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Many of the manuscripts that are sent to the New York managers are such impossible oddities that few readers would regard a description of them as really accurate. It was the privilege of the writer to look over a collection of “plays” that have been mailed recently to several of the theatrical offices, and, among the number, he came across a dozen that were each about fifteen to twenty pages in length. This included the scenic descriptions and stage directions. Such “plays,” if enacted, would be of about ten to eleven minutes’ duration instead of two and a quarter hours. Three manuscripts called for from ninety to one hundred characters, and from nine to fourteen different scenes. Eight manuscripts were divided into nine acts each and, judging from their thickness, would have run on for days, after the fashion of a Chinese drama. One “play” was laid in the year 2200 A.D., and called for twelve actors to portray “the new race of men”—each man to be at least seven feet tall. These characters were to make all their entrances and exits in airships. Several manuscripts that the writer examined would have required professional strong men in their enactment, so difficult were the physical feats outlined for some of the actors. A great number of “modern dramas” included a ream of colloquialisms and anachronisms intermixed with Louis XV situations. And one manuscript, entitled “Love in All Ages” called for twelve different acts with a new group of nine differently built actors in each.29

A stage direction which ran something like this is the most naïve in the experience of the writer. “Germs of a locomotive, a cathedral, etc., detach themselves in an unknown manner from the walls and float airily, merrily about the room.” Impossible? Possibly not for a genius of a stage manager. Likely to recommend the play to a manager trying to judge from a manuscript the dramatic sense of its unknown author? Hardly.

Granted then that a would-be playwright has acquired ordinary common sense about the theatre and has some point of departure, how does he move from it to plot? First, by taking time enough, by avoiding hurry. Let any would-be dramatist get rid promptly of the idea that good plays are written in a rush. It is perfectly true that the mere writing out of a play has often been done in what seems an amazingly short time—a few weeks, days, or even hours. However, in every case of rapid composition, as for instance Sheridan’s Rivals, which was put on paper in very brief time, the author has either mulled his material for a long time or was so thoroughly conversant with it that it required no careful thinking out at the moment of composition. In The Rivals Sheridan drew upon his intimate knowledge for many years of the people and the gossip of the Pump Room at Bath. Mr. H. A. Jones has more than once testified, “I mull long on my plot, sometimes a year, but when I have it, the rest (the mere writing out) is easy.” Sardou turned out a very large number of plays. Nor are his plays, seemingly, such as to demand the careful preparation required for the drama of ideas or the drama more dependent on characterization than incident. Yet he worked very carefully at all stages, from point of departure to final draft. “Whenever an idea occurred to Sardou, he immediately made a memorandum of it. These notes he classified and filed. For example, years before the production of Thermidor he had the thought of one day writing such a play. Gradually the character of Fabienne shaped itself; Labussière was devised later to fit Coquelin. Everything that he read about that epoch of the French Revolution, and the ideas which his reading inspired, he wrote down in the form of rough notes. Engravings, maps, prints, and other documents of the time he carefully collected. Memoirs and histories he annotated and indexed, filing away the index references in his file cases, or dossiers. At the time of his death, Sardou had many hundreds of these dossiers, old and new. Some of the older ones had been worked up into plays, while the newer ones were merely raw material for future dramas. When the idea of a play had measurably shaped itself in his mind he wrote out a skeleton plot which he placed in its dossier. There it might lie indefinitely. In this shape Thermidor remained for nearly twenty years, and Theodora for ten. When he considered that the time was ripe for one of his embryonic plays, Sardou would take out that particular dossier, read over the material, and lay it aside again. After it had fermented in his brain for a time, he would, if the inspiration seized him, write out a scenario. After this, he began the actual writing of the play.”30

Late in the seventeenth century, one of the most prolific of English playwrights, John Dryden, contracted to turn out four plays a year. He failed completely to carry out his promise. Some dramatists of a much more recent day should attribute to the speed with which they have turned out plays their repeated failures, or, after early successes, their waning hold on the public. Every dramatist should keep steadily in mind the words of the old French adage: “Time spares not that on which time hath been spared.” Time, again time, and yet again time is the chief element in successful writing of plays.

