak correctly because he speaks as I should. As a result,

corrections later. At the end of a year, my play, when I re-read it,

seems something completely apart from me, written by another.[15]

Allowing a character to express itself exactly raises inevitably the

question of dialect. On the one hand it must be admitted that nothing

more quickly characterizes a figure, as far as type is concerned, than

to let him speak like a Yankee, a Scotchman, a Negro, etc. If the

character utters phrases which an audience recognizes instantly as

characteristic of his supposed type, there is special satisfaction to

the audience in such recognition. On the other hand, very few audiences

know any dialect thoroughly enough to permit a writer to use it with

absolute accuracy. The moment dialect begins to show the need of a

glossary, it is defeating its own ends. As a result a compromise has

arisen, dating from the very early days of the drama--stage dialects. A

character made up to represent Scotchman, Welshman, Frenchman, Negro, or

Indian, speaks in a way that has become time-honored on the stage as

representing this or that figure among these types. Till recently most

dialect on the stage has been at best a mere popular approximation to

real usage. Until within a few years the peasant dialogue of _Gammer

Gurton's Needle_, the famous sixteenth-century Interlude, was supposed

to represent dialect of its time in the neighborhood of Cambridge,

England. Recently philologists have shown that the speech of these

peasants is unlike any dialect of the period of the play, and was

obviously a stage convention of the time. Study the Welshmen and other

dialect parts in Shakespeare, and you will reach approximately the same

conclusion. With our developing sense of historical truth and of

realism, we have, in recent years, been trying to make our characters

speak exactly as they would in real life. The plays of the Abbey Theatre

are in large part a revolt from the Irish dialogue which the plays of

Dion Boucicault had practically established as true to life. Today we

try not only phonetically to represent the ways in which words are

spoken by the people of a particular locality, but by the use of words

and phrases heard among such people to make the characterization vivid

and convincing. Here, in Mr. Sheldon's play, _The Nigger_, is care to

reproduce phonetically the speech of negroes:

_Jinny._ (_Wearily._) I speck yo' right. Hev yo' got suthin' fo' me

t'night? Seems lak I might take it down wif me t' de cabin.

_Simms._ (_Grumbling._) Fo' dat young good-fo'-nuffin hawg-grubbah t'

swallow w'en he done come home? Laws me, w'y Marse Phil 'lows his

fried chicken en' co'n-braid t' feed dat wo'thles rap-scallion, I jes'

cain't see! Clar out o' heah, yo' ern'ry yallah gal!

_Jinny._ (_Crushingly._) Yallah gal--! Sho'! I was livin' heah fo' yo'

was bawn! Don' fo'get dat, yo' imperent, low-down li'tle niggah yo'!

_Simms._ (_Pacifically._) Hol' on, Jinny! I ain't said nuffin'. Dat I

ain't! Yo' g' long now en' I'll sen' down a gal t' yo' cabin wif a

basket.

_Jinny._ (_Turning away._) Yo' sho' will--er Marse Phil'd--

_Simms._ (_As he goes up the steps._) En' keep yo' gran'chillun out

dat saloom, Jinny, ef yo' don' want t' see 'em cross de Jo'dan ahead

o' yo'! Dat Joe! Lawd-a-massy! De white in him ain't done nobody no

good's fah's dis--'Scuse me, sah!

(_He stops suddenly and turns aside, bowing, on seeing Noyes and

Georgie, who have opened the door and come out._)

Here is equal care to represent the speech of Southerners.

_Noyes._ My fathah? Yes, he gave way t' his Comme'cial ambition by

sellin' powda an' bullets t' the Union--way back in '62. That got him

into a bunch o' trouble, but it wasn't what _sta'ted_ the--slight

fam'ly coolness!

_Georgie._ Wasn't it? Why, I always hea'd---

_Noyes._ No, it came befo' that. My gran'fathah an' Phil's--they were

brothahs-in-law, you know--they began it in the fo'ties.

_Georgie._ Why?

_Noyes._ (_Grimly._) I reckon the Morrows are tryin' now t' keep it

da'k. But Lawd!--I don't mind tellin'. It's the old thing--both losin'

theah heads ovah the same woman.

_Georgie._ (_Innocently._) How romantic! Phil's gran'mothah?

_Noyes._ (_After a pause._) No--niggah woman.

_Georgie._ (_In a low voice, turning away._) Oh--I didn't--realize--

_Noyes._ (_Clearing his throat._) Phil's gran'fathah--he won out. An'

that's the kick that sta'ted the Noyes fam'ly a-rollin' t' pe'dition.

_Georgie._ (_With difficulty._) But mos' people are willin' to

fo'get--at least they ought to be.

_Noyes._ (_Dryly._) Some ain't killed 'emselves tryin'. Howevah, on

lookin' ahead I saw Phil an' I might be in a position t' help each

othah, so we agreed t' sink it. I--I wish yo' mothah would follow

Phil, Miss Byrd. I ce'tainly do wish that!

_Georgie_. She's old-fashioned--oh, hopelessly so!--in things the

world now considers--trivial.

_Noyes._ (_Looking at his hands._) Such as--trade?

_Georgie._ (_Gently._) That's one of them.[16]

Lady Gregory, after writing a rough draft of one of her plays, goes

among the people of her community and sets them talking of the subject

she is treating. Noting their racy, apt, and highly individualized

phrases, she gives them to her characters in the play as she re-writes.

Such intimate, loving study of dialect as Lady Gregory, Mr. Yeats, and

Synge have shown has given us an accurate representation of the Irish

peasant, and may ultimately drive from the English stage the

conventional absurdities of the past. Dialect, then, if carefully

studied, is highly desirable if two or three facts are borne in mind.

First of all, it should be accurate; but secondly it must be clear or

must be made clear for any audience. Unquestionably, Mr. Stanley

Houghton's memorable play _Hindle Wakes_ had a bad title away from its

birthplace,--Manchester, England. In the United States, this title is

perfectly meaningless. How many in any audience in this country could be

expected to know that the title means certain "autumn week-end holidays

in the town of Hindle." There could be no harm in using a different

title away from the birthplace of the play. Recently, in a manuscript

play, appeared a figure speaking a strange mixture of Negro and Irish

dialects. He seemed to all readers a clumsy attempt by the author at a

dialect part. Really, the figure was a portrait of a small political

boss who, from boyhood on, had acquired in the saloons and purlieus of

his district words and phrases of both the Negroes and the Irish. A

little preliminary exposition at the right place cleared up this

difficulty and turned what seemed inept characterization into a

particularly individual figure of richly characterizing phrase.

Obviously, then, dialect should, first, be written accurately. Then it

should be gone over to see what in it may not be clear to most auditors.

These words or phrases should be made clear because they are translated

by other people on the stage or by the speaker, who himself sees or is

told that some stage listener does not understand him. Only a little

ingenuity is needed to do away with such vaguenesses. To substitute for

such words and phrases others which, though incorrect, would be

instantly understood by the audience is to botch the dialect and produce

what is, after all, not different from the conventional stage dialect of

the past. This raises a third point in regard to dialect, and one very

frequently disregarded. Over and over again in plays using dialect

certain speeches are passed over by the author in his final revision

which neither phonetically nor in the words and phrases chosen comport

with the context. Instantly the mood and the color of the scene are lost

unless the actor supplies what the author failed to give. That is,

dialect, if used, should be used steadily and consistently. The

desiderata are, then, accuracy, persistent use, and clearness for the

general public. Thus used, dialect is one of the chief aids to

characterization.

If, in writing dialogue, a dramatist must not speak as himself but in

character, must not be consciously or unconsciously literary if not in

character, how may one surely choose the right words? Perhaps one or

two illustrations will help here. The citation in the left-hand column

from the first quarto _Hamlet_ states the facts clearly enough, but

wholly uncolored by the emotion of the speaker. In the right-hand column

the passionate sympathy of Shakespeare has given him perfect

understanding of Hamlet's feeling.

_Hamlet._ O fie Horatio, and if _Hamlet._. O good Horatio, what a

thou shouldst die, wounded name

What a scandale wouldst thou Things standing thus unknowne,

leave behinde? shall I leave behind me?

What tongue should tell the If thou did'st ever hold me in

story of our deaths, thy hart,

If not from thee? O my heart Absent thee from felicity a

sinckes Horatio, while

Mine eyes have lost their sight, And in this harsh world drawe

my tongue his use: thy breath in paine

Farewell Horatio, heaven receive To tell my story; What warlike

my soule. noise is this?

(_Hamlet dies._) (_A march a farre off._)[17]

Speaking, not as the historian, not as the observer, but as Hamlet

himself, Shakespeare by his quickened feeling finds a phrasing of which

we may say what Swinburne said of some of the lines of John Webster:

that the character says, not what he might have said, not what we are

satisfied to have him say, but what seems absolutely the only thing he

could have said.

When a dramatist works as he should, the emotion of his characters gives

him the right words for carrying their feelings to the audience, and

every word counts. Writing to Macready of _Money_, Bulwer-Lytton said of

his play, "At the end of Act in your closing speech, will you remember

to say, you 'would' refuse me ten pounds to spend on benevolence. Not

you refuse me. The _would_ is important." [18]

In the left-hand column the complete sympathy of Heywood with his

characters makes them speak simply, out of the fullness of their

emotion. In the right-hand column, Heywood's collaborator, Rowley,

lacking complete understanding of his characters, is thinking more of

phrase for its own sake.

ACT I. SCENE 4. _The street_ ACT II. SCENE 1. _Hounslow_

_Enter Rainsford and Young _Enter Rainsford and Young

Forrest, meeting_ Forrest_

_Young Forrest._ Pray let _Rainsford._ Your resolution

me speak with you. holds then?

_Rainsford._ With me, sir? _Young Forrest._ Men that are

easily mov'd are soon

_Young For._ With you. remov'd.

_Rains._ Say on.

_Young For._ Do you not know me? From resolution; but when, with

advice

_Rains._ Keep off, upon the And with foresight we purpose,

peril of thy life. our intents

Come not within my sword's Are not without considerate

length, lest this arm reasons alter'd.

Prove fatal to thee and bereave

thy life, _Rains._ Thou art resolv'd, and

As it hath done thy brother's. I prepar'd for thee.

Yet thus much know, thy state

_Young For._ Why now thou is desperate,

know'st me truly, by that And thou art now in danger's

token, throat already

That thou hast slain my brother. Ev'n half devoured. If I subdue

Put up, put up! thee, know

So great a quarrel as a brother's Thou art a dead man; for this

life fatal steel,

Must not be made a street-brawl; That search'd thy brother's

'tis not fit entrails is prepar'd

That every prentice should, with To do as much to thee. If thou

his shop club, survivest,

Betwixt us play the sticklers. And I be slain, th'art dead too,

Sheathe thy sword. my alliance

And greatness in the world will

_Rains._ Swear thou wilt act not endure

no sudden violence, My slaughter unavenged. Come,

Or this sharp sword shall still I am for thee.

be interposed

'Twixt me and thy own hatred. _Young For._ I would my brother

liv'd, that this our

_Young For._ Sheathe thy diff'rence

sword. Might end in an embrace of

By my religion and that interest folded love;

I have in gentry I will not be But 'twas Heaven's will that

guilty for some guilt of his

Of any base revenge. He should be scourged by thee;

and for the guilt

_Rains._ Say on. In scourging him, thou by my

vengeance punish'd.

_Young For._ Let's walk. Come; I am both ways arm'd,

Trust me. Let not thy guilty against thy steel

soul If I be pierc'd by it, or 'gainst

Be jealous of my fury. This thy greatness

my hand If mine pierce thee.

Is curbed and govern'd by an

honest heart, _Rains._ Have at thee.

Not by just anger. I'll not touch (_They fight and pause_.)

thee foully

For all the world. Let's walk. _Young For._ I will not bid

thee hold; but if thy breath

_Rains._ Proceed. Be as much short as mine, look

to thy weakness.

_Young For._ Sir, you did kill

my brother. Had it been _Rains._ The breath thou draw'st

In fair and even encounter, but weakly,

tho' a child, Thou now shalt draw no more.

His death I had not question'd. (_They fight. Forrest loseth

his weapon_.)

_Rains._ Is this all?

_Young For._ He's gone. The _Young For._ That Heaven knows.

law is past. Your life is He guard my body that my

clear'd; spirit owes!

For none of all our kindred laid (_Guards himself, and puts

against by with his hat--slips--by

You evidence to hang you. the other, running, falls

You're a gentleman; over him, and Forrest kills

And pity 'twere a man of your him_.)

descent

Should die a felon's death. _Good._ My cousin's fall'n--

See, sir, thus far pursue the murderer.

