Front matter (continued 7)
Reading edition
Dauphine. We are invited to dinner together, he and I, by one that came thither to him, Sir La-Foole.
Clerimont. I, that’s a precious mannikin!
Daup. Do you know him?
Cler. Ay, and he will know you too, if e’er he saw you but once, though you should meet him at church in the midst of prayers. He is one of the braveries, though he be none of the wits. He will salute a judge upon the bench, and a bishop in the pulpit, a lawyer when he is pleading at the bar, and a lady when she is dancing in a masque, and put her out. He does give plays and suppers, and invite his guests to them, aloud, out of his window, as they ride by in coaches. He has a lodging in the Strand for the purpose: or to watch when ladies are gone to the china-houses, or the Exchange, that he may meet them by chance, and give them presents, some two or three hundred pounds’ worth of toys, to be laughed at. He is never without a spare banquet, or sweetmeats in his chamber for their women to alight at, and come up to for bait.
Daup. Excellent! he was a fine youth last night; but now he is much finer! what is his Christian name? I have forgot.
Re-enter Page
Cler. Sir Amorous La-Foole.
Page. The gentleman is here below that owns that name.
Cler. ’Heart, he’s come to invite me to dinner, I hold my life.
Daup. Like enough: prithee, let’s have him up.
Cler. Boy, marshall him.
In Scene 1, Act I, of Becket, as written by Lord Tennyson, we have:
Enter Rosamund de Clifford, flying from Sir Reginald Fitz Urse, drops her veil
Becket. Rosamund de Clifford!
Rosamund. Save me, father, hide me—they follow me—and I must not be known.
Sir Henry Irving arranged this for the stage as follows:
Enter Rosamund de Clifford. Drops her veil
Rosamund. Save me, father, hide me.
Becket. Rosamund de Clifford!
Rosamund. They follow me—and I must not be known.
There are real values in these seemingly slight changes. With a rush and in confusion, Rosamund enters. As it is her first appearance in the play, it is of the highest importance that she be identified for the audience. If Becket gives her name as she enters, it may be lost in her onward rush. If entering, she speaks the line, “Save me, father, hide me,” she centers attention on him and he may fully emphasize the identification in, “Rosamund de Clifford!” Note as bearing on what has already been said in regard to unnecessary use of stage direction that Irving cut out “flying from Sir Reginald Fitz Urse.” He knew that Rosamund’s speeches and her action would make the fleeing clear enough, and that the scene immediately following with Fitz Urse would show who was pursuing her. Entrances, when well handled, therefore, must be in character, prepared for, and properly motivated.
Exits are just as important as entrances. The exit of Captain Nat in Shore Acres has already been mentioned under pantomime. Mark the significance of the exit of Hamlet in the ghost scene, as he goes with sword held out before him. The final exit of Iris in Pinero’s play is symbolic of her passing into the outer and under world.
Maldonado. You can send for your trinkets and clothes in the morning. After that, let me hear no more of you. (She remains motionless, as if stricken.) I’ve nothing further to say.
(A slight shiver runs through her frame and she resumes her walk. At the door, she feels blindly for the handle; finding it, she opens the door narrowly and passes out.)
The absurdities in which the ill-managed exit or entrance may land us, Lessing shows amusingly:
Maffei often does not motivate the exits and entrances of his personages: Voltaire often motivates them falsely, which is far worse. It is not enough that a person says why he comes on, we ought also to perceive by the connection that he must therefore come. It is not enough that he say why he goes off, we ought to see subsequently that he went on that account. Else, that which the poet places in his mouth is mere excuse and no cause. When, for example, Eurykles goes off in the third scene of the second act, in order, as he says, to assemble the friends of the queen, we ought to hear afterwards about these friends and their assemblage. As, however, we hear nothing of the kind, his assertion is a schoolboy “Peto veniam exeundi,” the first falsehood that occurs to the boy. He does not go off in order to do what he says; but in order to return a few lines on as the bearer of news which the poet did not know how to impart by means of any other person. Voltaire treats the ends of acts yet more clumsily. At the close of the third act, Polyphontes says to Merope that the altar awaits her, that all is ready for the solemnizing of their marriage and he exits with a “Venez, Madame.” But Madame does not come, but goes off into another coulisse with an exclamation, whereupon Polyphontes opens the fourth act, and instead of expressing his annoyance that the queen has not followed him into the temple (for he had been in error, there was still time for the wedding) he talks with his Erox about matters he should not ventilate here, that are more fitting conversation for his own house, his own rooms. Then the fourth act closes—exactly like the third. Polyphontes again summons the queen into the temple, Merope herself exclaims, “Courons nous vers le temple où m’attend mon outrage”; and says to the chief priests who come to conduct her thither, “Vous venez à l’autel entrainer la victime.” Consequently we must expect them inside the temple at the beginning of the fifth act, or are they already back again? Neither; good things will take time. Polyphontes has forgotten something and comes back again and sends the queen back again. Excellent! Between the third and fourth, between the fourth and fifth acts nothing occurs that should, and indeed, nothing occurs at all, and the third and fourth acts only close in order that the fourth and fifth may begin.50
At the end of Act II of The Princess and the Butterfly the exits are as important as any part of the text. Note particularly the last.
Denstroude. (On the steps, pausing and looking back.) You cycle at Battersea tomorrow morning?
Mrs. St. Roche. It’s extremely unlikely.
Denstroude. I shall be there at ten. Don’t be later.
(He kisses his hand to her and departs. She stands quite still, thinking. A Servant enters, crosses to the billiard-room, and proceeds to cover up the billiard-table. She walks slowly to the ottoman and sits, looking into the fire. St. Roche reappears and comes down the steps. She does not turn her head. He goes to the table and mixes some spirits and water.)
St. Roche. (As he mixes the drink.) What d’ye think—what d’ye think that silly, infatuated feller’s goin’ to do?
Mrs. St. Roche. Demailly?
St. Roche. (Glancing toward the billiard-room.) Sssh! (With a nod.) Um!
(He comes to her, bringing her the tumbler in which he has mixed the drink.)
Mrs. St. Roche. (Taking the tumbler, her eyes never meeting his.) Well, what is he going to do?
St. Roche. Marry that low woman.
Mrs. St. Roche. (Callously.) Great heavens! the fool!
St. Roche. Yes. Shockin’, ain’t it?
Mrs. St. Roche. (Putting the glass to her lips, with a languid air.) She has blinded him, I suppose, with some story or other; or he would hardly have committed the outrage, tonight, of presenting her to me.
St. Roche. (Returning to the table and mixing a drink for himself.) That’s it—blinded him. And yet it’s almost incomprehensible how a feller can be as blind as all that. Why, the very man-in-the-street—
(The Servant switches off the lights in the billiard-room, and comes out from the room.)
St. Roche. (To the man.) I’ll switch off the lights here.
(The Servant goes out.)
Mrs. St. Roche. Well, you had better let him know that he mustn’t attempt to come to this house again.
St. Roche. Poor chap!
Mrs. St. Roche. We can’t be associated, however remotely, with such a disgraceful connection.
St. Roche. Of course, of course. (Coming down, glass in hand.) I could tell you things I’ve heard about this Mrs. Ware—
Mrs. St. Roche. (Rising.) Please don’t! I want no details concerning a person of her world.
(She ascends the steps slowly, carrying her cloak and her tumbler—without looking back.)
Goodnight.
St. Roche. (With a wistful glance at her.) Goodnight.
(She departs. He stands for a little while contemplating space; then he switches off the light. The room remains partially illumined by the fire-glow. He turns to examine the fire. Apparently assured on that point, he walks, still carrying his tumbler, to the door which is in the centre wall; where, uttering a little sigh as he opens the door, he disappears.)51
The passages quoted (pp. 268-275) from The Troublesome Reign of King John and Shakespeare’s play show crude and perfect handling of exits and entrances. In the old play the murderers merely enter and go out again as ordered. In Shakespeare they enter at the moment which makes them the climactic touch in the terror of Arthur and the audience. When Hubert orders them to go, it is the first sign that he may relent.