A wandering, erratic career is forbidden the dramatist. Back in the eighteenth century Diderot stated admirably the qualities a dramatist must have if he is to plot well. “He must get at the heart of his material. He must consider order and unity. He must discern clearly the moment at which the action should begin. He must recognize the situations which will help his audience, and know what it is expedient to leave unsaid. He must not be rebuffed by difficult scenes or long labor. Throughout he must have the aid of a rich imagination.”31 Selection, Proportion, Emphasis, Movement—all making for clearness—these as the words of Diderot suggest, are what the dramatist studies in developing his play from Subject, through Story, to Plot.

1 Auteurs Dramatiques, Pailleron. A. Binet and J. Passey. L’Année Psychologique, 1894, pp. 98–99.

2 Sardou and the Sardou Plays, p. 127. Jerome A. Hart. J. B. Lippincott Co., Philadelphia.

3 Auteurs Dramatiques, Dumas fils, p. 77.

4 Five Plays, p. 86. Lord Dunsany. Mitchell Kennerley, New York.

5 Auteurs Dramatiques, Sardou, L’Année Psychologique, 1894, p. 66.

6 Play-Making, pp. 18–19, note. William Archer. Small, Maynard & Co., Boston.

7 Auteurs Dramatiques, Sardou, p. 66.

8 Auteurs Dramatiques, M. de Curel, p. 121.

9 From Ibsen’s Workshop. Works, vol. x, pp. 91–92. Chas. Scribner’s Sons, New York.

10 Consult the pages of W. C. Hazlitt’s Shakespeare Library, a source book of his plays for proof of this.

11 Belles-Lettres Series. F. E. Schelling, ed. D. C. Heath & Co., Boston and New York.

12 Mermaid Series or Everyman’s Library.

13 Published in translation by Brentano; also in Chief Contemporary Dramatists. Thomas H. Dickinson. Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston.

14 Note, p. 49.

15 J. W. Luce & Co., Boston; Sidgwick & Jackson, Ltd., London.

16 Dramatic Works, vol. I. Ed. Ludwig Lewisohn. B. Huebach., New York.

17 For purposes of useful comparison the lines of Whittier which suggested the subject to Mr. Fitch are appended.

On that pleasant morn of the early fall When Lee marched over the mountain wall; Over the mountains winding down, Horse and foot, into Frederick town. Forty flags with their silver stars, Forty flags with their crimson bars, Flapped in the morning wind: the sun Of noon looked down and saw not one. Up rose old Barbara Frietchie then, Bowed with her fourscore years and ten; Bravest of all in Frederick town, She took up the flag the men hauled down In her attic window the staff she set, To show that one heart was loyal yet. Up the street came the rebel tread, Stonewall Jackson riding ahead. Under his slouched hat left and right He glanced; the old flag met his sight. “Halt!”—the dust-brown ranks stood fast “Fire!”—out blazed the rifle-blast. It shivered the window, pane and sash; It rent the banner with seam and gash. Quick, as it fell from the broken staff Dame Barbara snatched the silken scarf. She leaned far out on the window-sill, And shook it forth with a royal will. “Shoot, if you must, this old gray head, But spare your country’s flag,” she said. A shade of sadness, a blush of shame, Over the face of the leader came; The nobler nature within him stirred To life at that woman’s deed and word: “Who touches a hair of yon gray head Dies like a dog! March on!” he said. All day long through Frederick street Sounded the tread of marching feet; All day long that free flag tost Over the heads of the rebel host.

18 The Stage in America, p. 90. Norman Hapgood. The Macmillan Co., New York.

19 Barbara Frietchie, p. 126. Clyde Fitch. Life Publishing Co., New York.

20 Play-Making, pp. 24–25. William Archer. Small, Maynard & Co., Boston.

21 Les 36 Situations Dramatiques. Georges Polti. Edition du Mercure de France, 1895, p. 1.

22 For texts of The Careless Husband and The Provoked Husband, both plays by Colley Cibber, see Works, vols. II and IV, 1777.