We have demeaned fairly, like

ourselves. _Foster._ But not too near.

But, think you, though we wink I pray; you see he's armed,

at base revenge, And in this deep amazement

A brother's death can be so soon may commit

forgot? Some desperate outrage.

Our gentry baffled, and our

name disgraced?

No: 'tmust not be; I am a _Young For._ Had I but known

gentleman the terror of this deed,

Well known; and my demeanor I would have left it done

hihterto imperfectly,

Hath promis'd somewhat. Rather than in this guilt of

Should I swallow this, conscience

The scandal would outlive me. Labour'd so far. But I forget

Briefly then, my safety.

I'll fight with you. The gentleman is dead. My

desperate life

_Rains._ I am loath. Will be o'erswayed by his allies

and friends,

_Young For._ Answer directly, And I have now no safety but

Whether you dare to meet me my flight.

on even terms; And see where my pursuers

Or mark how I'll proceed. come. Away!

Certain destruction hovers o'er

_Rains._ Say, I deny it. my stay. (_Exit_.)

_Young For._ Then I say thou'rt (_Fortune by Land and Sea_,

a villain, and I challenge thee, Act II, Scene 1.)[1]

Where'er I meet thee next, in

field or town,

The father's manors, or thy

tenants' grange,

Saving the church, there is no

privilege

In all this land for thy

despised life.

(_Fortune by Land and Sea_,

Act I, Scene 4.)[19]

Two sets of extracts from the first and final versions of Ibsen's _A

Doll's House_ show the way in which perfected understanding of a

character reveals the apt phrase.

(_Nora stands motionless. He (_Nora stands motionless.

goes to the door and opens Helmer goes to the door

it._) and opens it_.)

_The Maid._ (_In the Hall._) _Ellen._ (_Half-dressed in the

Here is a letter for you, ma'am. Hall_.) Here is a letter for you,

ma'am.

_Helmer._ Give it here. (_He _Helmer._ Give it to me. (_Seizes

seizes the letter and shuts the letter and shuts the door._) Yes,

door._) Yes, from him. Look from him. You shall not have it.

here. I shall read it.

_Nora._ Read it. _Nora._ Read it.

_Helmer._ I have hardly the _Helmer._ (_By the lamp_.) I

courage. I fear the worst. We have hardly the courage to. We

may both be lost, both you and I. may both be lost, both you and

Ah! I must know. (_Hastily I. Ah! I must know. (_Hastily

tears the letter open; reads a tears the letter open; reads a few

few lines with a cry of joy._) few lines, looks at an enclosure;

Nora! a cry of joy._) Nora!

(_Nora looks inquiringly at (_Nora looks inquiringly at

him._) him._)

_Helmer._ Nora!--Oh, I must read _Helmer._ Nora! Oh, I must read

it again. Yes, yes, it is so. You it again. Yes, yes, it is so.

are saved, Nora, you are saved. I are saved, Nora, I am saved.

_Nora._ How, saved? _Nora._ And I?

_Helmer._ Look here. He sends _Helmer._ You too, of course;

you back your promissory note. we are both saved, both of us.

He writes that he regrets and Look here, he sends you back your

apologises, that a happy turn promissory note. He writes that

in his life--Oh, what matter he regrets and appologises; that

what he writes. We are saved, a happy turn in his life--Oh,

Nora! There is nothing to matter what he writes. We are

witness against you. Oh, Nora, saved, Nora! No one can harm you.

Nora.[20] Oh, Nora, Nora.[21]

The text of the right-hand column brings out more clearly than the

original the complete but unconscious selfishness of Helmer. Ibsen,

understanding that character more fully than in his first draft, makes

not only the change from "You are saved, Nora" to the self-revelatory "I

am saved!" but also the change to that infinitely more dramatic "And I?"

which replaces Nora's "How, saved?"

In a second set of extracts from the same scene, a firmer grasp of the

characters has permitted Ibsen to replace the general and conventional

in the last two speeches of the left-hand column with the more specific

and characterizing lines of Helmer and the lines of Nora that are an

inspiration.

_Nora._... It never for a moment _Nora._... When Krogstad's letter

occurred to me that you lay in the box, it never occurred

would think of submitting to to me that you would think of

that man's conditions, that you submitting to that man's

would agree to direct your conditions. I was convinced that

actions by the will of another. I you would say to him, "Make it

was convinced that you would known to all the world"; and that

say to him, "Make it known to then--

the whole world"; and that

then--

_Helmer._ Well? I should give _Helmer._ Well? When I had

you up to punishment and disgrace. given my own wife's name up to

disgrace and shame--?

_Nora._ No; then I firmly believed _Nora._ Then I firmly believed

that you would come forward, take that you would come forward,

everything upon yourself, and say, take everything upon yourself,

"I am the guilty one"-- and say, "I am the guilty one."

_Helmer._ Nora! _Helmer._ Nora!

_Nora._ You mean I would _Nora._ You mean I would

never have accepted such a never have accepted such a

sacrifice? No, of course not. But sacrifice? No, certainly not. But

what would my word have been what would my assertions have

in opposition to yours? I so been worth in opposition to yours?

firmly believed that you would That was the miracle that I hoped

sacrifice yourself for me--"don't for and dreaded. And it was to

listen to her," you would hinder that that I wanted to die.

say--"she is not responsible;

she is out of her senses"--you

would say that it was love of

you--you would move heaven

and earth. I thought you would

get Dr. Rank to witness that I

was mad, unhinged, distracted.

I so firmly believed that you

would ruin yourself to save

me. That is what I dreaded, and

therefore I wanted to die.

_Helmer._ Oh, Nora, Nora! _Helmer._ I would gladly work

for you day and night, Nora--

bear sorrow and want for your

sake--but no man sacrifices

his honour, even for one he loves.

_Nora._ And how did it turn _Nora._ Millions of women have

out? No thanks, no outburst of done so.[23]

affection, not a shred of a

thought of saving me.[22]

Perfect phrasing rests, then, on character thoroughly understood and

complete emotional accord with the character. Short of that in dialogue,

one stops at the commonplace and colorless, the personal, or the

literary.

Even, however, when dialogue expounds properly and is thoroughly in

character, it will fail if not fitted for the stage. John Oliver Hobbes

stated a truth, if somewhat exaggeratedly, in these lines of her preface

to _The Ambassador_:

Once I found a speech in prose--prose so subtly balanced, harmonious,

and interesting that it seemed, on paper, a song: But no actor or

actress, though they spoke with the voice of angels, could make it, on

the stage, even tolerable.... Yet the speech is nevertheless fine

stuff: it is nevertheless interesting in substance: it has

imagination: it has charm. What, then, was lacking? Emotion in the

_tone_ and, on the part of the writer, consideration for the speaking

voice. Stage dialogue may have or may not have many qualities, but it

must be emotional. It rests primarily on feeling. Wit, philosophy,

moral truths, poetic language--all these count as nothing unless

there is feeling of an obvious, ordinary kind.[24]

When reading a play aloud, do we give all the stage directions, or,

cutting out those which state how certain speeches should be read, try

to give these as directed? Even when reading some story aloud, do we not

often find troublesome full directions as to just how the speakers

delivered their lines? If given by us, they provide an awkward standard

by which to judge our reading. If we wish to suppress them, they are

not, in rapid reading, always seen in time. As was pointed out very

early in this book, gesture, facial expression, movement about the

stage, and above all, the voice, aid the dramatist as they cannot aid

the novelist. These aids and the time limits of a play have, as we shall

see, very great effect on dialogue. Note in the opening of _The Case of

Rebellious Susan_, by Henry Arthur Jones, the effects demanded from the

aids just named.

ACT I. _SCENE. Drawing-room at Mr. Harabin's; an elegantly furnished

room in Mayfair. At back, in centre, fireplace, with fire burning. To

right of fireplace a door leading to lady Susan's sitting-room. A door

down stage left._

_Enter footman left showing in Lady Darby_

_Lady Darby._ (_A lady of about fifty._) Where is Lady Susan now?

_Footman._ Upstairs in her sitting-room, my lady.

(_Indicating the door right._)

_Lady D._ Where is Mr. Harabin?

_Footman._ Downstairs in the library, my lady.

_Enter Second Footman showing in Inez, a widow of about thirty,

fascinating, inscrutable_

_Lady D._ (_To First Footman._) Tell Lady Susan I wish to see her at

once.

_Inez._ And will you say that I am here too?

(_Exit First Footman at door right. Exit Second Footman at door

left._)

_Lady D._ (_Going affectionately to Inez, shaking hands very

sympathetically._) My dear Mrs. Quesnel, you know?

_Inez._ Sue wrote me a short note saying that she had discovered that

Mr. Harabin had--and that she had made up her mind to leave him.

_Lady D._ Yes, that's what she wrote me. Now, my dear, you're her

oldest friend. You'll help me to persuade her to--to look over it and

hush it up.

_Inez._ Oh, certainly. It's the advice everybody gives in such cases,

so I suppose it must be right. What are the particulars?

_Lady D._ I don't know. But with a man like Harabin--a gentleman in

every sense of the word--it can't be a very bad case.

_Enter Lady Susan._[25]

If the voice does not deftly stress "now" in Lady Darby's first speech,

and the "upstairs" and the "downstairs" of the footman, this opening

will fail of its desired effect. Everything in this well-written

beginning of an interesting play depends on bringing to the delivery of

the lines right use of the dramatist's greatest aids: gesture, facial

expression, pantomime, and above all the exquisite intonations of which

the human voice is capable. Write this scene as a novelist would handle

it, and see to what different proportions it will swell. Note in the

final result how much less connotative, how much more commonplace the

dialogue probably is. Contrasting two passages--one from a novel, the

other in a play drawn from it--will perhaps best illustrate that the

dialogue of the novel and of the play treating the same story usually

differ greatly.

And when it became clear that somebody, good or bad, was without,

Patty, having regard to the lateness of the hour and the probability

of supernatural visitations, was much disposed to make as though the

knocking were unheard, and to creep quietly off to bed. But Mistress

Beatrice prevailed upon her to depart from this prudent course; and

the two peered from an upper window to see who stood before the door.

At first they could see no one; but presently a little figure stepped

back from the shadow, looking up to the window above, and Beatrice

Cope, although she discerned not the face, felt more than ever certain

that this summons was for her.

"'Tis but a child there without, Patty," she said. "Maybe 'tis some

poor little creature that has lost its way, and come here for help and

shelter. Heaven forbid that we should leave it to wander about, all

the dreary night through!"

Patty's fears were not much calmed by the sight of this lonely child.

"'Twas the Phantom Child," she murmured, "who comes wailing piteously

to honest folks' doors o' nights; and if they take it in and cherish

it, it works them grievous woe."

Mistress Beatrice, however, tried to hear as little as she might of

what Patty was saying; and she went downstairs and undid the heavy bar

very cautiously. Then she opened the door a little space; and Patty

Joyce stood by her staunchly, although disapproving of what she did.

And when the door was opened, this persevering applicant proved to be

only the boy Bill Lampeter, who was known at White-oaks as at Crowe

Hall, and a score of country Granges beside. He did but crave a drink

of milk and a bit to eat, he said. He had been a-foot all day, and had

had nought to eat; and seeing a light burning in the houseplace, he

made bold to knock and ask for what he needed.

The boy's breath was short and hurried, and his grimy face was pale

and damp with toil of hard running. He did not seek to enter, but kept

glancing over his shoulder into the darkness behind him.

Beatrice sent Patty for food and drink, standing still herself in the

doorway; and the maid was no sooner gone than the boy drew nearer and

spoke.

"Oh, mistress," he said, hoarsely, "I have been beat to-night--but I

told 'em nought. The corporal he raddled my bones terrible--but I set

my teeth, and I told 'un nought. I bit him when he took they shining

white things o' yourn, wi' the writing; them as I could not give to

Mr. Cope, the day I warned the porter at Goodrest that the red-coats

was upon 'em. I had the white things safe, mistress, hid in my

smock"--(he put his hand to his breast, where the rough garment he

wore was heavily quilted and closely drawn).--"And I would ha' giv'

them to Mr. Cope, the first chance I got--I would, honest and true.

But the scouting party caught me; and they says, 'Thee be allays

running from one Grange to another, thee little ne'er-do-weel; thee

can tell us what we wants to know about Goodrest in the hills'--And I

was telling of 'em just what tales comed into my head, for fear of

unpleasantness, mistress, when the corporal, a great rough chap,

seizes hold of me, and says, says he, ''Tis all a pack o' lies, this

here. Search him,' he says, 'and see if he carries messages or

tokens.' And then I fought and bit, for I know'd they'd find your

bright things in my smock; and I bit his hand nigh upon through, that

I did," said Bill, with grim satisfaction, and an oath at which poor

Beatrice shuddered.