The inexperienced dramatist is almost always wasteful in the number of characters used. An adaptation of a Spanish story called for a cast of about a dozen important figures and some sixty supernumeraries as soldiers and peasants—all this in a one-act play. It meant very little labor to cut the soldiery to a few officers and some privates, and the peasantry to some six or eight people. Ultimately, the total cast did not contain a quarter as many people as the original, yet nothing important had been lost. Rewriting a play often is, and should be, a “slaughter of the innocents.” Don’t use unneeded people. You must provide them with dialogue, and as the play goes on, some justification for existence. The manager must pay them salaries. First of all, get rid of entirely unnecessary people. They usually hold over from the story as originally heard or read. For instance, a recent adaptation used from the original story a blinking dwarf sitting silent, forever watchful, at a table in the restaurant where the story was placed. His smile simply emphasized the cynicism of the story enacted in his sight. He was in no way necessary to the telling of the story,—and so he disappeared in the final form of the play. One is constantly tempted to bring in some figure for purposes of easy exposition only to find that one must either bind him in with the story as it develops, or drop him out of sight the moment his expository work is done. The trouble with such figures is that they are likely to give false clues, stirring a hearer to interest in them or their apparent relation to the story, when nothing is to come of one or the other. Usually a little patience and ingenuity will give this needed exposition to some character or characters essential to the plot. In a recent play of Breton life during the Chouan War, an attractive peasant boy was introduced in order to plant in the minds of the audience certain ideas as to immediate conditions of the war, and the relation of the woman to whom he is talking with the Prince, his leader. Wishing to show the devotion of the Prince’s followers, the author had the boy talk much of his own loyalty to his leader. Just there was the false clue. Every auditor expected his loyalty to lead to something later in the play; but the youth, having told his tale, disappeared for good. It took very little time to discover that all the young man told could perfectly well be made clear in one preceding scene between the woman and her son, and two of the other scenes immediately following, between the woman and the young Prince. It is these unnecessary figures who are largely responsible for the scenes already spoken of in chapter IV which clog the movement of a play.
Sometimes, too, similar figures at different places in a play do exactly or nearly the same work,—servants for instance. When it does not interfere with verisimilitude, give the tasks to one person rather than two, or two rather than three. That is, use only people absolutely needed. Sometimes these carelessly introduced figures stray through a play like an unquiet spirit. In The Road to Happiness one character, Porter, was of so little importance that most of the time, when on the stage, he had nothing to do. When really acting, it was largely in pantomime, or with speech that, not effectively, reiterated what some one else was saying. He existed really for two scenes. In the first act he might just as well have been talked about as shown, and in the second act what he did could well have been done by one of the other important characters. When any character in a play shows a tendency not to get into the action readily; when for long periods he is easily overlooked by the author; it is time to consider whether he should not be given the coup de grâce.
Today we are fortunately departing from an idea somewhat prevalent in the middle of the nineteenth century, that a figure once introduced into a play should be kept there until the final curtain. That is exalting technique, and the so-called “well-made” play, above truth to life. When a character is doing needed work, use him when and as long as he would appear in real life, and no longer. Use each character for a purpose, and when it is fulfilled, drop him. Naturalness and theatrical economy are the two tests: the greater of these is naturalness.
All that has been said comes to this. Know your characters so intimately that you can move, think, and feel with them, supplied by them with far more material than you can use in any one play. See that they are properly introduced to the audience; that they are clearly and convincingly presented. Do not forget the importance of entrances and exits. Cut out all unnecessary figures.
There follow three bits of characterization from very different types of play: Sir John Vanbrugh’s The Provoked Wife, a comedy of manners; G. B. Shaw’s farce-comedy, You Never Can Tell; and Eugène Brieux’s thesis play, The Cradle. The first scene aims merely to present vividly the riotous and drunken squire. The second, while characterizing William, aims to illustrate that contentment lies in doing that to which one is accustomed, under accustomed conditions. The third not only characterizes; it shows that no law of man can wholly give a woman to a second husband when common anxiety with the first husband for the child of their marriage draws them together. Note in all three the use of action as compared with description or analysis; the connotative value of the phrasings; the succint sureness.
THE PROVOKED WIFE
ACT IV. SCENE, Covent Garden
Enter Lord Rake, Sir John, &c., with Swords drawn
Lord Rake. Is the Dog dead?
Bully. No, damn him, I heard him wheeze.
Lord Rake. How the Witch his Wife howl’d!
Bully. Ay, she’ll alarm the Watch presently.
Lord Rake. Appear, Knight, then; come you have a good Cause to fight for, there’s a Man murder’d.
Sir John. Is there? Then let his Ghost be satisfy’d, for I’ll sacrifice a Constable to it presently, and burn his body upon his wooden Chair.
Enter a Taylor, with a Bundle under his Arm
Bully. How now; what have we here? a Thief.
Taylor. No, an’t please you, I’m no Thief.
Lord Rake. That we’ll see presently: Here; let the General examine him.
Sir John. Ay, ay, let me examine him, and I’ll lay a Hundred Pound I find him guilty in spite of his Teeth—for he looks—like a—sneaking Rascal.
Come, Sirrah, without Equivocation or mental Reservation, tell me of what opinion you are, and what Calling; for by them—I shall guess at your Morals.
Taylor. An’t please you, I’m a Dissenting Journyman Taylor.
Sir John. Then, Sirrah, you love Lying by your Religion, and Theft by your Trade: And so, that your Punishment may be suitable to your Crimes—I’ll have you first gagg’d—and then hang’d.
Taylor. Pray, good worthy Gentlemen, don’t abuse me; indeed I’m an honest Man, and a good Workman, tho I say it, that shou’d not say it.
Sir John. No words, Sirrah, but attend your Fate.
Lord Rake. Let me see what’s in that Bundle.
Taylor. An’t please you, it is the Doctor of the Parish’s Gown.
Lord Rake. The Doctor’s Gown!—Hark you, Knight, you won’t stick at abusing the Clergy, will you?
Sir John. No. I’m drunk, and I’ll abuse anything—but my wife; and her I name—with Reverence.
Lord Rake. Then you shall wear this Gown, whilst you charge the Watch: That tho the Blows fall upon you, the Scandal may light upon the Church.
Sir John. A generous Design—by all the Gods—give it me.
(Takes the Gown, and puts it on.)
Taylor. O dear Gentlemen, I shall be quite undone, if you take the Gown.
Sir John. Retire, Sirrah; and since you carry off your Skin—go home, and be happy.
Taylor. (Pausing.) I think I had e’en as good follow the Gentleman’s friendly Advice; for if I dispute any longer, who knows but the Whim may take him to case me? These Courtiers are fuller of Tricks than they are of Money; they’ll sooner cut a Man’s Throat, than pay his Bill.
(Exit Taylor.)
Sir John. So, how d’ye like my Shapes now?
Lord Rake. This will do to a Miracle; he looks like a Bishop going to the Holy War. But to your Arms, Gentlemen, the Enemy appears.
Enter Constable and Watch
Watchman. Stand! Who goes there? Come before the Constable.
Sir John. The Constable’s a Rascal—and you are the Son of a Whore.
Watchman. A good civil answer for a Parson, truly!
Constable. Methinks, Sir, a Man of your Coat might set a better Example.
Sir John. Sirrah, I’ll make you know—there are Men of my Coat can set as bad Examples—as you can, you Dog you.
(Sir John strikes the Constable. They knock him down, disarm him, and seize him. Lord Rake &c. run away.)
Constable. So, we have secur’d the Parson however.
Sir John. Blood, and Blood—and Blood.
Watchman. Lord have mercy upon us! How the wicked Wretch raves of Blood. I’ll warrant he has been murdering some body tonight.
Sir John. Sirrah, there’s nothing got by Murder but a Halter: My Talent lies towards Drunkenness and Simony.
Watchman. Why that now was spoke like a Man of Parts, Neighbours; it’s pity he should be so disguis’d.
Sir John. You lye—I’m not disguis’d; for I am drunk bare-fac’d.
Watchman. Look you here again—This is a mad Parson, Mr. Constable; I’ll lay a Pot of Ale upon’s Head, he’s a good Preacher.
Constable. Come, Sir, out of Respect to your Calling, I shan’t put you into the Round house; but we must secure you in our Drawing-Room till Morning, that you may do no Mischief. So, come along.
Sir John. You may put me where you will, Sirrah, now you have overcome me—But if I can’t do Mischief, I’ll think of Mischief—in spite of your Teeth, you Dog you.
(Exeunt.)52
YOU NEVER CAN TELL
ACT IV
Waiter. (Entering anxiously through the window.) Beg pardon, ma’am; but can you tell me what became of that—(He recognizes Bohun, and loses all his self-possession. Bohun waits rigidly for him to pull himself together. After a pathetic exhibition of confusion, he recovers himself sufficiently to address Bohun weakly, but coherently.) Beg pardon, sir, I’m sure, sir. Was—was it you, sir?
Bohun. (Ruthlessly.) It was I.
Waiter. (Brokenly.) Yes, sir. (Unable to restrain his tears.) You in a false nose, Walter! (He sinks faintly into a chair at the table.) I beg your pardon, ma’am, I’m sure. A little giddiness—
Bohun. (Commandingly.) You will excuse him, Mrs. Clandon, when I inform you that he is my father.
Waiter. (Heartbroken.) Oh, no, no, Walter. A waiter for your father on the top of a false nose! What will they think of you?
Mrs. Clandon. (Going to the waiter’s chair in her kindest manner.) I am delighted to hear it, Mr. Bohun. Your father has been an excellent friend to us since we came here. (Bohun bows gravely.)