23 Methuen & Co., Ltd., London.

24 Not translated. Edition in French, P. V. Stock, Paris.

25 Foreword to The House of Usna. Fiona Macleod. Published by Thomas B. Mosher, Portland, Maine, 1903.

26 Some Platitudes Concerning Drama. John Galsworthy. Atlantic Monthly, December, 1909.

27 Shakespeare Library, vol. I, pp. 387–412. Ed. W. C. Hazlitt.

28 Hamburg Dramaturgy, p. 279. Lessing. Bohn ed.

29 The United States of Playwrights, Henry Savage. The Bookman, September, 1909.

30 De la Poésie Dramatique. Diderot. Œuvres, vol. VII, p. 321. Garnier Frères, Paris.

31 Sardou and the Sardou Plays, p. 125. J. A. Hart. J. B. Lippincott & Co., Philadelphia.

CHAPTER IV

FROM SUBJECT THROUGH STORY TO PLOT. CLEARNESS THROUGH WISE SELECTION

Dumas the younger, at twenty, wishing to write his first play, asked his father for the secret of a successful play. That man of many successful novels and plays replied: “It’s very simple: First Act, clear; Third Act, short; and everywhere, interest.” Though play-writing is not always so easy a matter as when a man of genius like Dumas the elder wrote the relatively simple romantic dramas of his day, he emphasized one of the fundamentals of drama when he called for clearness in the first act. He might well have called for it everywhere. First of all, a dramatist who has found his point of departure must know just what it means to him, what he wants to do with it. Is he merely telling a story for its own sake, satisfied if the incidents be increasingly interesting till the final curtain falls? Is he writing his play, above all, for one special scene in it, as was Mr. H. A. Jones, in Mrs. Dane’s Defence,1 in its third act? Does he merely wish to set people thinking about conditions of today, to write a drama of ideas, like Mr. Galsworthy in The Pigeon,2 or M. Paul Loyson, in The Apostle?3 Has he, like Brieux in Damaged Goods4 or The Cradle,5 an idea he wishes to convey, and so must write a problem play? Is his setting significant for one scene only or has it symbolic values for the whole play? As Dumas the younger well said, “How can you tell what road to take unless you know where you are going?”6

The trouble with most would-be dramatists is that they make too much of the mere act of writing, too little of the thinking preliminary to composition and accompanying it. With the point of departure clearly in mind, seeing some characters who immediately connect themselves with the subject, forecasting some scenes and a few bits of dialogue, they rush to their desks before they see with equal clearness, we will not say the plot but even the story necessary for the proposed play. What is the result? “They have a general view of their subject, they know approximately the situations, they have sketched out the characters, and when they have said to themselves, ‘This mother will be a coquette, this father will be stern, this lover a libertine, this young girl impressionable and tender,’ the fury of making their scenes seizes them. They write, they write, they come upon ideas, fine, delicate, and even strong; they have charming details ready to hand: but when they have worked much and come to plotting, for always one must come to that, they try to find a place for this charming bit; they can never make up their minds to put aside this delicate or strong idea, and they will do exactly the opposite of what they should—make the plot for the sake of the scenes when the scenes should grow out of the plot. Consequently the dialogue will be constrained in movement and much trouble and time will be lost.”7