"Oh, hush!" she said. "There is no help in swearing, boy."

"_He_ swore," Bill replied. "But when he got the tablets, he were fine

and pleased. And he said, 'This is a stag of ten, my boys; and should

he snuff the breeze too soon we have means to keep him where he is

till morning. Hold that little viper fast,' says he,'and for your

lives don't let him give us the slip.'--So one of the troopers took me

behind him on his horse, with a rope round my body, drawn cruel tight

at first. And I panted and groaned, and made as though he were killing

of me; and after a bit he slacked the rope a little, so as I could put

my head down and gnaw it through in the dark. And at the dip of a

valley, where the shadow was deep under the trees, I slipped off

quiet-like into the long grass. He knew the rope was loose in a

minute, and he snapped his pistol; but the covert was good, and I

crope into the heart of a holler tree covered o'er wi' ivy. I bided

there, till they was tired o' hunting round.--But oh, mistress, the

poor gentleman at Goodrest is undone!--They talked together while the

trooper was making me fast upon his horse; and I heard a word now and

again, for I listened with all my might. There were but four of 'em;

and they said they weren't strong enough to surprise Goodrest, but

must ride back to quarters for help. And as we went past Grantford

Farm, the corporal called a halt; and one held his horse while he went

in and spoke with the farmer. And, mistress, Hugh Stone of Grantford

is known for a bitter Whig. ...And presently Hugh of Grantford comes

out, and his little brother with him; and the boy had that as you

wrote upon--that as they took from me--in his hand. And the corporal

says, looking over his shoulder quick and short, 'Does he understand?'

says he. 'Oh, aye,' says Hugh of Grantford, 'he understands fine.' And

I could see wee Jock did not like the job he were put upon; and I made

a face at him from ahint the trooper's back, and he liked it less nor

ever then."

"What job, Bill?"

Bill Lampeter looked in amazement at this beautiful, terrified lady,

who did not understand.

"Don't 'ee see?" he said. "Jock o' Grantford were to take your writing

to Goodrest, and play upon the gentleman there, to keep him biding

till the red-coats come. What were it as you wrote down that day,

mistress?"

As in a flash of painful memory Beatrice saw the dainty tablets once

more, with words traced upon them in a hand rendered somewhat unsteady

by the slow pace of the sorrel horse--a hand unmistakable, however, to

the eyes of Charlie Cope.

I pray you, do not stir far from home. There is risk abroad.

B.C.

She understood then; and she turned quickly to Patty Joyce, who had

come back bringing bread and milk ere Bill's tale was half done. Bill,

even in the eagerness of his disclosure, had clutched the bread and

cheese; and now he drained the mug of milk, while the good-natured

maid stood open-mouthed, her eyes fixed upon Mistress Beatrice.

"Patty," the young lady whispered, "I think you are faithful and

true.... I must trust you with a perilous secret. This gentleman whom

they seek at Goodrest is my only brother; he has papers of importance

in his keeping, and a warrant is out for his arrest. They will lure

him to his destruction by means of me, his sister; he knows my

handwriting and will trust to my warning. He will lie close at

Goodrest, as a hare upon her form; and they will take him--oh! they

will take him prisoner!--ere morning dawns. I must to Goodrest now, in

the dark night.--Boy! is there time? is there time?"

Bill Lampeter nodded, munching his bread.

"They'll not be back afore the dawning, them troopers," he said.

"They've limed the twig, ye see; the bird is made fast. If Mr. Cope do

hear the country's up, he'll bide where he be there at Goodrest,

reckoning 'tis safest to keep still. Between now and the first streak

as shows over the Black Scaur, mistress, you can do as you will."

"Eh, Mistress Beatrice, you can't never go," said Patty, trembling.

"You couldn't dare to do it. And this here boy," she whispered,

standing close to Mistress Beatrice, "is a very proverb for wicked

story-telling. 'Tis a naughty little varlet; who knows that he has not

been set on to bring this tale?"

"'Tis true enough, though I be a story-teller," said Bill, whose ears

were sharp. "Yon gentleman at Goodrest has need of thee the night,

mistress. And now let me lie down on the straw in the big barn, for my

bones do ache, and I be dizzy wi' running."

He caught at the doorpost as he spoke; and Patty Joyce's suspicion

vanished in pity for the worn-out creature. She kindled a flame to

light the lanthorn which hung in the houseplace; and herself crossed

the wide courtyard to make Bill a comfortable resting-place in the

soft hay and clean straw which filled the great barn.[26]

This is the same scene in the play:

(_Louder rapping. Trembling with rage and disappointment, Sandiland

disappears down the path. Beatrice stands a moment, looking as if

waking from a nightmare._)

_Patty._ (_Outside, rapping more._) Miss Beatrice, Miss Beatrice!

Quick!

_Beatrice._ (_Crossing dazedly to door. By it, dully._) Who?

_Patty._ Open quick. Me and Bill.

_Beat._ (_Recovering._) Bill!

(_Quickly she unbolts the door. Patty enters, half supporting Bill.

She looks about as if surprised at not seeing any one beside

Beatrice. Bill's clothes are torn and he is covered with dirt. There

is blood on his hands where cords have torn the flesh. He looks

white and wretched and breathes hard as if from recent running. He

should play the whole scene with nervous excitement that suggests a

collapse at the end of it._)

_Bill._ (_Apologetically, as he stumbles toward Beatrice._) I've had a

bit of a scrap. (_Aside to Beatrice._) Get rid o' 'er.

_Beat._ You can trust her. What has happened?

_Bill._ Scoutin' party got me. Corporal raddled my bones terrible when

I fought and bit, fearin' they'd find your message hid in my smock.

They near tore it off, damn 'em.

_Beat._ You have the tablets?

_Bill._ No.

_Beat._ They have them? (_With relief._) Then they haven't reached

James!

_Bill._ The gentleman? Oh, ay. When we come to Grantford Farm--I were

trussed up be'ind a trooper--Corporal called out little Jock o'

Grantford--his fayther's a bitter Whig--and bade 'im take your message

to Goodrest, to keep the gentleman waitin' till the red coats be come.

_Beat._ (_To Patty._) Where's Grizel?

_Patty._ In the paddock'm. But--

_Beat._ Saddle her at once. I must to Goodrest. (_Patty hesitates._)

_Bill._ (_Menacingly as he reaches for a candle-stick._) She said--To

once.

(_Unwillingly but quickly, Patty goes out centre._)

_Bill._ (_Pointing to the door where the full moon shines in

clearly._) Ay, but that ain't 'id yet.

_Beat._ (_As if struck by a sudden idea._) How did you get free?

_Bill._ Gnawed the ropes; slipped off in the long grass. Trooper's

pistol missed me. Stayed in a holler oak I knows till they was tired

'untin'.

_Beat._ Knowing you are loose, they will start at once.

_Bill._ If they ain't fools. But most folks be. Risk somethin' on

that. (_Beatrice is busy with her dress and cloak. He starts to help

her but has to support himself by table._) Don't go through Whitecross

Village. There the soldiers be. Take the footpath by Guiting; the

bridge be shaky but 'twill hold.

(_Enter Patty, centre._)

_Patty._ Grizel's ready'm.

_Beat._ (_Nodding her understanding to Bill--to Patty._) Close up

here. Look after Bill. Be ready to let me in when the first cock

crows. My stirrup! (_Goes out swiftly, followed protestingly by Patty.

Bill drags himself to right of door watching, and says after a

minute._) She's up!

_Patty._ (_Rushing in as there is the sound of swift hoof beats._)

She's gone! (_She falls sobbing hysterically by the left side of

door._)

_Bill._ (_As he holds himself up at right_.) The damned brave lady!

_Curtain._

First of all, the novelist permits himself an amount of detail which the

dramatist must forego because of his more limited space. Interesting

details which do not forward the purpose of the scene or act the wise

dramatist denies himself--note in Ibsen's revision of certain lines in

_A Doll's House_ (p. 350) the cutting, between the first and final

versions, of what concerns Dr. Rank. It was in part unnecessary detail

which made the dialogue of the play on John Brown (pp. 309-313) so

ineffective. In what follows immediately, a skilful hand seems in column

one to have cut details of column two which, though interesting in

themselves, delay the essential movement of the scene and help to swell

the whole play to undue proportions.

_Horatio._ Mary that can I, at _Horatio._ That can I.

least the whisper goes so, At least the whisper goes so;

Our late King, who as you know our last King.

was by Forten- Who[se image even but now

Brasse of Norway. appeared to us,]

Was as you knowe by Fortin-

Brasse of Norway,

Thereto prickt on by a most Thereto prickt on by a most

emulous cause, dared to emulate pride

The combate, in which our Dar'd to the combat; in which

valiant Hamlet, our valient Hamlet,

For so this side of our knowne (For so this side of our knowne

world esteemed him, world esteemd him)

Did slay this Fortenbrasse, Did slay this Fortinbrasse, who

Who by a scale compact well by a seald compact

ratified, by law Well ratified by lawe and heraldy

And heraldrie, did forfeit with Did forfeit (with his life) all

his life all those these his lands

His lands which he stoode Which he stood seaz'd of, to

seazed of by the conqueror, the conquerour.

Against the which a moity Against the which a moitie

competent, competent,

Was gaged by our King: Was gaged by our King, [which

had returne

To the inheritance of

Fortinbrasse,

Had he bin vanquisher; as by

the same comart,

And carriage of the article

desseigne,

His fell to Hamlet;] now Sir

Now sir, young Fortenbrasse, young Fortinbrasse

Of unimprooved mettle, hot and Of unimprooved mettle, hot and

full, full,

Hath in the skirts of Norway Hath in the skirts of Norway

heere and there heere and there

Sharkt up a sight of lawelesse Sharkt up a list of lawelesse

Resolutes resolutes

For food and diet to some For foode and diet to some

enterprise, enterprise,

That hath a stomacke in't: and That hath a stomacke in't

this (I take it) is the [which is no other

Chief head and ground of our As it doth well appeare unto

watch. our state

But to recover of us by strong

hand

And tearmes compulsatory,

those foresaid lands

So by his father lost;] and this

I take it

Is [the maine motive of our

preparations

The source of this our watch,

and] the chiefe head

Of this post hast and Romadge

in the land.

[_Bar._ I thinke it be no

other, but enso;

Well may it sort that this

portentous figure

Comes armed through our

watch so like the King

That was and is the question of

these warres.

_Hora._ A moth it is to trouble

the mindes eye:

In the most high and palmy

state of Rome,

A little ere the mightiest Julius

fell

The graves stood tenantlesse,

and the sheeted dead

Did squeake and gibber in the

Roman streets

As starres, with traines of fier,

and dewes of blood

Disasters in the sunne; and the

moist starre,

Upon whose influence Neptunes

Empier stands,

Was sicke almost to doomesday

with eclipse.

And even the like precurse of

feare events

As harbindgers preceading still

the fates

And prologue to the Omen comming

on

Have heaven and earth together

demonstrated

Unto our Climatures and

countrymen.]

_Enter the Ghost_. _Enter Ghost_.

But loe, bemold, see where it But softe, behold, loe where it

comes againe. comes againe

Ile crosse it, though it blast Ile crosse it though it blast

me: stay illusion, mee: stay illusion,

If there be any good thing to (_It spreads his arms_)

be done, [If thou hast any sound or use

That may doe ease to thee, and of voyce

grace to mee, Speake to me,] if there be any

Speake to mee. good thing to be done

That may to thee doe ease, and

grace to mee,

Speake to me.[27]

Unnecessary detail should, then, be cut from dialogue both because it is

usually the chief offender in making the play unduly long, and because

it weakens the dialogue of which it is a part. In argument it is a

time-honored principle that it is far better not to pile up all the

evidence you can on a given point, but by selecting your best argument,

or two or three of the better type, to strike hard with the selected

material. The same principle underlies writing good dramatic dialogue.

Say what you have to say as well as you can, and except for emphasis or

when repetition produces some desired effect, don't repeat. In the

speech quoted below it became clear in rehearsal that the bracketed part

was not necessary because what preceded showed sufficiently the

affection Miss Helen had roused in the faithful old servant, Alec.

However characterizing or amusing the remainder might be, it clogged the

movement of the scene. Consequently it went out.

_Dick._ Hello--what's this Alec?

_Alec._ A grand pianner, sir.

_Dick._ Of course, but where did it come from?

_Alec._ Miss Helen, she gave it to 'em at Christmas.

_Dick._ She--gave it to--them--?

_Alec._ Yes.

_Dick. (Laughing_.) But they don't play it, do they?