Waiter. (Shaking his head.) Oh, no, ma’am. It’s very kind of you—very ladylike and affable indeed, ma’am; but I should feel at a great disadvantage off my own proper footing. Never mind my being the gentleman’s father, ma’am: it is only the accident of birth, after all, ma’am. (He gets up feebly.) You’ll excuse me, I’m sure, having interrupted your business.
(He begins to make his way along the table, supporting himself from chair to chair, with his eye on the door.)
(Bohun.) One moment. (The waiter stops, with a sinking heart.) My father was a witness of what passed to-day, was he not, Mrs. Clandon?
Mrs. Clandon. Yes, most of it, I think.
Bohun. In that case we shall want him.
Waiter. (Pleading.) I hope it may not be necessary, sir. Busy evening for me, sir, with that ball: very busy evening indeed, sir.
Bohun. (Inexorably.) We shall want you.
Mrs. Clandon. (Politely.) Sit down, won’t you?
Waiter. (Earnestly.) Oh, if you please, ma’am, I really must draw the line at sitting down. I couldn’t let myself be seen doing such a thing, ma’am: thank you, I am sure, all the same.
(He looks round from face to face wretchedly, with an expression that would melt a heart of stone.)
Gloria. Don’t let us waste time. William only wants to go on taking care of us. I should like a cup of coffee.
Waiter. (Brightening perceptibly.) Coffee, miss? (He gives a little gasp of hope.) Certainly, miss. Thank you, miss: very timely, miss, very thoughtful and considerate indeed. (To Mrs. Clandon, timidly, but expectantly.) Anything for you, ma’am?
Mrs. Clandon. Er—oh, yes: it’s so hot, I think we might have a jug of claret cup.
Waiter. (Beaming.) Claret cup, ma’am! Certainly ma’am.
Gloria. Oh, well, I’ll have claret cup instead of coffee. Put some cucumber in it.
Waiter. (Delightedly.) Cucumber, miss! yes, miss. (To Bohun.) Anything special for you, sir? You don’t like cucumber, sir.
Bohun. If Mrs. Clandon will allow me—syphon, Scotch.
Waiter. Right, sir. (To Crampton.) Irish for you, sir, I think sir? (Crampton assents with a grunt. The waiter looks enquiringly at Valentine.)
Valentine. I like the cucumber.
Waiter. Right, sir. (Summing up.) Claret cup, syphon, one Scotch, and one Irish?
Mrs. Clandon. I think that’s right.
Waiter. (Perfectly happy.) Right ma’am. Directly, ma’am. Thank you.
(He ambles off through the window, having sounded the whole gamut of human happiness, from the bottom to the top in a little over two minutes.)53
THE CRADLE (LE BERCEAU)
ACT I. SCENE 9
[Laurence and Raymond, her first husband, meet by chance by the sick bed of their little boy, M. de Girieu, the second husband, who is madly jealous of Raymond, and of Laurence’s love for her boy, has just refused Raymond’s request to be allowed to watch by the child till he is out of danger. Resting confidently on the control over Laurence and the boy which the laws give him, M. de Girieu is sure he can keep his wife and her former husband apart.]
Long silent scene. The door of little Julien’s room opens softly. Laurence appears with a paper in her hand. The two men separate, watching her intently. She looks out for a long time, then shuts the door, taking every precaution not to make a noise. After a gesture of profound grief, she comes forward, deeply moved, but tearless. She makes no more gestures. Her face is grave. Very simply she goes straight to Raymond.
Raymond. (Very simply to Laurence.) Well?
Laurence. (In the same manner.) He has just dropped asleep.
Ray. The fever?
Lau. Constant.
Ray. Has the temperature been taken?
Lau. Yes.
Ray. How much?
Lau. Thirty-nine.
Ray. The cough?
Lau. Incessant. He breathes with difficulty.
Ray. His face is flushed?
Lau. Yes.
Ray. The doctor gave you a prescription?
Lau. I came to show it to you. I don’t thoroughly understand this.
(They are close to each other, examining the prescription which Raymond holds.)
Ray. (Reading.) “Keep an even temperature in the sick room.”
Lau. Yes.
Ray. “Wrap the limbs in cotton wool, and cover that with oiled silk.” I am going to do that myself as soon as he wakes. Tell them to warn me.
Lau. What ought he to have to drink? I forgot to ask that, and he is thirsty.
Ray. Mallow.
Lau. I’m sure he doesn’t like it.
Ray. Yes, yes. You remember when he had the measles.
Lau. Yes, yes. How anxious we were then, too!
Ray. He drank it willingly. You remember perfectly?
Lau. Yes, of course I remember. Some mallow then. Let us read the prescription again. I haven’t forgotten anything? Mustard plasters. The cotton wool, you will attend to that. And I will go have the drink made. “In addition—every hour—a coffee-spoonful of the following medicine.”
(The curtain falls slowly as she continues to read. M. de Girieu has gone out slowly during the last words.)54
Finally, contrast the treatment by John Webster and Robert Browning of the same dramatic situation. Which is the clearer, which depends more on illustrative action?
Enter Antonio
Duchess. I sent for you; sit downe:
Take pen and incke, and write: are you ready?
Antonio. Yes.
Duch. What did I say?
Ant. That I should write some-what.
Duch. Oh, I remember:
After this triumph and this large expence,
It’s fit (like thrifty husbands) we enquire,
What’s laid up for tomorrow.
Ant. So please your beauteous excellence.
Duch. Beauteous?
Indeed I thank you: I look yong for your sake.
You have tane my cares upon you.
Ant. I’le fetch your grace
The particulars of your revinew and expence.
Duch. Oh, you are an upright treasurer: but you mistooke,
For when I said I meant to make enquiry
What’s layd up for tomorrow, I did meane
What’s layd up yonder for me.
Ant. Where?
Duch. In heaven.
I am making my will (as ’tis fit princes should
In perfect memory), and I pray sir, tell me
Were not one better make it smiling, thus,
Then in deepe groanes, and terrible ghastly lookes,
As if the guifts we parted with procur’d
That violent distraction?
Ant. Oh, much better.
Duch. If I had a husband now, this care were quit:
But I intend to make you over-seer.
What good deede shall we first remember? say.
Ant. Begin with that first good deede began i’ th’ world,
After man’s creation, the sacrament of marriage.
I’ld have you first provide for a good husband:
Give him all.
Duch. All?
Ant. Yes, your excellent selfe.
Duch. In a winding sheete?
Ant. In a cople.
Duch. St. Winifrid, that were a strange will!
Ant. ’Twere strange if there were no will in you
To marry againe.
Duch. What doe you thinke of marriage?
Ant. I take’t, as those that deny purgatory,
It locally containes or heaven or hell;
There’s no third place in’t.
Duch. How doe you affect it?
Ant. My banishment, feeding my mellancholly,
Would often reason thus—
Duch. Pray let’s heare it.
Ant. Say a man never marry, nor have children,
What takes that from him? onely the bare name
Of being a father, or the weake delight
To see the little wanton ride a cock-horse
Upon a painted sticke, or heare him chatter
Like a taught starling.
Duch. Fye, fie, what’s all this?
One of your eyes is blood-shot; use my ring to’t.
They say ’tis very soveraigne; ’twas my wedding-ring,
And I did vow never to part with it,
But to my second husband.
Ant. You have parted with it now.
Duch. Yes, to helpe your eye-sight.
Ant. You have made me starke blind.
Duch. How?
Ant. There is a sawcy and ambitious divell
Is dauncing in this circle.
Duch. Remoove him.
Ant. How?
Duch. There needs small conjuration, when your finger
May doe it: thus, is it fit?
Ant. What sayd you? (He kneeles.)
Duch. Sir,
This goodly roofe of yours is too low built;
I cannot stand upright in’t, nor discourse,
Without I raise it higher: raise yourselfe,
Or if you please, my hand to help you: so.
Ant. Ambition, madam, is a great man’s madnes,
That is not kept in chaines and close-pentoomes,
But in fair lightsome lodgings, and is girt
With the wild noyce of pratling visitants,
Which makes it lunatique, beyond all cure.
Conceive not I am so stupid but I ayme
Whereto your favours tend: but he’s a foole
That (being a cold) would thrust his hands i’ th’ fire
To warme them.
Duch. So, now the ground’s broake,
You may discover what a wealthy mine
I make you lord of.
Ant. Oh my unworthiness!
Duch. You were ill to sell your selfe:
This darkning of your worth is not like that
Which trades-men use i’ th’ city; their false lightes
Are to rid bad wares off: and I must tell you,
If you will know where breathes a compleat man
(I speake it without flattery), turne your eyes,
And progresse through your selfe.
Ant. Were there nor heaven, nor hell,
I should be honest: I have long serv’d vertue,
And nev’r tane wages of her.
Duch. Now she paies it.