_Alec._ No, she plays it--. An' you oughter hear her play, sir. At

evenin's after supper when the wind'd howl around the house she'd

make it sound like Heaven in here. If I ever get up there I don't

want white angels and gold harps in mine,--I jes' want Miss Helen

an' a grand pianner. (_Dick is very sober. [He doesn't speak_.) An'

she can sing, too. You oughter hear her,--little soft things,--none

o' this screechy stuff. An' all the old dames sit around--an' then

when my work was done out in the barn I'd come in an' sit over there

in the corner out o' the way like, an' listen like a old lady

myself--with my Adam's apple getting tight every once in a while

thinkin' o' things. I tell you she's--she's a regular--humdinger.]

_Dick._ (_Quietly._) What time do you expect her back?

Time forbids any form of fiction to be encyclopaedic. The drama is, as we

have seen, the most selective of the forms of fiction. Failure to

remember this has hurt the chances of many a promising dramatist. Few

have such skilled and loyal advisers as Lord Tennyson found in Sir Henry

Irving when his over-long _Becket_ must be cut for stage production. How

much of the following scene in the original do we think at first sight

we can spare? Much which Sir Henry removed we should like to keep, but

time-limits forbade and he cut with exceeding skill to the best dramatic

phrasing offered of the essentials of the scene.

ACT I. SCENE 1. _Becket's House in London. Chamber barely furnished.

Becket unrobing. Herbert of Bosham and Servant_.

ORIGINAL REVSION

_Servant._ Shall I not help _Servant._ Shall I not help

your lordship to your rest? your lordship to your rest?

_Becket._ Friend, am I so _Becket._ Friend, am I so

much better than thyself much better than thyself

That thou shouldst help me? That thou shouldst help me?

Thou art wearied out Thou art wearied out

With this day's work, get thee With this day's work, get thee

to thine own bed. to thine own bed.

Leave me with Herbert, friend. Leave me with Herbert, friend.

(_Exit Servant.) (Exit Servant_.)

Help me off, Herbert, with Help me off, Herbert, with

this--and this. this--and this.

_Herbert._ Was not the people's _Herbert._ Was not the people's

blessing as we past blessing as we past

Heart-comfort and a balsam to Heart-comfort and a balsam to

thy blood? thy blood?

_Becket._ The people know _Becket._ The people know

their Church a tower of their Church a tower of

strength, strength,

A bulwark against Throne and A bulwark against Throne and

Baronage. Baronage.

Too heavy for me, this; off Too heavy for me, this; off

with it, Herbert! with it, Herbert!

_Herbert._ Is it so much heavier _Herbert._ Is it so much heavier

than thy Chancellor's robe? than thy Chancellor's robe?

_Becket._ No; but the Chancellor's _Becket._ No; but the Archbishop's

and the Archbishop's Chancellor's and the

Together more than mortal man Together more than mortal man

can bear. can bear.

_Herbert._ Not heavier than _Herbert._ Not heavier than

thine armour at Thoulouse? thine armour at Thoulouse?

_Becket._ O Herbert, Herbert,

in my chancellorship

I more than once have gone

against the Church.

_Herbert._ To please the King?

_Becket._ Ay, and the King

of kings,

Or justice; for it seem'd to me

but just

The Church should pay her

scutage like the lords.

But hast thou heard this cry of _Becket._ But hast thou heard

Gilbert Foliot this cry of Gilbert Foliot

That I am not the man to be That I am not the man to be

your Primate, your Primate,

For Henry could not work a For Henry could not work a

miracle-- miracle--

Make an Archbishop of a soldier? Make an Archbishop of a soldier?

_Herbert._ Ay, _Herbert._ Ay,

For Gilbert Foliot held himself For Gilbert Foliot held himself

the man. the man.

_Becket._ Am I the man? My

mother, ere she bore me,

Dream'd that twelve stars fell

glittering out of heaven

Into her bosom.

_Herbert._ Ay, the fire, the

light,

The spirit of the twelve Apostles

enter'd

Into thy making.

_Becket._ And when I was a

child,

The Virgin, in a vision of my

sleep,

Gave me the golden keys of

Paradise. Dream,

Or prophecy, that?

_Herbert._ Well, dream and

prophecy both.

_Becket._ And when I was of

Theobald's household, once--

The good old man would sometimes

have his jest--

He took his mitre off, and set it

on me,

And said, "My young Archbishop--

thou wouldst make

A stately Archbishop!" Jest

or prophecy there?

_Herbert._ Both, Thomas, both.

_Becket._ Am I the man? That _Becket._ Am I the man? That

rang rang

Within my head last night, and Within my head last night, and

when I slept when I slept

Methought I stood in Canterbury Methought I stood in Canterbury

Minster, Minster,

And spake to the Lord God, and And spake to the Lord God and

said, "O Lord, said,

I have been a lover of wines

and delicate meats,

And secular splendours, and a

favourer

Of players, and a courtier, and

a feeder

Of dogs and hawks, and apes,

and lions, and lynxes.

Am _I_ the man?" And the Lord

answer'd me,

"Thou art the man, and all the

more the man."

And then I asked again, "O Lord

my God

Henry the King hath been my "Henry the King hath been

friend, my brother my friend, my brother

And mine uplifter in this And mine uplifter in this world,

world, and chosen me and chosen me

For this thy great For this thy great

archbishoprick, believing archbishoprick, believing

That I should go against the That I should go against the

Church with him, Church with him,

And I shall go against him with And I shall go against him with

the Church, the Church.

And I have said no word of this

to him:

Am _I_ the man?" And the Am _I_ the man?" And the

Lord answer'd me, Lord answer'd me,

"Thou art the man, and all the "Thou art the man and all the

more the man." more the man."

And thereupon, methought, He And thereupon, methought, He

drew toward me, drew toward me,

And smote me down upon the And smote me down upon the

Minster floor. Minster floor.

I fell. I fell.

_Herbert._ God make not thee but _Herbert._ God make not thee

thy foes, fall. but thy foes, fall.

_Becket._ I fell. Why fall?

Why did he smite me? What?

Shall I fall off--to please the

King once more?

Not fight--tho' somehow traitor

to the King--

My truest and mine utmost for

the Church?

_Herbert._ Thou canst not fall

that way. Let traitor be;

For how have fought thine utmost

for the Church,

Save from the throne of thine

archbishoprick?

And how been made archbishop

hadst thou told him,

"I mean to fight mine utmost for

the Church, Against the King?"

_Becket._ But dost thou think

the King

Forced mine election?

_Herbert._ I do think the King

Was potent in the election, and

why not?

Why should not Heaven have so

inspired the King?

Be comforted. Thou art the

man--be thou

A mightier Anselm.

_Becket._ I do believe thee,

then. I am the man.

And yet I seem appall'd--on such _Becket._ And yet I seem

a sudden appall'd--on such a sudden

At such an eagle-height I stand At such an eagle-height I stand

and see and see

The rift that runs between me The rift that runs between me

and the King. and the King.

I served our Theobald well when

I was with him;

I served King Henry well as

Chancellor;

I am his no more, and I must

serve the Church.

This Canterbury is only less

than Rome,

And all my doubts I fling from

me like dust,

Winnow and scatter all scruples

to the wind,

And all the puissance of the

warrior,

And all the wisdom of the

Chancellor,

And all the heap'd experiences

of life,

I cast upon the side of

Canterbury--

Our holy mother Canterbury,

who sits

With tatter'd robes. Laics and

barons, thro'

The random gifts of careless

kings, have graspt

Her livings, her advowsons,

granges, farms,

And goodly acres--we will

make her whole;

Not one rood lost. And for these

Royal customs,

These ancient Royal customs--they

_are_ Royal,

Not of the Church--and let

them be anathema,

And all that speak for them

anathema.

_Herbert._ Thomas, thou art _Herbert._ Thomas, thou art

moved too much. moved too much.

_Becket._ Oh, Herbert here _Becket._ O Herbert, here

I gash myself asunder from the I gash myself asunder from the

King, King,

Tho' leaving each, a wound: mine Tho' leaving each, a wound; mine

own, a grief own, a grief

To show the scar forever--his, To show the scar forever--his,

a hate a hate

Not ever to be heal'd.[28] Not ever to be heal'd.[29]

Dialogue, then, should avoid all unnecessary detail, and should avoid

repetition except for desired dramatic ends--in other words, must select

and again select.

Practically every illustration thus far used in treating dialogue fitted

for the stage has shown the enormous importance of facial expression,

gesture, and voice. What the voice may do with just two words is the

substance of a little one-act piece made famous years ago by Miss

Genevieve Ward and later often read by the late George Riddle. An

actress applying to a manager is tested as to her power to express in

the two words "Come here" all the emotions described by her examiner. As

will be seen, the little play, when read in the study, lacks

effectiveness. Given by an actress who can put into the two words all

that is demanded, it becomes varied, exciting, and even amazing.

_Actress._ ... Your selection may not be in my repertoire.

_Manager._ Oh! yes, it is. I only require two words: "Come here."

_Actress._ Come here?

_Manager._ Yes, and with the words, the meaning, emphasis, and

expressions, that situation, character, and the surroundings would

command.

_Actress._ (_Takes off her bonnet and shawl._) Well, then, I am ready.

_Manager._ Before a mother stand a loving couple, who pray for her

consent; the lover is poor; she battles with her pride, it is a great

struggle for her; at last with open arms she cries--

_Actress._ Come here!

_Manager._ A mother calls her little daughter, who has done something

to vex her.

_Actress._ Come here!

_Manager._ And now it is her step-child.

_Actress._ Come here!

_Manager._ A carriage is dashing by, the child is in the street, the

mother's heart is filled with terror, she calls her darling and cries

out--

_Actress._ Come here!

_Manager._ In tears and sorrow a wife has bid adieu to her departing

husband, whom the State has called to defend his country on the

battlefield; her only consolation is in her children, these she calls,

and presses to her heart.

_Actress._ Come here!

_Manager._ The husband has returned, and full of joy she calls her

children as she observes him coming home.

_Actress._ Come here!

_Manager._ While in his arms, she now observes his servant, and as

with every one she would divide her joy she calls to him--

_Actress._ Come here!

_Manager._ The feelings of a mother in all her joys and tribulation,

you have most perfectly sustained. Now show me, how in despair a

widow, who has lost all she possessed through fire, confronts the

creditors, who clamor for their dues, and whose cruelty has killed her

husband. She stands by his body and points to all that now is left

her, the remains of her dead husband, and calls on them to look at

their work.

_Actress._ Come here!

_Manager._ I must confess you depict pain as if you felt it.[30]

Mark, when running through the scene in which Iago tempts Othello to his

final undoing (Act III, Scene 3.), the variety of intonation required in

the repetitions of "Honest" and "Think." In a novel containing this

scene the absence of the actors' trained intonations would cost the

author much labor in describing how the words should be uttered.

_Othello._ Farewell, my Desdemona; I'll come to thee straight.

_Desdemona._ Emilia, come.--Be as your fancies teach you;

Whate'er you be, I am obedient.

(_Exeunt Desdemona and Emilia_.)

_Othello._ Excellent wretch! Perdition catch my soul,

But I do love thee! and when I love thee not,

Chaos is come again.

_Iago._ My noble lord,--

_Othello._ What dost thou say, Iago?

_Iago._ Did Michael Cassio, when you woo'd my lady,

Know of your love?

_Othello._ He did, from first to last. Why dost thou ask?

_Iago._ But for a satisfaction of my thought;

No further harm.

_Othello._ Why of thy thought, Iago?

_Iago._ I did not think he had been acquainted with her.

_Othello._ O, yes; and went between us very oft.

_Iago._ Indeed!

_Othello._ Indeed! ay, indeed. Discern'st thou aught in that?

Is he not honest?

_Iago._ Honest, my lord?

_Othello._ Honest, ay, honest.

_Iago._ My lord, for aught I know.

_Othello._ What dost thou think?

_Iago._ Think, my lord?

_Othello._ Think, my lord!

By heaven, he echoes me,

As if there were some monster in his thought

Too hideous to be shown.--Thou dost mean something.

I heard thee say even now, thou lik'st not that,

When Cassio left my wife. What didst not like?

And when I told thee he was of my counsel,

Of my whole course of wooing, thou criedst, "Indeed!"

And didst contract and purse thy brow together,

As if thou then hadst shut up in thy brain

Some horrible conceit. If thou dost love me,

Show me thy thought.

Even passages in a play which look very unpromising should not be

finally judged till a flexible, well-trained voice has done its best to

bring out any emotion latent in the words. If they were originally

chosen by an author writing in full sympathetic understanding of his

figures, they will, properly spoken, reveal unexpected emotional values.