The misery of us that are borne great,
We are forc’d to woe, because none dare woe us:
And as a tyrant doubles with his words,
And fearefully equivocates, so we
Are forc’d to expresse our violent passions
In ridles and in dreames, and leave the path
Of simple vertue, which was never made
To seeme the thing it is not. Goe, go brag
You have left me heartlesse; mine is in your bosom:
I hope ’twill multiply love there. You doe tremble:
Make not your heart so dead a peece of flesh,
To feare, more then to love me. Sir, be confident,
What is’t distracts you? This is flesh and blood, sir;
’Tis not the figure cut in allablaster
Kneeles at my husbands tombe. Awake, awake, man,
I do here put off all vaine ceremony,
And onely doe appeare to you a yong widow
That claimes you for her husband, and like a widow,
I use but halfe a blush in’t.
Ant. Truth speake for me,
I will remaine the constant sanctuary
Of your good name.55
This is Browning’s version:
Duchess. Say what you did through her, and she through you—
The praises of her beauty afterward!
Will you?
Valence. I dare not.
Duch. Dare not?
Val. She I love
Suspects not such a love in me.
Duch. You jest.
Val. The lady is above me and away.
Not only the brave form, and the bright mind,
And the great heart combine to press me low—
But all the world calls rank divides us.
Duch. Rank!
Now grant me patience! Here’s a man declares
Oracularly in another’s case—
Sees the true value and the false, for them—
Nay, bids them see it, and they straight do see.
You called my court’s love worthless—so it turned:
I threw away as dross my heap of wealth,
And here you stickle for a piece or two!
First—has she seen you?
Val. Yes.
Duch. She loves you, then.
Val. One flash of hope burst; then succeeded night:
And all’s at darkest now. Impossible!
Duch. We’ll try: you are—so to speak—my subject yet?
Val. As ever—to the death.
Duch. Obey me, then!
Val. I must.
Duch. Approach her, and ... no! first of all
Get more assurance. “My instructress,” say,
“Was great, descended from a line of kings,
“And even fair”—(wait why I say this folly)—
“She said, of all men, none for eloquence,
“Courage, and (what cast even these to shade)
“The heart they sprung from,—none deserved like him
“Who saved her at her need: if she said this,
“Why should not one I love, say?”
Val. Heaven—this hope—
Oh, lady, you are filling me with fire!
Duch. Say this!—nor think I bid you cast aside
One touch of all the awe and reverence;
Nay, make her proud for once to heart’s content
That all this wealth of heart and soul’s her own!
Think you are all of this,—and, thinking it,
... (Obey!)
Val. I cannot choose.
Duch. Then, kneel to her!
(Valence sinks on his knee.)
I dream!
Val. Have mercy! yours, unto the death,—
I have obeyed. Despise, and let me die!
Duch. Alas, sir, is it to be ever thus?
Even with you as with the world? I know
This morning’s service was no vulgar deed
Whose motive, once it dares avow itself,
Explains all done and infinitely more,
So, takes the shelter of a nobler cause.
Your service names its true source,—loyalty!
The rest’s unsaid again. The Duchess bids you,
Rise, sir! The Prince’s words were in debate.
Val. (Rising.) Rise? Truth, as ever, lady, comes from you!
I should rise—I who spoke for Cleves, can speak
For Man—yet tremble now, who stood firm then.
I laughed—for ’twas past tears—that Cleves should starve
With all hearts beating loud the infamy,
And no tongue daring trust as much to air:
Yet here, where all hearts speak, shall I be mute?
Oh, lady, for your sake look on me!
On all I am, and have, and do—heart, brain,
Body and soul,—this Valence and his gifts!
I was proud once: I saw you, and then sank,
So that each, magnified a thousand times,
Were nothing to you—but such nothingness,
Would a crown gild it, or a sceptre prop,
A treasure speed, a laurel-wreath enhance?
What is my own desert? But should your love
Have ... there’s no language helps here ... singled me,—
Then—oh, that wild word “then!”—be just to love,
In generosity its attribute!
Love, since you pleased to love! All’s cleared—a stage
For trial of the question kept so long:
Judge you—Is love or vanity the best?
You, solve it for the world’s sake—you, speak first
What all will shout one day—you, vindicate
Our earth and be its angel! All is said.
Lady, I offer nothing—I am yours:
But, for the cause’ sake, look on me and him,
And speak!
Duch. I have received the Prince’s message:
Say, I prepare my answer!
Val. Take me, Cleves! (He withdraws.)56
The formula for the would-be dramatist so far as his people are concerned is this: A play which aims to be real in depicting life must illustrate character by characterization which is in character.
1 For all of these except Hyckescorner see Specimens of Pre-Shakespearean Drama. J. M. Manly. 2 vols. Ginn & Co., Boston. For Hyckescorner see The Origin of the English Drama, Vol. I. T. Hawkins, ed. Clarendon Press, Oxford.
2 Induction, Every Man in His Humour. Mermaid Series or Everyman’s Library.
3 See Two Loves and a Life, The Ticket of Leave Man, The Lady of Lyons. All published by Samuel French, New York.
4 Belles-Lettres Series. F. E. Schelling, ed. D. C. Heath & Co.; Mermaid Series, vol. III, or Everyman’s Library.
5 Mermaid Series, vol. II. Chas. Scribner’s Sons, New York.
6 Play-Making, pp. 376, 378. Small, Maynard & Co., Boston.
7 Plays. Chas. Scribner’s Sons, New York.
8 Walter H. Baker & Co., Boston; W. Heinemann, London.
9 Some Platitudes Concerning Drama, Atlantic Monthly, December, 1909.
10 The Devonshire Hamlets, Act I, pp. 9-10.
11 Dramatic Essays. William Hazlitt.
12 The Stage in America, pp. 81-82. N. Hapgood. The Macmillan Co.
13 Some Platitudes Concerning Drama, Atlantic Monthly, December, 1909.
14 See the quotation from Stevenson, p. 243, as to Weir of Hermiston.
15 Hamburg Dramaturgy, p. 324. Lessing. Bohn ed.
16 Belle-Lettres Series. A. H. Thorndike, ed. D. C. Heath & Co., Boston and New York.
17 Mermaid Series for both plays. Chas. Scribner’s Sons, New York.
18 A New Rehearsal, or Bays the Younger. Charles Gildon. 1714-15.
19 At the New Theatre, pp. 189-192. W. P. Eaton. Small, Maynard & Co., Boston.
20 Idem, pp. 47-48.
21 Hamburg Dramaturgy, p. 238. Bohn ed.
22 Walter H. Baker & Co., Boston; W. Heinemann, London.
23 P. V. Stock, Paris. Published in translation by J. W. Luce & Co., Boston.
24 Walter E. Baker & Co., Boston; W. Heinemann, London.
25 Letters of Henrik Ibsen, p. 437.
26 Au Public, La Princesse Georges. Calmann Lévy, Paris.
27 Œuvres, vol. VII, p. 320. Garnier Frères, Paris.
28 The Theatrical World for 1893, pp. 46-47. W. Archer. Walter Scott, Ltd., London.
29 The Macmillan Co., New York.
30 P. V. Stock, Paris.
31 Selected Dramas of John Dryden, p. 230. Preface, All for Love. G. R. Noyes, ed. Scott, Foresman & Co., New York.
32 Théâtre, vol. II. Michel Lévy Frères, Paris.
33 Walter H. Baker & Co., Boston.
34 The Macmillan Co., New York. Act III.
35 Belles-Lettres Series, p. 373. M.W. Sampson, ed. D.C. Heath & Co., Boston.
36 Shakespeare’s Library, vol. v, pp. 267-271. W. C. Hazlitt, ed.
37 Squire of Alsatia Mermaid Series. G. Saintsbury, ed. Chas. Scribner’s Sons, New York.
38 Mitchell Kennerley, New York.
39 For illustration of good work, see pp. 25-26, 36, 49, 162, 174, 181, 190.
40 See for discussion of these, pp. 382-96.
41 Tartuffe, Act I. Chief European Dramatists. Brander Matthews, ed. Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston.
42 Act III, Scene 2. Belles-Lettres Series. A. H. Thorndike, ed. D. C. Heath & Co.
43 Act I. Tr. Gilbert Murray. Geo. Allen & Sons, London.
44 The Macmillan Co., N.Y.
45 Mermaid Series. Vol. I, Act. I, Scene 1. Chas. Scribner’s Sons, New York.
46 Vittoria Corambona, Act III, Sc. 2. Webster. Belles-Lettres Series. M. W. Sampson, ed. D. C. Heath & Co., Boston and New York.
47 See pp. 154-161.
48 Chief European Dramatists. Brander Matthews, ed. Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston.
49 Act I, Scene 1. Mermaid Series, vol. III, of Everyman’s Library.
50 Hamburg Dramaturgy, pp. 367-368. Bohn ed.
51 Samuel French, New York; W. Heinemann, London.
52 Plays. Vol. I. J. Tonson, London, 1730.
53 Plays Pleasant and Unpleasant. Brentano, New York.
54 P. V. Stock, Paris.
55 The Duchess of Malfi, Act I, Sc. 2. Webster. Belles-Lettres Series. M. W. Sampson, ed. D. C. Heath & Co., Boston and New York.