Here is a passage from Kyd's _Spanish Tragedy_ at which many a critic

has poked fun. At first sight it undoubtedly seems merely "words, words,

words."

_Hieronimo._ O eyes! no eyes, but fountains fraught with tears:

O life! no life but lively form of death:

O world! no world but mass of public wrongs,

Confus'd and fill'd with murder and misdeeds:

O sacred heav'ns! if this unhallow'd deed,

If this inhuman and barbarous attempt;

If this incomparable murder thus,

Of mine, but now no more my son,

Should unreveal'd and unrevenged pass,

How should we term your dealings to be just

If you unjustly deal with those that in your justice trust?[31]

If we remember what the play has already told us of Hieronimo: that

having found his son hanging murdered in the arbor, he enters in a

perfect ecstasy of grief; and if we recall that the Elizabethan loved a

style as ornate as this, feeling it no barrier between him and the

thought behind it; the look of the passage begins to change. Put the

feeling of the father into the voice as one reads, and lo, these lines

are not a bad medium for expressing Hieronimo's grief. They may lack the

simplicity we demand today, but strong, clear feeling may be brought out

from behind them for any audience. For an Elizabethan audience it came

forth in a style delightful in itself. The fact is, time cannot wholly

spoil the value even of lines phrased according to the standards of some

literary vogue of the moment if the author originally wrote them with an

imagination kindled to accuracy of feeling by complete sympathy with his

characters. Never judge the dialogue of a play only by the eye. Hear it

adequately, interpretively spoken. Then, and then only, judge it

finally.

It is almost impossible, also, to separate the voice from gesture and

facial expression as aids in dramatic dialogue. Unquestionably each of

these would help the voice in the illustrations just given from _Come

Here, Othello_, and the _Spanish Tragedy_. When Antony, absorbed in

Cleopatra, and therefore unwilling to listen to the messenger bearing

tidings of the utmost importance from Rome, cries, "Grates me: the

sum!"[32] it is not merely the intonation but the accompanying gesture

in the sense of general bodily movement, and the facial expression,

which make the condensed phrasing both natural and immensely effective.

When Frankford (_A Woman Killed With Kindness_, Act III, Scene 2)[33]

asks his old servant, Nicholas, for proof of Mrs. Frankford's

unfaithfulness the answer is not, "I saw her," or "I saw her and her

lover with my eyes," but simply "Eyes, eyes." The last are what rightly,

in dramatic dialogue, may be called "gesture words," words demanding for

their full effect not only the right intonation, but facial expression

and all that pantomime may mean. The old man lifts his head, and, though

unwillingly, looks his master straight in the face as he speaks. Perhaps

he even emphasizes by lifting his hand toward his eyes. With the

concomitants of action and voice, the words take on finality and equal:

"What greater proof could I have? I saw the lovers with these eyes."

So close, indeed, is the relation between action and phrasing that often

we cannot tell whether dialogue is good or bad till we have made sure of

the "business" implied by it, or to be found in it by an imaginative

worker. The following passage from _The Revesby Sword Play_ is

distinctly misleading because of the word, "looking-glass" unless one

studies the context closely for implied business, and above all,

understands the sword dances of the period in which the play was

written.

_Fool._ Well, what dost thou call this very pretty thing?

_Pickle Herring._ Why, I call it a fine large looking-glass.

_Fool._ Let me see what I can see in this fine large looking-glass.

Here's a hole through it, I see. I see, and I see!

_Pickle Herring._ You see and you see, and what do you see?

_Fool._ Marry, e'en a fool,--just like thee!

_Pickle Herring._ It is only your own face in the glass.[34]

A "looking-glass" with "a hole through it" seems nearly a contradiction

in terms, but the word "glass" is synonymous with "nut," a name given to

the swords of English Folk Dances when so interwoven as to make a kind

of frame about a central space. This space is often large enough for a

man's head. The Fool has seen the dancers make such a nut. Holding it

up, he asks Pickle Herring what it is. Pickle Herring, seeing the Fool's

face through the opening and seizing his chance for a jest, calls the

nut a "looking-glass." The Fool carries on the conceit. Looking through

the hole he and Pickle Herring jibe at each other. The whole _Revesby

Sword Play_ provides illustration after illustration of the

inseparability of words and business in good dramatic dialogue.

By "business" is meant ordinarily either illustrative action called for

by a stage direction or clearly implied in the text. By "latent

business" is meant the illustrative action which a sympathetic and

imaginative producer finds in lines either ordinarily left without

business or treated with some conventional action. Mr. William Poel's

historic revival of _Everyman_ was crowded with such imaginative and

richly interpretive business. When Death cried,

Everyman, thou art mad! Thou hast thy wits five,

And here on earth will not amend thy life!

For suddenly I do come--

on that last line he stretched out one arm and with the index finger of

his hand barely touched the heart of Everyman. In the gesture there was

a suggestion of what might be going to happen, even a suggestion that

already Death thus claimed Everyman for his own. It pointed finely the

immediate cry of Everyman,

O wretched caitiff, whither shall I flee,

That I might scape this endless sorrow?[35]

The text did not call for this gesture: it belongs to the best type of

interpretive business.

Few untrained persons hear what they write: they merely see it. The

skilled dramatist never forgets that he has to help him in his dialogue

all that intonation, facial expression, gesture, and the general action

of his characters may do for him. Which, after all, is the more

touching, the cry of pleasure with which some child of the streets, at a

charity Christmas tree, gazes at a rag doll some one holds out to her,

or the silent mothering gesture with which she draws it close to her,

her face alight? It is just because, at times, facial expression,

gesture, and movement may so completely express all that is needed that

pantomime is coming to play a larger and larger part in our drama. Older

readers of this book may recall the late Agnes Booth and her long silent

scene in _Jim, The Penman_. By comparison of a letter and a cheque, Kate

Ralston becomes aware that her husband is a famous forger, Jim, the

Penman. Through all this great scene of an otherwise cheap play, the

physical movement was very slight. The actress, three-quarters turned

toward the audience, sat near a table. It was her facial expression and,

rarely, a slight movement of the arms or body which conveyed her

succession of increasingly intense emotions. The significant pantomime

began with "She puts cheque with others." The acting of the next seven

lines of stage direction held an audience with increasing intensity of

feeling for some five minutes.

Nina (Mrs. Ralston) has just told her husband that she discovered

Captain Redwood asleep in the conservatory at the end of Act I. Though

she does not know it, this shows her husband that all his incriminating

interview with Dr. Hartfeld may have been overheard. He falls into

disturbed reverie and is so absorbed in thinking out the situation that

he is oblivious to what she does.

_Nina._ Now then, for my pass-book.

(_Opens pass-book and takes passed cheques out of side pocket of

book. Music._)

_Ralston._ (_Aside._) He heard all! If she had told me, she would

have saved me.

_Nina._ (_Looking at a cheque._) What is this cheque? I don't remember

it. A cheque for five guineas in favor of Mrs. Chapstone.

I never gave her a cheque. Oh, I recollect, that same evening

she bothered you to take some tickets and you took them in my

name. I never had the tickets, by-the-bye. I suppose she sold

them over again. Yes, to be sure, you wrote the cheque. You

asked permission to sign my name. How wonderfully like my

writing! Why, it quite deceives me, it's so marvelous!

(_Ralston, in chair, is lost in thought, and hardly attends to what

she says. She puts cheque with others and goes through accounts.

Pauses, puts pass-book down, and takes up cheque again, examines it;

turns her head and looks at Ralston, observes his absorption, and

after another look at him takes from drawer the letter which

Percival gave her and the other. She places them and the cheque

together, almost in terror; comparing them, a look of painful

conviction comes over her face, which changes into one of terrible

determination. She rises from chair. Stop music on the word

"James."_)[36]

The greatest recent instance of pantomime is undoubtedly the third scene

of Act III of Mr. Galsworthy's _Justice_. Set in Falder's cell, it is

meant to illustrate the loneliness, the excitability, and even the

brutishness of a prisoner's life. Many people, while admitting the

effectiveness of this wordless scene, have declared it emotionally so

overwhelming that they could not endure seeing it a second time.

_Falder's cell, a whitewashed space thirteen feet broad by seven deep,

and nine feet high, with a rounded ceiling. The floor is of shiny

blackened bricks. The barred window of opaque glass with a ventilator,

is high up in the middle of the end wall. In the middle of the

opposite end wall is a narrow door. In a corner are the mattress and

bedding rolled up (two blankets, two sheets, and a coverlet). Above

them is a quarter-circular wooden shelf, on which is a Bible and

several little devotional books, piled in a symmetrical pyramid; there

are also a black hair-brush, tooth-brush, and a bit of soap. In

another corner is the wooden frame of a bed, standing on end. There is

a dark ventilator over the window, and another over the door.

Falder's work (a shirt to which he is putting button holes) is hung to

a nail on the wall over a small wooden table, on which the novel,

"Lorna Doone,"[37] lies open. Low down in the corner by the door is a

thick glass screen, about a foot square, covering the gas-jet let into

the wall. There is also a wooden stool, and a pair of shoes beneath

it. Three bright round tins are set under the window._

_In the fast failing daylight, Falder, in his stockings, is seen

standing motionless, with his head inclined towards the door,

listening. He moves a little closer to the door, his stockinged feet

making no noise. He stops at the door. He is trying harder and harder

to hear something, any little thing that is going on outside. He

springs suddenly upright--as if at a sound, and remains perfectly

motionless. Then, with a heavy sigh, he moves to his work, and stands

looking at it, with his head down; he does a stitch or two, having the

air of a man so lost in sadness that each stitch is, as it were, a

coming to life. Then turning abruptly, he begins pacing the cell,

moving his head, like an animal pacing its cage. He stops again at the

door, listens, and, placing the palms of his hands against it with his

fingers spread out, leans his forehead against the iron. Turning from

it, presently, he moves slowly back towards the window, tracing his

way with his finger along the top line of the distemper that runs

round the wall. He stops under the window, and, picking up the lid of

one of the tins, peers into it. It has grown very nearly dark.

Suddenly the lid falls out of his hands with a clatter, the only sound

that has broken the silence--and he stands staring intently at the

wall where the stuff of the shirt is hanging rather white in the

darkness--he seems to be seeing somebody or something there. There is

a sharp tap and click; the cell light behind the glass screen has been

turned up. The cell is brightly lighted. Falder is seen gasping for

breath._

_A sound from far away, as of distant, dull beating on thick metal, is

suddenly audible. Falder shrinks back, not able to bear this sudden

clamour. But the sound grows, as though some great tumbril were

rolling towards the cell. And gradually it seems to hypnotise him. He

begins creeping inch by inch nearer to the door. The banging sound,

travelling from cell to cell, draws closer and closer; Falder's hands

are seen moving as if his spirit had already joined in this beating,

and the sound swells till it seems to have entered the very cell._

_He suddenly raises his clenched fists. Panting violently, he flings

himself at his door, and beats on it._

_The curtain falls_.[38]

Perhaps an even more interesting illustration of pantomime, because it

gives us, instead of the heightening emotion of one person, the action

of two characters upon each other, is found in Hugo von Hofmannsthal's

_Die Frau im Fenster_.

_She remains leaning over the parapet thus for a long time. Suddenly

she thinks she hears something as the curtain behind her, separating

her balcony from the room, is thrown open. Turning her head she sees

her husband standing in the doorway. She springs up; her features

become distorted with the utmost anguish. Messer Braccio stands silent

in the doorway. He wears a simple dark green dressing-gown, without

weapons; low shoes. He is very tall and strong. His face has the

quality that often shows itself in the old pictures of great lords and

condottieri. He has an exceedingly large forehead, and little, dark

eyes, thick black hair, short and curly, and a small beard round his

face. Dianora wishes to speak, but can bring no sound from her throat.

Messer. Braccio motions for her to draw in the ladder. Dianora does so

automatically, rolls it together, and as though unconscious, lets the

bundle fall at her feet. Braccio regards her calmly. Then he grasps

his left hip with his right hand, also with his left hand, and looking

down, notes that he has no dagger. Making an impatient movement of the

lips he glances down into the garden and behind him. He lifts his

right hand for an instant and looks at its palm. He goes back into the

room with firm, unhurried steps._

_Dianora looks after him continually; she cannot take her eyes from

him. When the curtain falls behind him, she passes her fingers over

her cheeks and through her hair. Then she folds her hands and with

wildly twitching lips silently prays. Then she throws her arms

backward and grasps the stone coping with her fingers, a movement

revealing firm resolution and a hint of triumph._

_Braccio steps out through the door again, carrying in his left hand a

stool which he places in the doorway, and then sits down opposite his

wife. His expression has not changed. From time to time he lifts his

right hand mechanically and regards the small wound in its palm._

_Braccio._ (_His tone is cold, slightly disdainful. He indicates the

ladder with his foot and his eyes._) Who is it?