56 Colombe’s Birthday, Act IV Scene 1. Robert Browning. Belles-Lettres Series A. Bates, ed. D. C. Heath & Co., Boston and New York.
CHAPTER VIII
DIALOGUE
Modern dramatic dialogue had beginnings far from realistic. It originated, as the Latin tropes show, in speeches given in unison and to music—a kind of recitative. What was the aim of this earliest dramatic dialogue? It sought to convey, first, last, and always, the facts of the episode or incident represented: “Whom seek ye here, O Christians? Jesus of Nazareth, the Crucified, O Heavenly Ones.” And that is what good dramatic dialogue has always done, is doing, and must always do as its chief work—state clearly the facts which an auditor must understand if the play is to move ahead steadily and clearly. Already enough has been said (chapter VI, pp. 154-183) as to the need of clear preliminary and later exposition to show how axiomatic is the statement that the chief purpose of good dialogue is to convey necessary information clearly.
Even, however, when dialogue is clear in its statement of needed information, it may still be confusing for reader or hearer. What is the trouble with the text in the left-hand column—from an early draft of a play dealing with John Brown and his fortunes?
SCENE: The Prison at Harper’s Ferry
Brown. Mary! I’m glad to see you, Mary. (For a few seconds, silence.) Mrs. Brown. (Crying out.) Oh, my dear husband, it is a hard fate. Brown. (Strong in his composure.) Well, well, Mary, let us be cheerful. We must all bear it the best we can. (Stroking her hair.) Mrs. Brown. Oh! You to go from me forever. (Sinks her head on his breast again.) Brown. It must be,—and all is for the best. There, there. (Pats her head in an effort to comfort her.) Mrs. Brown. But our poor children, John. Brown. Those that have died are at peace in the next world. (She breaks out weeping again.) Come, come, dry your tears; sit down and tell me about those at home. (He tries to lead her to chair on right of table, but she checks her grief and seats herself. He goes slowly back to the other chair.) It weakens me to stand. Now tell me about home. Mrs. Brown. It’s a sad place. We couldn’t believe the first reports about you and the boys being taken prisoners. We couldn’t believe you had failed. Then a New York paper came. We sat by the fire in the living room. There was Watson’s widow— Brown. Poor Isabel, with her little Freddie. Mrs. Brown. And William Thompson’s widow, our Ruth, and Annie, and Oliver’s widow— Brown. Poor Martha. When the time came it was hard for her to leave the farm house and Oliver behind. She kind of felt that she wouldn’t see him any more. Mrs. Brown. We said almost nothing while Salmon read. We felt in our blindness God had been unfaithful to you and the boys. Brown. My dear wife, you must keep up your spirits. Don’t blame God. He has taken away my sword of steel, but He has given me the sword of the Spirit. Mrs. Brown. (Looking up into his face with almost a sad smile upon hers.) That sounds just like you, John. Oh, it’s been so long since I heard your voice. Brown. Tell me more about the family. Mrs. Brown. Owen doesn’t dare come home yet. Brown. Do you know where he is? Mrs. Brown. Hiding among friends in Ohio. Poor boy, he is called all kinds of vile names, just for being with you. Brown. For the cause we have all suffered much in the past; we shall have to in the future. We should rejoice at his escape. Mrs. Brown. I do, John, but O, poor Oliver and Watson! We shall never see them again. Brown. Not in this world, but we shall meet together in that other world where they do not shoot and hang men for loving justice and desiring freedom for all men. Mrs. Brown. Yes, and they did die for a great and good cause! (Said with spirit.) Brown. Some day all the people of the earth will say that. (A moment's silence.) Mrs. Brown. Do they treat you well here, John? Brown. Like Joseph, I have gained favor in the sight of the prison-keeper. He is a most humane gentleman—never mistreats or tries to humiliate me. Mrs. Brown. May God bless such a man. Do you sleep any, John? Brown. Like a child,—all night in peace. Mrs. Brown. I'm glad of that. I worried about it. Are the days long and lonesome? Brown. All hours of the day glorious thoughts come to me. I am kept busy reading and answering letters from my friends. I have with me my Bible, here. (Placing his hand on the leather-bound volume at the end of the table.) It is of infinite comfort. I never enjoyed life more than since coming to prison. I wish all my poor family were as composed and as happy. Mrs. Brown. We have become more and more resigned. Brown. Do any feel disgrace or shame? Mrs. Brown. Not one, John. You are, in our eyes, a noble martyr. The chains on your legs bind our hearts all the closer to you. Brown. That gives me comfort, Mary. No man can get into difficulties too big to be surmounted, if he has a firm foothold at home. Mrs. Brown. You made a mistake only in judging how much you could do. Brown. I have been a great deal disappointed in myself for not keeping to my plan. I acted against my better judgment. Mrs. Brown. But after taking the arsenal, why didn't you flee to the mountains, as we thought you would? Brown. The delay was my mistake. But in God's greater and broader plan, maybe it was infinitely better. It was fore-ordained to work out that way, determined before the world was made. Mrs. Brown. His ways are mysterious and wonderful. (Avis comes in.) Brown. Mary! I’m glad to see you, Mary. (For a few seconds, silence.) Mrs. Brown. (Crying out.) Oh, my dear husband, it is a hard fate. It’s been so long since I heard your voice. Brown. (Strong in his compposture.) Well, well, Mary, let us be cheerful. We must all bear it the best we can. (Stroking her hair.) Mrs. Brown. Oh! You to go from me forever. (Sinks her head on his breast again.) Brown. It must be,—and all is for the best. There, there. (Pats her head in an effort to comfort her.) Mrs. Brown. (After a moment’s silence.) Do they treat you well here John? Brown. Like Joseph, I have gained favor in the sight of the prison-keeper. He is a most humane gentleman—never mistreats or tries to humiliate me. Mrs. Brown. May God bless such a man. Do you sleep any, John? Brown. Like a child,—all night in peace. Mrs. Brown. I am glad of that. I worried about it. Are the days long and lonesome? Brown. All hours of the day glorious thoughts come to me. I am kept busy reading and answering letters from my friends. I have with me my Bible, here. (Placing his hand on the leather-bound volume at the end of the table.) It is of infinite comfort. I never enjoyed life more than since coming to prison. I wish all my poor family were as composed and as happy. Mrs. Brown. But our poor children, John. Poor Oliver and Watson. We shall never see them again. Brown. Those that have died are at peace. (She breaks out weeping again.) But we shall meet together in that other world where they do not shoot and hang men for loving justice and desiring freedom for all men. Come, come, dry your tears. Sit down and tell me about those at home. (He tries to lead her to chair on right of table, but she checks her grief and seats herself. He goes slowly back to the other chair.) It weakens me to stand. Now, tell me about home, for that will give me comfort, Mary. No man can get into difficulties too big to be surmounted if he has a firm foothold at home. Mrs. Brown. It’s a sad place. We couldn’t believe the first reports about you and the boys being taken prisoners. We wouldn’t believe you had failed. Brown. I have been a great deal disappointed in myself for not keeping to my plan. Mrs. Brown. You made a mistake only in judging how much you could do. Brown. I acted against my better judgment. Mrs. Brown. But after taking the arsenal, why didn’t you flee to the mountains, as we thought you would? Brown. The delay was my mistake. But in God's greater and broader plan maybe it was infinitely better. It was fore-ordained to work out that way, determined before the world was made. Mrs. Brown. His ways are mysterious and wonderful. (A slight pause as both think.) Brown. How did you first get the news? Mrs. Brown. A New York paper came. We sat by the fire in the living room. There was Watson's widow— Brown. Poor Isabel, with her little Freddie. Mrs. Brown. And William Thompson's widow, our Ruth, and Annie, and Oliver's widow— Brown. Poor Martha. When the time came, it was hard for her to leave the farm house and Oliver behind. She kind of felt she wouldn't see him any more. Mrs. Brown. We said almost nothing while Salmon read. We felt in our blindness God had been unfaithful to you and the boys. Brown. My dear wife, you must keep up your spirits. Don't blame God. He has taken away my sword of steel, but He has given me the sword of the Spirit. Mrs. Brown. (Looking up into his face with almost a sad smile upon hers.) That sounds just like you, John. We have become more and more resigned. Brown. Do any feel disgrace or shame? Mrs. Brown. Not one, John. You are, in our eyes, a noble martyr. The chains on your legs bind our hearts all the closer to you. Brown. Tell me more about the family. Mrs. Brown. Owen doesn't dare come home yet. Brown. Do you know where he is? Mrs. Brown. Hiding among friends in Ohio. Poor boy, he is called all kinds of vile names, just for being with you. Brown. For the cause we have all suffered much in the past; we shall have to in the future. We should rejoice at his escape. Mrs. Brown. I do, John. And Oliver and Watson did die for a great and good cause! (Said with spirit.) Brown. Some day, all the people of the earth will say that. (Avis comes in.)
There are several faults in the original dialogue, but perhaps the chief is not regarding the principle that clearness dramatically consists, not merely in stating needed facts, but in so stating them that interest is not allowed to lapse. The original dialogue was scrappy, lacking sequence, not so much of thought as of emotion. If it be said that at such a moment talk is often fitful, it must be remembered that our time-limits forbid giving every word said in such a scene. We must present merely its essentials. Only in that way may a play, a condensed presentation of life, hope to give a total effect for a scene equal to that of the original. The re-ordered dialogue of the right-hand column seeks merely to bring together ideas really closely related, and to move, in a way in keeping with the characters, from lesser to stronger emotion. With the disappearance of the scrappy effect, is not the result clearer? Even now, the dialogue might well be condensed and made emotionally more significant.
If we let the dialogue of a play merely state necessary facts, what is the result? At the worst, something like the left-hand column. Two young women, one the married hostess and the other the friend of her girlhood, are opening their morning mail on the piazza. Serena, the hostess, has known nothing of the engagement of Elise to Teddy.
ORIGINAL REVISION
Elise. (Looking up from her letters.) Is he coming? Serena. I don't know yet, but I wish he were still in South Africa. If he does come, I don't know what will happen. There's a letter from Aunt Deborah. Elise. Yes? What does she want? Serena. Did you know she had a terrible quarrel with Teddy just before he went to South Africa? Elise. I had a vague idea of it. It must all be made up now and they'll be delighted to meet here. Serena. No, she won't. She says she's sure she'll have a shock if she sees him and very gladly accepts our kind invitation because so she can avoid meeting him. Elise. Is he coming? Serena. I don't know yet, but I wish he were still in South Africa. Look at this: (Showing letter.) A letter from Aunt Deborah. Elise. Yes? Serena. Aunt Deborah had a terrible quarrel with Teddy just before he went! Elise. Oh, that must be all made up now. Serena. Listen! (Reading from letter.) "If I see that man I'll have a shock," and (with a despairing gesture) she very gladly accepts our invitation!
From the left-hand column we surely do learn that a before-mentioned Teddy has been in South Africa; that he and a certain Aunt Deborah have quarreled; and that though she particularly does not wish to meet Teddy, she is coming, as he is, to visit at this house—three important points. Like everyday speech, the quoted dialogue lacks compactness. Let us first, therefore, cut out all that is not absolutely necessary. We do not need, in the first speech of Elise, anything more than the query, “Yes?” The inflection will give the rest. In the second speech of Serena we can cut “to South Africa,” for we have already mentioned where Teddy has been. In the second speech of Elise, it is the words “It must be all made up now” that are important. What precedes and what follows may be omitted. Similarly, in the first and second speeches of Serena, it is the first and the third sentences which are important. The second, if given, really anticipates an effect which will be stronger later. If we change the second speech from a query to an assertion or an exclamation, we shall gain and slightly condense. It will then read, “Aunt Deborah had a terrible quarrel with Teddy just before he went!” Because we have cut the last speech of Elise, the first sentence of the next speech of Serena becomes unnecessary. It will be necessary, however, to re-phrase what remains of this final speech, so hard is it to deliver. The revised dialogue may still be poor enough, but it says all the original did in less space—that is condensation. The effect is better because we have cut out some parts, and have slightly changed others. That is selection. The slight changes have been made in order to make the sequence of ideas clearer, to suggest emotion more clearly, or to make the dialogue natural—and all that means the beginning of characterization. The final word on this dialogue is, however, that even now either speaker could utter the words of the other, and that is all wrong. Clearly, then, even in stating facts, dialogue may be bad, indifferent, and good.
The following opening of a Japanese No drama shows that even more trained writers may write dialogue with no virtue except its clearness:
TWO HEARTS
A drama by J. Mushakoji
SCENE: A forest glade on the nobleman’s estate. A cross for crucifixion in the foreground. Two men A and B standing on either side of the cross holding spears.
A. That fellow has behaved foolishly!
B. Yes, and the girl also.
A. It was certain that they would be killed when found out.
B. And nothing could prevent the discovery.
A. Our master is extremely indignant.
B. There has not been one person crucified since the present lord succeeded.
A. Although the stewards have assured him that it is the established law of the land, the present master has never given permission for the punishment of criminals by crucifixion and fire. But now he has announced that he will kill them in this manner, and we are commissioned to carry out the disagreeable duty.
B. Even though we refused to obey the command at first and requested him to excuse us he would not listen to our petition.
A. The master must have been very fond of this young girl.
B. Yes. Rumour has it that he became attached to her while the late mistress was still living.
A. He did not care very much for his wife. Anyway, she was too inferior to be his companion.
B. It was said that he did not grieve over her death.
A. And I have heard that the girl fainted when her mistress died.
B. She must have been a favourite among the other attendants who accompanied the lady when she became the wife of the lord.
A. She was clever and pretty and had a strong character.
B. Why did the girl fall in love with that fellow, I wonder?
A. He is the kind of a man a woman admires.
B. And because the girl loved him he now receives such severe punishment.
A. We can never tell. What seems good luck may mean unexpected misfortune.
B. She would have been happier if she had obeyed the master’s will instead of rejecting him.
A. Probably she did not like him.
B. But he seemed to care a great deal for her.
A. It may not be right to say so, but his decision seems to have been taken because of his jealousy.
B. Yes, that is true. I wonder why he has commanded us to prepare only one cross.
A. Perhaps it is his plan to save one of them.
B. I don’t think that could be done very well.
A. But someone said the master told the girl that he would save her life if she would only desert the young man for him.
B. That may be so. Perhaps he intends to crucify the young man first in the presence of the girl so as to break her obstinate spirit and thus gain her love.
A. That may be so.
B. It is said that the young man has already repented of his love for the girl. But she was not at all frightened when the punishment was announced and she was informed that she was to be crucified. The man, on the contrary, at once turned white and almost fainted when he heard the judgment passed upon him.
A. But a woman is much braver in love affairs than a man.
B. You speak as though you had had experience!
A. Ha! Ha! Ha!
B. Perhaps the master wishes to kill the young man in as cruel a manner as possible.
A. Hush! The lord is here! We are now obliged to remain silent and witness a living drama.
B. And we have a dreadful task to perform.1
Though this omits nothing in the way of necessary information, how colorless it is! When we note how perfectly either A or B could speak the lines of the other, we see where the difficulty lies. The lines lack all characterization. The history of the drama shows that while the facts of a play may be interesting in themselves, they are much more interesting to an audience which hears them as they present themselves to well-defined characters of the story. It is axiomatic that sympathy quickens interest. Take a much better known illustration of the same point. The left-hand column gives the opening lines of the first quarto, Hamlet. The right-hand column shows the opening of the second quarto.
Enter two Centinels Enter Barnardo and Francisco, two Centinels
1. Stand: who is that? Barnardo. Whose there?
2. Tis I. Francisco. [Nay answere me.] Stand and unfolde your selfe.
Bar. Long live the King.
Fran. Barnardo.
Bar. Hee.
1. O you come most carefully upon your watch. Fran. You come most carefully upon your houre.
Bar. Tis now strooke twelfe, get thee to bed Francisco.
Fran. For this relief much thanks, [tis bitter cold,] And I am sick at heart.
Bar. Have you had quiet guard?
Fran. [Not a mouse stirring.]
2. And if you meete Marcellus and Horatio, The partners of my watch, bid them make haste. Bar. Well, good night: If you doe meete Horatio and Marcellus, The rivals of my watch, bid them make hast.
1. I will: See who goes there.
Enter Horatio and Marcellus Enter Horatio and Marcellus
Fran. I think I heare them, stand ho, who is there?
Horatio. Friends to this ground. Horatio. Friends to this ground.
Marcellus. And leegemen to the Dane, Marcellus. And leegemen to the Dane.
Fran. Give you good night.
O farewell honest souldier, who hath relieved you? Mar. O, farewell honest souldiers, who hath relieved you?
1. Barnardo hath my place, give you good night. Fran. Barnardo hath my place; give you good night.
(Exit Francisco.)2
The first of these extracts, without question gives the necessary facts of the changing of the watch. It busies itself only with this absolutely necessary action. The second quarto identifies the speakers, and, by a different phrasing with additional lines, both characterizes them and gives the scene atmosphere. Study the re-phrasings and bracketed additions of the second scene—“Nay answere me,” “Tis bitter cold,” “Not a mouse stirring”—and note that this dialogue gains over the first in that it interests by what it adds as much as by the essential action.