(_Dianora lifts her shoulders, then lets them fall again slowly._)

_Braccio._ I know.

(_Dianora lifts her shoulders, then lets them fall again slowly. Her

teeth are pressed tightly together._)

_Braccio._ (_Raising his hand with the movement but touching his wife

only with his glance; then he turns his gaze toward the garden

again._) Palla degli Albizzi.[39]

Such elaborate pantomime as the cases just cited is naturally rare, but

a dramatist is always watching for an opportunity to shorten by

pantomime a speech or the dialogue of a scene, or to intensify by it the

effect of his words.[40] Is anything in _Shore Acres_, by James A.

Herne, more memorable than the last scene? In it Uncle Nat, who has

established the happiness of the household, lights his candle

deliberately and goes slowly up the long staircase to his bedroom,

humming softly. He is the very picture of spiritual content. Words would

have spoiled that scene as they have spoiled many and many a scene of an

inexperienced dramatist.

Iris, at the end of Act III of Pinero's play of that name, is on the

point of leaving Bellagio. Maldonado has left lying on her table a

checkbook on a bank in which he has placed a few hundred pounds in her

name. Because of the defalcation of her lawyer, she is in financial

straits. Maldonado wishes to help her but also to gain power over her.

Unwilling to take the checkbook, she has urged him to remove it. Lacking

firmness of character, however, she lets him leave it, saying she will

destroy it.

_With a troubled, half-guilty look, Iris attires herself in her hat

and cape; after which, carrying her gloves, she returns to her

dressing-bag. Glancing round the room to assure herself that she has

collected all her small personal belongings, her eyes rest on the

checque-book which lies open on the writing-table. She contemplates it

for a time, a gradually increasing fear showing itself in her face.

Ultimately she walks slowly to the table and picks up a book. She is

fingering it in an uncertain, frightened way when the servant

returns_.

_Man-servant._ (_Standing over the bag._) Is there anything more,

ma'am--?

(_She hesitates helplessly; then, becoming conscious that she is

being stared at, she advances, drops the book into the bag, and

passes out. The man shuts the bag and is following her as the

curtain falls_.)[41]

This passage from Act I of _The Great Divide_ shows pantomime

supplementing speech as the dramatist of experience frequently employs

it. A writer of less sure feeling would have permitted his characters

some unnecessary or involved speech.

(_Ruth selects a red flower, puts it in the dark mass of her hair, and

looks out at the open door_.) What a scandal the moon is making out in

that great crazy world! Who but me could think of sleeping on such a

night?

(_She sits down, folds the flowers in her arms, and buries her face

in them. After a moment, she starts up, listens, goes hurriedly to

the door, draws the curtains before the window, comes swiftly to the

table, and blows out the light. The room is left in total darkness.

There are muttering voices outside, the latch is tried, then a heavy

lunge breaks the bolt. A man pushes in, but is hurled back by a

taller man, with a snarling oath. A third figure advances to the

table, and strikes a match. As soon as the match is lighted Ruth

levels the gun, which she has taken from its rack above the mantel.

There is heard the click of the hammer, as the gun misses fire. It

is instantly struck from her hand by the first man (Dutch), who

attempts to seize her. She evades him and tries to wrest a pistol

from a holster on the wall. She is met by the second man (Shorty),

who frustrates the attempt, pocketing the weapon. While this has

been going on, the third-man (Ghent) has been fumbling with the

lamp, which he has at last succeeded in lighting. All three are

dressed in rude frontier fashion, the one called Shorty is a Mexican

half-breed, the others are Americans. Ghent is younger than Dutch,

and taller, but less powerfully built. All are intoxicated, but not

sufficiently so to incapacitate them from rapid action. The Mexican

has seized Ruth and attempts to drag her toward the inner room. She

breaks loose and flies back again to the chimney place, where she

stands at bay. Ghent remains motionless and silent by the table,

gazing at her.)_

_Dutch._ (_Uncorking a whiskey flask._) Plucky little catamount. I

drink its health. (_Drinks_.)

_Ruth._ What do you want here?[42]

Hofmannsthal, in his _Electra_, uses pantomime as only one detail, but

no words could so paint the mad triumph of the sister of Orestes as does

her "incredible dance."

(_Electra has raised herself. She steps down from the threshold, her

head thrown back like a Moenad. She lifts her knees, stretches out

her arms; it is an incredible dance in which she steps forward._

_Chrysothemis appearing again at the door, behind her torches, a

Throng, faces of Men and Women._)

_Chrysothemis._ Electra!

_Electra._ (_Stands still, gazing at her fixedly._) Be silent and

dance. Come hither all of you!

Join with me all! I bear the burden of joy,

And I dance before you here. One thing alone

Remains for all who are as happy as we;

To be silent and dance.

(_She does a few more steps of tense triumph, and falls a-heap.

Chrysothemis runs to her. Electra lies motionless. Chrysothemis runs

to the door of the house and knocks._)

_Chrysothemis._ Orestes! Orestes! (_Silence._)

_Curtain_.[43]

Without question, then, speech in the drama may often give way in part

or wholly to pantomime. The inexperienced dramatist should be

constantly alert to see to what extent he can substitute it for

dialogue.[44]

In all that has been said of pantomime, of course technical pantomime is

not meant. The _Commedia dell' arte_, pantomime artists like the Ravel

Brothers or Mme. Pilar-Morin, have a code of gesture to symbolize fixed

meanings. What is meant here is the natural human pantomime of people

whose faces and bodies portray or betray their feelings.

Another word of warning in regard to pantomime. When a writer of plays

once becomes well aware of the great value of pantomime, he is likely to

overwork it. Assuming that the actor or actors may convey almost

anything by physical movement, he trusts it too much. Let him who is for

the moment under the spell of pantomime study the moving picture show.

Pantomime may ordinarily convey physical action perfectly. Emotion

naturally and easily expressed by action pantomime may convey, but when

action for its clearness depends on knowledge of what is going on in the

mind of the actor, pantomime begins to fail. Great artists like Mme.

Pilar-Morin may carry us far even under these conditions, but most

actors cannot. In a motion picture play like _Cabiria_, contrast the

scenes in which the Roman and his slave flee before the crowd from part

to part of the temple (mere action), or the scene of the terror of the

wine merchant (in which the face and body tell the whole story) with the

scene in which the nurse meets the Roman and his slave on the wall of

the city and begs their aid in saving the child, or the scenes in which

Sophonisba struggles with her anxieties and mad desires. The second

group of pictures without the explanations thrown on the screen would

have little meaning. Pantomime is safe, not when it pleases us to use

pantomime rather than to write dialogue, but when our characters

naturally act rather than speak, or when we can devise for them natural

action as clear as speech or clearer than speech. Use pantomime, but use

it cautiously. Speech is the greatest emotional weapon of the dramatist.

It best reveals emotion, and best of all creates responsive emotion.

However, as most inexperienced dramatists use far too many words rather

than too few, the value rather than the danger of pantomime should

probably be stressed here. What seems natural, what makes for illusion,

is the final test.

It is this test of naturalness which has gradually excluded, except in

special instances, the soliloquy and the aside. The general movement of

drama in the past ten years has been toward better and better

characterization in plays of all kinds. The newer melodrama and farce

show us, not the mere comic puppets of the past, but people as real as

the form represented--be it comedy, farce, tragedy, or melodrama--will

permit. This new tendency has largely driven out the soliloquy and the

aside. We should not, however, go to extremes, for occasionally we do

swear under our breath or comment in asides, and as long as people do

either, such people should be so represented. Moreover, we must admit

that the insane, the demented, the invalid left much to himself, the

hermit, whether of the woods or the hall bedroom in a city boarding

house, do talk to themselves and often at great length. Neither the

aside nor the soliloquy is, then, objectionable in itself. It is the use

of either by persons who would probably use nothing of the sort, or

their use in order to avoid exposition otherwise difficult which is to

be decried. It is particularly this latter fault to which Sir Arthur

Pinero calls attention when treating the faulty technique of R.L.

Stevenson as a playwright:

"I will read you one of the many soliloquies--the faulty method of

conducting action and revealing character by soliloquy was one from

which Stevenson could never emancipate himself. It is a speech delivered

by Deacon Brodie while he is making preparations for a midnight gambling

excursion.

(_Brodie closes, locks, and double-bolts the doors of his bedroom._)

_Deacon Brodie._ Now for one of the Deacon's headaches! Rogues all,

rogues all! (_He goes to the clothes press and proceeds to change his

coat._) On with the new coat and into the new life! Down with the

Deacon and up with the robber! Eh God! How still the house is! There's

something in hypocrisy after all. If we were as good as we seem, what

would the world be? The city has its vizard on and we--at night we are

our naked selves. Trysts are keeping, bottles cracking, knives are

stripping; and here is Deacon Brodie flaming forth the man of men he

is! How still it is!--My father and Mary--Well! The day for them, the

night for me; the grimy cynical night that makes all cats grey, and

all honesties of one complexion. Shall a man not have _half_ a life of

his own? not eight hours out of twenty-four? Eight shall he have

should he dare the pit of Tophet. Where's the blunt? I must be cool

tonight, or--steady Deacon, you must win; damn you, you must! You must

win back the dowry that you've stolen, and marry your sister and pay

your debts, and gull the world a little longer! The Deacon's going to

bed--the poor sick Deacon! _Allons!_ Only the stars to see me! I'm a

man once more till morning! [Act I, Tableau I, Scene 9.]"[45]

Sir Arthur knows whereof he speaks, for past-master as he has shown

himself since _The Second Mrs. Tanqueray_ in the art of giving necessary

exposition and characterization without soliloquy, he was a bad offender

in his early days, as the following extract from the opening of _The

Money Spinner_ shows:

(_Directly Margot has disappeared, there is a knocking outside the

door, right. It is repeated, then the doors slowly open and the head

of Monsieur Jules Faubert appears._)

_Faubert._ (_Who also speaks with the accent of a foreigner._)

Boycott, my friend, are you at home? My friend Boycott, do you hear

me? (_Receiving no answer, he enters rather cautiously and looks

around. He is in black, wearing a long, tightly buttoned frock coat

and a tall hat. His hair is red and closely cropped. His voice is soft

and his manner stealthy and mechanical._) Where is Boycott, my friend?

Ah, he has not yet taken his breakfast. (_He crosses over to the

curtains, left, and looks through._) No one to be seen. Boycott asks

me to call for him at ten o'clock in the morning, and it is now a

quarter past ten by the Great Clock, and he is not visible. (_Walking

round the room, inspecting the objects with curiosity._) Yet he could

not have left the house for I have been watching at the front door

since eight o'clock. (_Takes letters from top of Pianette._) Besides,

here are his letters unopened. (_Examines them narrowly, scrutinizing

the writing, and weighing them in his hand._) One, Mr. Boycott, with

the post-mark of London. Two, Monsieur Boycott with the post-mark of

Rouen. Three, Madame Boycott with the post-mark of Paris. (_Replacing

letters._) Ah, I have not yet the pleasure of the acquaintance of

Madame Boycott. Poor soul, perhaps she will know me some day. (_Going

over to the door, right._) Well, I shall call again after breakfast.

My friend Boycott is getting very unpunctual--a bad sign--a very bad

sign.[46]

The unnaturalness of the two foregoing illustrations needs no comment.

The Elizabethan author, knowing that above all else the dramatist must

make clear why his people do what they do, used soliloquy with the

utmost frankness as the easiest method of exposition. Here are three

specimens, one from Webster and two from Shakespeare.

_Cardinal._ The reason why I would not suffer these

About my brother is because at midnight

I may with better privacy convay

Julias body, to her owne lodging. O, my conscience!

I would pray now: but the divell takes away my heart

For having any confidence in praier.

About this houre I appointed Bosola

To fetch the body: when he hath serv'd my turne,

He dies. (_Exit._)[47]

_Iago._ That Cassio loves her I do well believe't;

That she loves him, 'tis apt and of great credit;

The Moor, howbeit that I endure him not,

Is of a constant, loving, noble nature,

And I dare think he'll prove to Desdemona

A most dear husband. Now, I do love her too;

Not out of absolute lust, though peradventure

I stand accountant for as great a sin,

But partly led to diet my revenge,

For that I do suspect the lusty Moor

Hath leap'd into my seat; the thought whereof

Doth, like a poisonous mineral, gnaw my inwards;

And nothing can or shall content my soul

Till I am even'd with him, wife for wife;

Or failing so, yet that I put the Moor

At least into a jealousy so strong

That judgement cannot cure. Which thing to do,

If this poor trash of Venice, whom I trash

For his quick hunting, stand the putting on,

I'll have our Michael Cassio on the hip,

Abuse him to the Moor in the rank garb--

For I fear Cassio with my night-cap too--

Make the Moor thank me, love me, and reward me,

For making him egregiously an ass

And practising upon his peace and quiet

Even to madness. 'Tis here, but yet confus'd;

Knavery's plain face is never seen till us'd. (_Exit._)[48]

_Emilia._ I am glad I have found this napkin;

This was her first remembrance from the Moor.

My wayward husband hath a hundred times

Woo'd me to steal it; but she so loves the token,

For he conjur'd her she should ever keep it,

That she reserves it evermore about her

To kiss and talk to. I'll have the work ta'en out,

And give 't Iago. What he will do with it

Heaven knows, not I;

I nothing but to please his fantasy.[49]

Echegaray's _The Great Galeoto_ (1881), though a part of the newer

movement in the drama, shows soliloquy.

SCENE. _Madrid of our day._

PROLOGUE

_A study; to the left a balcony; on the right a door; in the middle a

table strewn with papers and books, and a lighted lamp upon it.

Towards the right a sofa. Night._

SCENE 1.

_Ernest._ (_Seated at a table and preparing to write._)

Nothing--impossible. It is striving with the impossible. The idea is

there; my head is fevered with it; I feel it. At moments an inward

light illuminates it, and I see it. I see it in its floating form,

vaguely outlined, and suddenly a secret voice seems to animate it, and

I hear sounds of sorrow, sonorous sighs, shouts of sardonic

laughter--a whole world of passions alive and struggling--They burst

forth from me, extend around me and the air is full of them. Then,

then I say to myself: "'Tis now the moment." I take up my pen, stare

into space, listen attentively, restraining my very heart-beats, and

bend over the paper--Ah, but the irony of impotency! The outlines

become blurred, the vision fades, the cries and sighs faint away--and

nothingness, nothingness encircles me--The monotony of empty space, of

inert thought, of dreamy lassitude! and more than all the monotony of

an idle pen and lifeless paper that lacks the life of thought! Ah, how

varied are the shapes of nothingness, and how, in its dark and silent

way, it mocks creatures of my stamp! So many, many forms. Canvas

without color, bits of marble without shape, confused noise of chaotic

vibrations. But nothing more irritating, more insolent, meaner than

this insolent pen of mine (_throws it away_), nothing worse than this

white sheet of paper. Oh, if I cannot fill it, at least I may destroy

it--vile accomplice of my ambition and my eternal humiliation. Thus,

thus--smaller and still smaller. (_Tears up paper. Pauses_.) And then!

How lucky that nobody saw me! For in truth, such fury is absurd and

unjust. No, I will not yield. I will think and think until I have

conquered or am crushed. No, I will not give up. Let me see, let me

see--if in that way--[50]

Such soliloquy, even if conventionally justifiable in its own time, is

rarely, if ever, necessary. Scene 2 of Echegaray's play shows Ernest and

Don Julian discussing the former's difficulty in working. What could be

easier, then, than to cut the scene just cited to Ernest seated at a

writing table and showing by his pantomime how impossible he finds

composition? Why should he not act out the lines, "I take up my pen,

stare into space, listen attentively,--bend over the paper ... and

nothingness, nothingness"? If as a climax he throws away his pen and

tears up his paper, it certainly should be clear that he is thoroughly

exasperated with his failure to write what he wishes. In Scene 2 a very

slight change or amplification in the phrasing will permit him to bring

out whatever of importance in Scene 1 the suggested revision has

omitted.

Doubtless it would not be so easy to get rid of the soliloquies of the

Cardinal, Iago, and Emilia, but ingenuity in handling the scene

preceding and the scene following soliloquies will usually dispose of

all or most of them. When _Lady Windermere's Fan_ of Wilde first

appeared, hardly any one seriously objected to its soliloquies. They

were an accepted convention of the stage. When Miss Margaret Anglin

revived the play very successfully a year or two ago, she rightly felt

these soliloquies to be outworn. By use of pantomime, in some cases

hardly more than the pantomime called for in the stage directions, she

disposed of all except an occasional line or two of the original

soliloquies. The instances cited from her prompt book of the play show

one soliloquy cut to stage directions and two lines of the original, and

the second cut to mere stage direction.

ACT I.

_Lady Windermere._ How horrible! (_Lady Windermere sits left

I understand now what of centre, looks toward

Lord Darlington meant by the desk, rises, starts toward

imaginary instance of the couple desk, hesitates centre, goes

not two years married. Oh! it to desk, tries drawer, hunts

can't be true--she spoke of for and finds key, unlocks

enormous sums of money paid drawer, takes out check

to this woman. I know where book, looks over stubs, finds

Arthur keeps his bank book--in nothing and is relieved,

one of the drawers of that then sees first entry._)

desk. I might find out by that.

I _will_ find out. (_Opens drawer._) _Lady Windermere._ Mrs. Erlynne--

No, it is some hideous mistake. L600--Mrs. Erlynne--L700--Mrs.

(_Rises and goes C_.) Some silly Erlynne--L400. Oh! it is true!

scandal! He loves _me_! He loves it is true!

_me_! But why should I not look?

I am his wife, I have a right to

look! (_Returns to bureau, takes

out book and examines it, page by

page, smiles and gives a sigh of

relief._) I knew it, there is not

a word of truth in this stupid

story. (_Puts book back in drawer.

As she does so, starts and takes

out another book._) A second

book--private--locked! (_Tries to

open it but fails. Sees paper

knife on bureau, and with it cuts

cover from book. Begins to start

at the first page._) Mrs.

Erlynne--L600--Mrs. Erlynne--

L700--Mrs. Erlynne--L400. Oh! it

is true! it is true! How horrible!

(_Throws book on floor._)[51]

ACT III.

_Lady Windermere._ (_Standing_ (_Lady Windermere discovered

_by the fireplace._) Why doesn't at fireplace, L., crosses

he come? This waiting is horrible. to chair, L. of C., takes

He should be here. Why is he not cloak from chair, puts

here, to wake by passionate words cloak on crossing to door

some fire within me? I am cold-- U.L., stops, decides to

cold as a loveless thing. Arthur stay, crosses to R. of D.C.

must have read my letter by this Enter Mrs. Erlynne._)

time. If he cared for me, he

would have come after me, and

have taken me back by force. But

he doesn't care. He's entrammeled

by this woman--fascinated by

her--dominated by her. If a woman

wants to hold a man, she has

merely to appeal to what is

worst in him. We make gods of

men and they leave us. Others

make brutes of them and they

fawn and are faithful. How

hideous life is! ... Oh! it was

mad of me to come here, horribly

mad. And yet which is the

worst, I wonder, to be at the

mercy of a man who loves one,

or the wife of a man who in one's

own house dishonors one? What

woman knows? What woman

in the whole world? But will he

love me always, this man to

whom I am giving my life?

What do I bring him? Lips that

have lost the note of joy, eyes

that are blighted by tears, chill

hands and icy heart. I bring

him nothing. I must go back--no;

I can't go back, my letter

has put me in their power--

Arthur would not take me back!

That fatal letter! No! Lord

Darlington leaves England

tomorrow. I will go with him--I

have no choice. (_Sits down for a

few moments. Then starts up and

puts on her cloak._) No, no! I

will go back, let Arthur do with

me what he pleases. I can't wait

here. It has been madness my

coming. I must go at once. As

for Lord Darlington--Oh! here

he is! What shall I do? What

can I say to him? Will he let me

go away at all? I have heard

that men are brutal, horrible.

... Oh! (_Hides her face in her

hands._)

_Enter Mrs. Erlynne, L._[52]

Soliloquy when a character is left alone on the stage is a perfect

illustration of the difference between permanent and ephemeral

technique. As a device for easy exposition, it has been popular from the

beginning of drama till recently. Now, though one may use it in a rough

draft, a technique which is likely to become permanent in this respect

forces us to go over this draft, cutting soliloquy to mere action and

the few exclamations which the character might utter under the

circumstances. Soliloquy has no such permanent place in technique as

have preliminary exposition, suspense, and climax. Soliloquy, when other

people are on the stage and known by the speaker to be listening is also

absurd. It is because of this fact that the dramatic or psychologic

monologue, the form taken by a very large portion of Browning's

voluminous poetry, breaks down if we attempt to stage it. "Some speaker

is made to reveal his character, and, sometimes, by reflection, or

directly, the character of some one else--to set forth some subtle and

complex soul-mood, some supreme, all-determining movement or experience

of a life, or, it may be, to ratiocinate subtly on some curious question

of theology, morals, philosophy, or art. Now it is in strictly

preserving the monologue character that obscurity often results. A

monologue often begins with a startling abruptness, and the reader must

read along some distance before he gathers what the beginning means.

Take the monologue of Fra Lippo Lippi for example. The situation is

necessarily left more or less unexplained. The poet says nothing _in

propria persona_, and no reply is made to the speaker by the person or

persons addressed. Sometimes a look, a gesture or a remark must be

supposed on the part of the one addressed, which occasions a responsive

remark. Sometimes a speaker _imputes_ a question, and the reader is

sometimes obliged to stop and consider whether a question is imputed by

the speaker to the one he is addressing, or is a direct question of his

own. This is often the case throughout _The Ring and the Book_."[53]

_Giuseppe Caponsacchi_. Answer you, Sirs? Do I understand aright?

Have patience! In this sudden smoke from hell,--

So things disguise themselves,--I cannot see

My own hand held thus broad before my face

And know it again. Answer you? Then that means

Tell over twice what I, the first time, told

Six months ago: 'twas here, I do believe,

Fronting you same three in this very room,

I stood and told you: yet now no one laughs,

Who then ... nay, dear my lords, but laugh you did,

As good as laugh, what in a judge we style

Laughter--no levity, nothing indecorous, lords!

Only,--I think I apprehend the mood:

There was the blameless shrug, permissible smirk,

The pen's pretence at play with the pursed mouth,

The titter stifled in the hollow palm

Which rubbed the eyebrow and caressed the nose,

When first I told my tale: they meant, you know,

"The sly one, all this we are bound believe!

Well, he can say no other than what he says.

We have been young, too,--come, there's greater guilt!

Let him but decently disembroil himself,

Scramble from out the scrape nor move the mud,--

We solid ones may risk a finger-stretch!"

And now you sit as grave, stare as aghast

As if I were a phantom: now 'tis--"Friend,

Collect yourself!"--no laughing matter more--

"Counsel the Court in this extremity,

Tell us again!"--tell that, for telling which,

I got the jocular piece of punishment,

Was sent to lounge a little in the place

Whence now of a sudden here you summon me

To take the intelligence from just--your lips,

You, Judge Tommati, who then tittered most,--

That she I helped eight months since to escape

Her husband, is retaken by the same

Three days ago, if I have seized your sense.[54]

It may be true that when one reads a dramatic monologue, the changes in

thought caused by some movement or look of an imagined hearer may seem

sufficiently motivated. When, on the other hand, this monologue is

staged, it becomes exceedingly unreal because we feel that the second

person would not be silent but would interrupt with question or comment.

More than this, unless the listening actor changes from pose to pose

with rapid plasticity, he will become stiff in attitude, thus making us

conscious of him when we should be listening to the speaker. Increasing

the number of hearers does not relieve the situation, but merely

increases the number of possible interrupters or of people who stand

about the stage more and more stiffly. Soliloquy is, therefore, to be

avoided except when it seems or can be made to seem perfectly natural.

Monologue, acceptable perhaps to a reader, becomes well-nigh impossible

on the stage.

The aside must be subjected to very nearly the same tests. In _Two Loves

and a Life_ of Tom Taylor and Charles Reade, Musgrave and his daughter,

Anne, are opening letters surreptitiously. They come to the letter of

William Hyde, which the girl opens with reluctance, crying,--

Ah, see, father, it is a blank!

_Musgrave._ A blank! Then it is as I thought!

_Anne._ How?

_Musgrave._ Here, girl!

(_He takes the letter and holds it to the fire in the brazier._)

_Anne._ See! Letters become visible!

_Musgrave._ A stale trick. 'Tis done with lemon juice or milk, when

folks would keep what they write from those who are in their secret.

Politicians correspond so, Anne, and rebels.

_Anne._ But William Hyde is neither, father.

_Musgrave._ Of course not. Now then!

_Anne._ (_Aside._) Thank Heaven! 'tis all about his calling!

_Musgrave._ Read! (_Aside._) I have learned the key to their cypher,

which I have copied from the priest's letter.

_Anne._ (_Reads._) "Dear Will, we have thine advices, and shall be at

Lancaster Fair. All the smart fellows--"

_Musgrave._ (_To himself._) Ah! Bardsea Hole--all the Jacobite

gentlemen--good.