A second quotation from Hamlet in the two quartos illustrates the same point even better. The text in the left-hand column, merely stating the facts necessary to the movement of the scene, leaves to the actor all characterizing of Montano, and gives the player of Corambis only the barest hints. The second quarto text, in the right-hand column, makes Polonius so garrulous that he cannot keep track of his own ideas; shows his pride in his would-be shrewdness; indeed, rounds him out into a real character. It even makes Reynaldo a man who does not yield at once, but a person of honorable instincts who is overborne. Can there be any question which scene holds the attention better?
Enter Corambis and Montano Enter old Polonius, with his man or two
Corambis. Montano; here, these letters to my sonne, And this same money with my blessing to him, And bid him ply his learning good Montano. Polonius. Give him this money and these notes Reynaldo.
Reynaldo. I will my Lord.
Pol. You shall doe marviles wisely good Reynaldo Before you visite him to make inquire Of his behaviour.
Montano. I will my lord. Cor. You shall do very well Montano, to say thus, I knew the gentleman, or know his father To inquire the manner of his life, And thus; being amongst his acquaintance, You may say, you saw him at such a time, marke you mee, Rey. My Lord, I did intend it. Pol. Mary well said, very well said; look you sir, Enquire me first what Danskers are in Parris, And how, and who, what meanes and where they keepe, What companie, at what expence, and finding By this encompasment, and drift of question That they doe know my sonne, come you more neerer Then your particular demands will tuch it, Take you as t’were some distant knowledge of him, As thus, I know his father, and his friends, And in part him, doe you marke this, Reynaldo? Rey. I, very well my Lord. Pol. And in part him, but you may say, not well, But y’ft be he I meane, hee’s very wilde, Adicted so and so, and there put on him What forgeries you please, marry none so ranck As may dishonour him, take heede of that, But sir, such wanton, wild, and usuall slips As are companions noted and most knowne To youth and libertie. Rey. As gaming my Lord.
At game, or drincking, swearing, or drabbing, You may go so farre. Mon. My Lord, that will impeach his reputation. Cor. I faith not a whit, no not a whit, Now happely hee closeth with you in the consequence, As you may bridle it not disparage him a iote. What was I about to say. Pol. I, or drinking, fencing, swearing. Quarrelling, drabbing, you may go so far. Rey. My Lord, that would dishonour him. Pol. Fayth as you may season it in the charge. You must not put another scandell on him, That he is open to incontinencie. That’s not my meaning, but breath his faults so quently That they may seeme the taints of libertie, The flash and out-breake of a fierie mind, A savagenes in unreclamed blood Of generall assault. Rey. But my good Lord. Pol. Wherefore should you do this? Rey. I my Lord, I would know that. Pol. Marry, sir, heer’s my drift, And I believe it is a fetch of wit, You laying these slight sallies on my sonne As t’were a thing a little soyld with working, Marke you, your partie in converse, him you would sound Having ever seene in the prenominat crimes The youth you breath of guiltie, be assur’d He closes with you in this consequence, Good sir, (or so,) or friend, or gentleman, According to the phrase, or the addition Of man and country. Rey. Very good my Lord. Pol. And then sir, doos a this, a doos, what was I about to say? By the masse I was about to say something, Where did I leave?
Mon. He closeth with you in the consequence. Rey. At closes in the consequence.3
Even the dialogue, which with broad characterization states necessary facts clearly, is by no means so effective as dialogue so absorbing by its characterization that we assimilate the facts unconsciously. Contrast the opening of The Good Natur’d Man with that of Hindle Wakes. The first is so busy in characterizing an absent but important figure that it presents the two speakers only in the broadest way. That is, exposition exists here as its only excuse for being. In Hindle Wakes, the rapid development of an interesting situation through two characters who as individuals become more distinct and interesting with every line, probably conceals from most auditors or readers the fact that seven important bits of information are given before Fanny enters.
ACT I
SCENE—An apartment in Young Honeywood’s house
Enter Sir William Honeywood, Jarvis
Sir William. Good Jarvis, make no apologies for this honest bluntness. Fidelity like yours is the best excuse for every freedom.
Jarvis. I can’t help being blunt, and being very angry, too, when I hear you talk of disinheriting so good, so worthy a young gentleman as your nephew, my master. All the world loves him.
Sir Will. Say, rather, that he loves all the world; that is his fault.
Jarv. I’m sure there is no part of it more dear to him than you are, tho’ he has not seen you since he was a child.
Sir Will. What signifies his affection to me, or how can I be proud of a place in a heart where every sharper and coxcomb find an easy entrance?
Jarv. I grant you that he’s rather too good natur’d; that he’s too much every man’s man; that he laughs this minute with one, and cries the next with another; but whose instructions may he thank for all this?
Sir Will. Not mine, sure? My letters to him during my employment in Italy taught him only that philosophy which might prevent, not defend his errors.
Jarv. Faith, begging your honour’s pardon, I’m sorry they taught him any philosophy at all; it has only served to spoil him. This same philosophy is a good horse in the stable, but an arrant jade on a journey. For my own part, whenever I hear him mention the name on’t, I’m always sure he’s going to play the fool.
Sir Will. Don’t let us ascribe his faults to his philosophy, I entreat you. No, Jarvis, his good nature rises rather from his fears of offending the importunate, than his desire of making the deserving happy.
Jarv. What it arises from, I don’t know. But to be sure, everybody has it that asks it.
Sir Will. Ay, or that does not ask it. I have been now for some time a concealed spectator of his follies, and find them as boundless as his dissipation.
Jarv. And yet, faith, he has some fine name or other for them all. He calls his extravagance generosity; and his trusting everybody, universal benevolence. It was but last week he went security for a fellow whose face he scarce knew, and that he call’d an act of exalted mu-mu-munificence; ay, that was the name he gave it.
Sir Will. And upon that I proceed, as my last effort, tho’ with very little hopes to reclaim him. That very fellow has just absconded, and I have taken up the security. Now, my intention is to involve him in fictitious distress, before he has plunged himself into real calamity. To arrest him for that very debt, to clap an officer upon him, and then let him see which of his friends will come to his relief.4
ACT I. SCENE 1
The scene is triangular, representing a corner of the living-room of No. 137, Burnley Road, Hindle, a house rented for about 7s. 6d. a week. In the left-hand wall, low down, there is a door leading to the scullery. In the same wall, but further away from the spectator, is a window looking on to the backyard. A dresser stands in front of the window. About half-way up the right-hand wall is the door leading to the hall or passage. Nearer, against the same wall, a high cupboard for china and crockery. The fire-place is not visible, being in one of the walls not represented. However, down in the L. corner of the stage is an arm-chair, which stands by the hearth. In the middle of the room is a square table, with chairs on each side. The room is cheerful and comfortable. It is nine o’clock on a warm August evening. Through the window can be seen the darkening sky, as the blind is not drawn. Against the sky an outline of roof tops and mill chimneys. The only light is the dim twilight from the open window. Thunder is in the air. When the curtain rises, Christopher Hawthorn, a decent, white-bearded man of nearly fifty, is sitting in the arm-chair, smoking a pipe. Mrs. Hawthorn, a keen, sharp-faced woman of fifty-five, is standing, gazing out of the window. There is a flash of lightning and a rumble of thunder far away.
Mrs. Hawthorn. It’s passing over. There’ll be no rain.
Christopher. Ay! We could do with some rain.
(There is a flash of lightning.)
Chris. Pull down the blind and light the gas.
Mrs. H. What for?
Chris. It’s more cozy-like with the gas.
Mrs. H. You’re not afraid of the lightning?
Chris. I want to look at that railway guide.
Mrs. H. What’s the good. We’ve looked at it twice already. There’s no train from Blackpool till half-past ten, and it’s only just on nine now.
Chris. Happen we’ve made a mistake.
Mrs. H. Happen we’ve not. Besides, what’s the good of a railway guide? You know trains run as they like on Bank Holiday.
Chris. Ay! Perhaps you’re right. You don’t think she’ll come round by Manchester!
Mrs. H. What would she be doing coming round by Manchester?
Chris. You can get that road from Blackpool.
Mrs. H. Yes. If she’s coming from Blackpool.
Chris. Have you thought she may not come at all?
Mrs. H. (Grimly.) What do you take me for?
Chris. You never hinted.
Mrs. H. No use putting them sort of ideas into your head.
(Another flash and a peal of thunder.)
Chris. Well, well, those are lucky who haven’t to travel at all on Bank Holiday.
Mrs. H. Unless they’ve got a motor car, like Nat Jeffcote’s lad.
Chris. Nay, he’s not got one.
Mrs. H. What? Why I saw him with my own eyes setting out in it last Saturday week after the mill shut.
Chris. Ay! He’s gone off these Wakes with his pal George Ramsbottom. A couple of thick beggars, those two!
Mrs. H. Then what do you mean telling me he’s not got a motor car?
Chris. I said he hadn’t got one of his own. It’s his father’s. You don’t catch Nat Jeffcote parting with owt before his time. That’s how he holds his lad in check, as you might say.