_Anne._ (_Reads._) "By the time the grilse come ashore--"

_Musgrave._ (_To himself._) Grilse? ammunition. Go on.

_Anne._ (_Reads._) "Which shall be as you fix, on Tuesday the 16th, at

ten of the clock, P.M. There is a bill against you and the old

clothier, payable at Ulverstone today, drawn by the butcher. Look out

and see that he does not nab either of you--"

_Musgrave._ (_Aside._) The proclamation!

_Anne._ (_Reads._) "For your friends assembled. John Trusty."

_Musgrave._ From Townley. It _is_ as I suspected. (_He starts up._)

_Anne._ Father!

_Musgrave._ I'm a made man, Anne. Give me joy--joy![55]

In this once popular drama we have five asides close together, for of

course "to himself" is the equivalent of an aside. All are bad, for in

each case the other person on the stage must be supposed not to hear,

and the aside is merely a device for telling us what the speaker is

thinking. They vary in badness, however, for while Musgrave might well

explain "grilse" to Anne as "ammunition," he says, "I have learned the

key to their cipher, which I have copied from the priest's letter," not

as something which he is necessarily thinking at the time, but as

something which the audience needs to know at this point. An aside is

objectionable when a man speaks what he would be careful only to think,

either because of the very nature of his thought or because somebody is

near at hand who should not overhear. Asides should be kept for

confidential remarks which may be made to some person standing near the

speaker, but could not be heard by persons standing at a greater

distance; and to what naturally breaks from us in a moment of

irritation, terror, or other strong emotion. Asides of the first group,

confidential remarks, gain much in naturalness if spoken in half tones.

Nothing could be more preposterous than the old stage custom of coming

down to the footlights to tell an audience in clear-cut tones

confidences which must not be overheard by people close at hand on the

stage. Asides which are only brief soliloquies are little better. Asides

in which the speaker merely says to the audience what he might perfectly

well say to the people on the stage are foolish unless the author wishes

to make the point that the character has the habit of talking to

himself. The following from Vanbrugh's _The Provoked Wife_ shows two

entirely natural uses of the aside by Lady Brute, and one debatable use

by Sir John.

ACT III. _Scene opens. Sir John, Lady Brute, and Belinda rising from

the Table_

_Sir John._ Will it so, Mrs. Pert? Now I believe it will so increase

it, (_sitting and smoaking_) I shall take my own House for a

Papermill.

_Lady Brute._ (_To Belinda aside._) Don't let's mind him; let him say

what he will.

_Sir John._ (_Aside._) A Woman's Tongue a Cure for the

Spleen--Oons--If a Man had got the Head-ach, they'd be for applying

the same Remedy.

_Lady Brute._ You have done a great deal, Belinda, since yesterday.

_Belinda._ Yes, I have work'd very hard; how do you like it?

_Lady Brute._ O, 'tis the prettiest Fringe in the World. Well, Cousin,

you have the happiest fancy. Prithee advise me about altering my

Crimson Petticoat.

_Sir John._ A Pox o' your Petticoat; here's such a Prating, a Man

can't digest his own Thoughts for you.

_Lady Brute._ (_Aside._) Don't answer him.--Well, what do you advise

me?

_Belinda._ Why really I would not alter it at all. Methinks 'tis very

pretty as it is.[56]

Sir John's aside, if addressed to the audience, is bad; if meant to

illustrate his habit of grumbling to himself, it is permissible.

Mr. Henry Arthur Jones protests against complete disuse of the aside.

"In discarding the 'aside' in modern drama we have thrown away a most

valuable and, at times, a most necessary convention. Let any one glance

at the 'asides' of Sir John Brute in _The Provoked Wife_, and he will

see what a splendid instrument of rich comedy the 'aside' may become.

How are we as spectators to know what one character on the stage thinks

of the situation and of the other characters, unless he tells us; or

unless he conveys it by facial play and gestures which are the

equivalent of an 'aside'? The 'aside' is therefore as legitimate a

convention of drama as the removal of the fourth wall. More and more the

English modern drama seems to be sacrificing everything to the mean

ambition of presenting an exact photograph of real life."[57]

Of course Mr. Jones is quite right in wishing to keep the aside for

cases in which it is perfectly natural. His illustration of Sir John

Brute is, however, not wholly fortunate, for his asides are not

conventional but are characterizing touches. Surely we must all admit

that a certain type of drunkard likes to mumble to himself insulting

speeches which he hasn't quite the courage to speak directly to other

people, but rather hopes they may overhear. Study the asides of Sir John

Brute--they are not very many after all--and note that practically every

one might be said directly to the people on the stage. All of them help

to present Sir John as the heavy drinker who talks to himself and

selects for his speeches to himself his particularly insulting remarks.

Why, too, are "facial play and gestures" more objectionable than the

conventional aside? The fundamental trouble with the aside which should

not be overheard by people on the stage is that, if spoken naturally, it

would be too low for the audience to hear, and if spoken loud enough to

be heard, would so affect the other characters as to change materially

the development of the scene. The aside should, therefore, be used with

great care.

Congreve, writing of ordinary human speech said, "I believe if a poet

should steal a dialogue of any length, from the extempore discourse of

the two wittiest men upon earth, he would find the scene but coldly

received by the town."[58] In everyday speech, that is, we do not say

our say in the most compact, characteristic, and entertaining fashion.

To gain all that, we must use more concentration and selection than we

give to ordinary human intercourse. Just that concentration of

attention, which produces needed selection, a dramatist must give his

dialogue. To this concentration and selection he is forced by the time

difficulty already explained. Into the period sometimes consumed by a

single bit of gossiping, perhaps shot through with occasional flashes of

wit, but more probably dull,--into the space of two hours and a

quarter,--the dramatist must crowd all the happenings, the growth of his

characters, and the close reasoning of his play. Dramatic dialogue is

human speech so wisely edited for use under the conditions of the stage

that far more quickly than under ordinary circumstances the events are

presented, in character, and perhaps in a phrasing delightful of itself.

Picking just the right words to convey with gesture, voice and the other

stage aids of dialogue the emotions of the characters is so exacting a

task that many a writer tries to dodge it. He thinks that by prefacing

nearly every speech with "Tenderly," "Sarcastically," "With much humor,"

in other words a statement as to how his lines should be read,

commonplace phrasings may be made to pass for the right emotional

currency. This is a lazy trick of putting off on the actor what would be

the delight of the writer if he really cared for his work and knew what

he wished to say. Of course, from time to time one needs such stage

directions, but the safest way is to insist, in early drafts, on making

the text convey the desired emotion without such statements. Otherwise a

writer easily falls into writing unemotionalized speeches, the stage

directions of which call upon the actor to provide the emotion.

A similar trick is to write incomplete sentences, usually ending with

dashes. Though it is true, as Carlyle long ago pointed out, that a

thought or a climax which a reader or hearer completes for himself is

likely to give him special satisfaction, the device is easily overdone,

and too often the uncompleted line means either that the author does not

know exactly what he wishes to say, or that, though he knows, the hearer

or reader may not complete the thought as he does. The worst of this

last trick is that it may confuse the reader and, as was explained

earlier in this chapter, clearness in gaining the desired effect is the

chief essential in dialogue.

An allied difficulty comes from writing dialogue in blocks, the author

forgetting, in the first place, that the other people on the stage are

likely to interrupt and break up such speech, and secondly, that when

several ideas are presented to an audience in the same speech, they are

likely to confuse hearers. In these parallel passages from the two

quartos of _Hamlet_, is not the right-hand column, with its mingling of

rapidly exchanged speech and description, much more vivid and moving?

_Enter Ofelia;_ _Enter Ophelia._

_Corambis._ Farewel, how now _Polonius._ Farewell. How now

Ofelia, what's the news with you? Ophelia, what's the matter?

_Ophelia._ O my Lord, my Lord,

_Ofelia._ O my deare father, I have been so affrighted.

such a change in nature,

So great an alteration in a _Polonius._ With what i'th

Prince, name of God?

So pitifull to him, fearefull to

mee, _Ophelia._ My Lord, as I was

A maiden's eye ne're looked on. sowing in my closset,

Lord Hamlet with his doublet

_Corambis._ Why, what's the all unbrac'd,

matter my Ofelia? No hat upon his head, his

stockins fouled,

_Ofelia._ O yong Prince Hamlet, Ungartred, and downe gyved to

the only floure of Denmark, his ancle,

Hee is bereft of all the wealth Pale as his shirt, his knees

he had, knocking each other,

The Jewell that adorn'd his And with a look so pittious in

feature most purport

Is filcht and stolne away, his As if he had been loosed out

wit's bereft him. of hell

To speake of horrors, he comes

before me.

_Polonius._ Mad for thy love?

_Ophelia._ My lord I doe not

know,

But truly I doe feare it.

_Polonius._ What said he?

_Ophelia._ He took me by the

wrist, and held me hard,

Then goes he to the length of

all his arme,

And with his other hand thus

ore his brow,

He falls to such perusall of

my face

As a would draw it.[59]

Is it probable that in the following extract from _A Soul's Tragedy_ of

Browning the deeply interested and excited audience would permit the

first bystander to complete uninterrupted his third and very long

speech? Are the phrasing and thought really his, or Robert Browning's?

ACT II. _Scene. The market place. Luitolfo in disguise mingling with

the Populace assembled opposite the Provost's Palace._

_1st Bystander._ (_To Luitolfo._) You, a friend of Luitolfo's? Then,

your friend is vanished,--in all probability killed on the night that

his patron the tyrannical Provost was loyally suppressed here, exactly

a month ago, by our illustrious fellow-citizen, thrice-noble saviour,

and new Provost that is like to be, this very morning,--Chiappino!

* * * * *

_Luitolfo._ (_Aside._) (If I had not lent that man the money he

wanted last spring, I should fear this bitterness was attributable to

me.) Luitolfo is dead then, one may conclude?

_3rd Bystander._ Why, he had a house here, and a woman to whom he was

affianced; and as they both pass naturally to the new Provost, his

friend and heir...

_Luitolfo._ Ah, I suspected you of imposing upon me with your

pleasantry! I know Chiappino better.

_1st Bystander._ (Our friend has the bile. After all, I do not dislike

finding somebody vary a little this general gape of admiration at

Chiappino's glorious qualities.) Pray, how much may you know of what

has taken place in Faenza since that memorable night?

_Luitolfo._ It is most to the purpose, that I know Chiappino to have

been by profession a hater of that very office of Provost, you now

charge him with proposing to accept.

_1st Bystander._ Sir, I'll tell you. That night was indeed memorable.

Up we rose, a mass of us, men, women, children; out fled the guards

with the body of the tyrant; we were to defy the world; but, next gray

morning, "What will Rome say?" began everybody. You know we are

governed by Ravenna, which is governed by Rome. And quietly into the

town, by the Ravenna road, comes on muleback a portly personage,

Ogniben by name, with the quality of Pontifical Legate; trots briskly

through the streets humming a "Cur fremuere gentes," and makes

directly for the Provost's Palace--there it faces you. "One Messer

Chiappino is your leader? I have known three-and-twenty leaders of

revolts!" (laughing gently to himself)--"Give me the help of your arm

from my mule to yonder steps under the pillar--So! And now, my

revolters and good friend what do you want? The guards burst into

Ravenna last night bearing your wounded Provost; and, having had a

little talk with him, I take on myself to come and try appease the

disorderliness, before Rome, hearing of it, resort to another method:

'tis I come, and not another, from a certain love I confess to, of

composing differences. So, do you understand, you are about to

experience this unheard-of tyranny from me, that there shall be no

heading nor hanging, no confiscation nor exile: I insist on your

simply pleasing yourselves. And, now, pray, what does please you? To

live without any government at all? Or having decided for one, to see

its minister murdered by the first of your body that chooses to find

himself wronged, or disposed for reverting to first principles and a

justice anterior to all institutions,--and so will you carry matters,

that the rest of the world must at length unite and put down such a

den of wild beasts? As for vengeance on what had just taken

place,--once for all, the wounded man assures me that he cannot

conjecture who struck him; and this so earnestly, that one may be sure

he knows perfectly well what intimate acquaintance could find

admission to speak with him late last evening. I come not for

vengeance therefore, but from pure curiosity to hear what you will do

next." And thus he ran on, easily and volubly, till he seemed to

arrive quite naturally at the praise of law, order, and paternal

government by somebody from rather a distance. All our citizens were

in the snare and about to be friends with so congenial an adviser; but

that Chiappino suddenly stood forth, spoke out indignantly and set

things right again.

_Luitolfo._ Do you see? I recognize him there![60]