Mrs. H. Alan Jeffcote’s seldom short of cash. He spends plenty.
Chris. Ay! Nat gives him what he asks for, and doesn’t want to know how he spends it either. But he’s got to ask for it first. Nat can stop supplies any time if he’s a mind.
Mrs. H. That’s likely, isn’t it?
Chris. Queerer things have happened. You don’t know Nat like I do. He’s a bad one to get across with.
(Another flash and gentle peal. Mrs. H. gets up.)
Mrs. H. I’ll light the gas.
(She pulls down the blind and lights the gas.)
Chris. When I met Nat this morning he told me that Alan had telegraphed from Llandudno on Saturday asking for twenty pounds.
Mrs. H. From Llandudno?
Chris. Ay! Reckon he’s been stopping there. Run short of brass.
Mrs. H. And did he send it?
Chris. Of course he sent it. Nat doesn’t stint the lad. (He laughs quietly.) Eh, but he can get through it, though!
Mrs. H. Look here. What are you going to say to Fanny when she comes?
Chris. Ask her where she’s been?
Mrs. H. Ask her where she’s been. Of course we’ll do that. But suppose she won’t tell us?
Chris. She’s always been a good girl.
Mrs. H. She’s always gone her own road. Suppose she tells us to mind our own business?
Chris. I reckon it is my business to know what she’s been up to.
Mrs. H. Don’t you forget it. And don’t let her forget it either. If you do, I promise you I won’t.
Chris. All right. Where’s that post-card?
Mrs. H. Little good taking heed of that.
(Christopher rises and gets a picture post-card from the dresser.)
Chris. (Reading.) She’ll be home before late on Monday. Lovely weather. (Looking at the picture.) North Pier, Blackpool. Very like, too.
Mrs. H. (Suddenly.) Let’s have a look. When was it posted?
Chris. It’s dated Sunday.
Mrs. H. That’s nowt to go by. Any one can put the wrong date. What’s the postmark? (She scrutinizes it.) “August 5th, summat P.M.” I can’t make out the time.
Chris. August 5th. That was yesterday all right. There’d only be one post on Sunday.
Mrs. H. Then she was in Blackpool till yesterday, that’s certain.
Chris. Ay!
Mrs. H. Well, it’s a mystery.
Chris. (Shaking his head.) Or summat worse.
Mrs. H. Eh? You don’t think that, eh?
Chris. I don’t know what to think.
Mrs. H. Nor me neither.
(They sit silent for a time. There is a rumble of thunder, far away. After it has died away, a knock is heard at the front door. They turn and look at each other. Mrs. Hawthorn rises and goes out in silence. In a few moments, Fanny Hawthorn comes in, followed by Mrs. Hawthorn.)5
What usually keeps a writer from passing to well characterized dialogue from dialogue merely clear as to essential facts is that he is so bound to his facts that he sees rather than feels the scene. The chief trouble with the dialogue of the John Brown play was an attempt to keep so close to historical accounts of the particular incident that sympathetic imagination was benumbed. One constantly meets this fault in the earlier Miracle Plays before writers had come to understand that audiences care more for the human being in the situation than for the situation itself, and that only by representing a situation not for itself but as felt by the people involved can it be made fully interesting. At the left is a speech of Mary in The Crucifixion of the York Cycle; at the right is her speech in the Hegge or so-called Coventry Plays.
Mary. Alas! for my sweet son, I say, That dolefully to deed thus is dight, Alas! for full lovely thou lay In my womb, this worthely wight Alas! that I should see this sight Of my son so seemly to see, Alas! that this blossom so bright Untruly is tugged to this tree, Alas! My lord, my life, With full great grief, Hanges as a thief, Alas! he did never trespass.6 Mary, O my son, my son! my darling dear! What have I defended [offended] thee? Thou hast spoke to all of those that be here, And not a word thou speakest to me. To the Jews thou art full kind, Thou hast forgiven all here misdeed; And the thief thou hast in mind, For once asking mercy heaven is his meed. Ah! my sovereign lord, why wilt thou not speak To me that am thy mother in pain for thy wrong? Ah, heart, heart why wilt thou not break? That I were out of this sorrow so strong!7
The writer of the Hegge speech had discovered long before Ralph Waldo Emerson that the secret of good dialogue is “truth carried alive into the heart by passion.” The second requisite, then, of good dialogue is that it must be kindled by feeling, made alive by the emotion of the speaker. For the would-be dramatist the secret is so to know his characters that facts are not mere facts, but conditions moving him because they move the characters he perfectly understands. As he interprets between character and audience, he must be like Planchette or the clairvoyant, the creature of another’s will, whose ideas and emotions rather than his own he tries with all the power that is in him to convey. In brief, then, though it is absolutely necessary that dialogue give the facts as to what happens, who the people are, their relations to one another, etc., it is better dialogue if, while doing all this, it seems to be busied only with characterization.
Unassigned dialogue usually makes a reader or hearer promptly recognize his preference for characterized rather than uncharacterized speech. When a group, as in many stage mobs, speaks in chorus, or at best in sections, the result is unreality for many hearers and absurdity for the more critical. Every hearer knows that people do not really, when part of a mob, say absolutely the same thing, and rarely speak in perfect unison. Common sense cries out for individualization among the possible speakers. When we read the following extract from Andreiev’s Life of Man, we may agree with what is apparently the author’s idea, that it makes no difference which one of the speakers delivers a particular line or sentence; but the moment the scene is staged everything changes.
A profound darkness within which nothing moves. Then there can be dimly perceived the outlines of a large, high room and the grey silhouettes of Old Women in strange garments who resemble a troop of grey, hiding mice. In low voices and with laughter to and fro the Old Women converse.
·········
When they sent him to the drug store for some medicine he rode up and down past the store for two hours and could not remember what he wanted. So he came back.
(Subdued laughter. The crying again becomes louder and then dies away. Silence.)
What has happened to her? Perhaps she is already dead.
No, in that case we should hear weeping. The doctor would run out and begin to talk nonsense, and they would bring out her husband unconscious, and we should have our hands full. No, she is not dead.
Then why are we sitting here?
Ask Him. How should we know?
He won’t tell.
He won’t tell. He tells nothing.
He drives us here and there. He rouses us from our beds and makes us watch, and then it turns out that there was no need of our coming.
We came of our own accord. Didn’t we come of our own accord? You must be fair to Him. There, she is crying again. Aren’t you satisfied?
Are you?
I am saying nothing. I am saying nothing and waiting.
How kind-hearted you are!
(Laughter. The cries become louder.)8
Of course every rule has its exception, and it may be urged that the final lines of David Pinski’s The Treasure need no assigning to special speakers. This, if true, results from the fact that Mr. Pinski, as the last touch in his study of the universal perversion of man through lust for money, wishes to represent even all the dead as sharing in this greed. Even here, however, Mr. Pinski is careful, by his headings “Many” and “The Pious Rabbi,” to distinguish among speeches to be given by one person, the chorus, and a figure he wishes specially to individualize, the Rabbi.
The Dead
(In shrouds and praying shawls appear singly and in groups amid the graves. They whisper and breathe their words.) Swiftly into the synagogue!... Hasten!... The hour of midnight is long past.... Hasten....
(They hasten to the gate. One sees only their silhouettes in the dim light of the veiled moon.)
I thought we would not come out today at all.
The dead fear the breath of the living.
We fear them more than they do us. There is no peace betwixt life and death....
No peace ... no peace....
Indeed life vexed me grievously today.
Vexed is not the word. I lived in their life so really that I shuddered and feared.
Shuddered with fear or with longing? Did you feel a yearning for your money?
(Ghostly laughter shakes the rows of the dead.)
The distinguished and the wealthy must surely have had a bad day.
It fairly smelled of money and they had to lie with the worms.
It almost threw them out of their graves.
Many
Money ... money ... money.... (Ghostly laughter.)
But you poor devils hadn’t a much better time either. It smelled of money and you couldn’t even beg. (Laughter.)
It is high time for all of you to be forgetting life.... Come quickly into the synagogue....
(Many of the dead vanish.)
It gave me really an exalted feeling to see how little fear of us they felt.
Don’t flatter yourself. We would have been no better. We were no better either.
Many
(At the same time.) Money ... Money ... Money....
Others
And that is life ... that is life ... that is life....
It exalted me in my grave too. So many women walked about here today. Young ones and pretty ones, I wager....
(Laughter.)
Who speaks thus? Who opens his mouth to speak such ugly words?
It’s the petty field surgeon who lies buried by the wall.
The Pious Rabbi
(In passing. His praying shawl hangs but loosely over his left shoulder.) They have dug up my whole grave.... They have dug away my right arm. Woe, how shall I now put on my praying shawl? How shall I appear before God? (To a group.) Will not some one help me to put on my praying shawl?
(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 ...
Curtain9
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 Cæsar 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 Cæsar, 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 Cæsar’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, Endymion12 (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!