A modern play recently submitted to the writer in manuscript showed just this trouble. Act I was in itself good. Act II was good in one scene, bad in the other. Act III was in itself right. Yet at the end of the play one queried: “What is the meaning of it all?” Nothing bound the parts together. There was no clear emphasis on some central purpose. The author, when questioned, admitted that with certain characters in mind, he had written the scenes as they came to him. When pressed to state his exact subject, he advanced first one, then another, at last admitting candidly: “I guess I never have been able to get far enough away from the play to see quite what all of it does mean.” Asked whether there was not underlying all his scenes irony of fate, in that a man trying his best to do what the world holds commendable is bound in such relationship to two or three people that always they give his career a tragic turn, he said, after consideration, “Yes. What if I call my play The Irony of Life?” With the purpose of making that his meaning he reworked his material. Quickly the parts fell into line, with a clear and interesting play as the result. Many and many a play containing good characterization, good dialogue and some real individuality of treatment has gone to pieces in this way. A recent play opened with a well-written picture of the life of a group of architects’ draughtsmen. Apparently we were started on a story of their common or conflicting interests. After that first act, however, the play turned into a story of the way in which one of these young draughtsmen, a kind of mixture of Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford and D’Artagnan, forced his way to professional and social success. Once or twice, scenes seemed intentional satire on our social classes. The fact is, the author had in the back of his mind social satire, characterization of the central figure, and a picture of the life of young draughtsmen. As material for any one of these came to him when he was writing, he gave his attention wholly to it. Though this might do for a rough draft, it must be rewritten to make the chief interest stand out as most important, and to give the other interests clearly their exact part in a perfectly clear whole. Left as written, the play seemed to have a first act somewhat off the question, and a later development going off now and then at a tangent. Its total effect, in spite of some admirable characterization, considerable truth to life, and real cleverness, was confusion for the audience and consequent dissatisfaction.

Another play, often extremely well characterized, had, as an apparent central purpose, study of a mother who has been trying to give her son such surroundings that he cannot go the way of his father who, many years since, had embezzled. Yet almost as frequently the purpose seemed to be a very close study of the son, who, although the mother, blinded by her affection, does not see it, is mentally and morally almost the duplicate of his father. Moved with sympathy, now for one and now for the other, just as the interest of the writer led him, the audience came away confused and dissatisfied. How can an audience be expected to know what a dramatist has not settled for himself, the chief of his interests among several?

When M. de Curel, with his original idea or picture for L’Envers d’une Sainte sat down to reflect, “he noticed that the interest in the subject lies in the feelings a woman must experience when she returns after a long absence to a place full of memories, and finds herself face to face with her past life. There was the psychological idea which seemed to him alluring—to paint a special phase of emotion.”8 There, for him, lay the heart of his subject. Bulwer-Lytton, writing to Macready in September, 1838, of a proposed play on the life of the Chevalier de Marillac, in which Cardinal Richelieu must also be an important figure, said: “Now look well at this story, you will see that incident and position are good. But then there is one great objection. Who is to do Richelieu? Marillac has the principal part and requires you; but a bad Richelieu would spoil all. On the other hand, if you took Richelieu, there would be two great acts without you, which will never do; and the main interest of the plot would not fall on you. Tell me what you propose. Must we give up this idea?”9 Bulwer-Lytton had not yet found the dramatic centre in his material. At first the story and character of Marillac blinded him to the fact that the material was best fitted for a dramatic study of the great Cardinal. When, shortly after his letter, he came to see that the dramatic centre lay in Richelieu, his famous play began developing. With that magnet in hand, he quickly drew to him the right filaments of incident to make a unified and interesting story.

Any dramatist has the right to decide first, what is the real importance of his subject to him, but before he finishes he may find that he will discard what originally seemed to him important, either because something interests him more as he reflects or because he comes to see in his subject an interest other than his own which will be stronger for the audience. M. de Curel, thinking over his proposed play, abandoned his first idea because “in ten minutes space it transformed itself. He abandoned his first idea in order to try to paint the slightly analogous feelings of a nun. He imagined a young girl who, at a former time, in a moment of madness, had wished to kill the wife of the man with whom she was infatuated. To expiate her crime, she entered a convent, took the vows, and lived in retirement for twenty years. Then she learned that the man whom she loved had just died. Whereupon, perhaps from desire for freedom, perhaps from curiosity, she comes out of her exile, returns to her family and finds herself in the presence of the widow and her child.” Here was the beginning, not of L’Envers d’une Sainte,10 but of another play, L’Invitée. “It may happen—something certainly surprising—that the idea which allured the author into writing the piece makes no part of the piece itself. It is excluded from it; no trace of it remains. Note that the point of departure of L’Invitée is an idea of a woman capable of murder who is passed off as insane. Of the murder nothing remains, and as to the mother’s madness it is reduced to almost nothing: it is no more than a rumor that has been going about, and the mother has not been really insane.”11 Not to yield to such a compelling new aspect of the subject is to find one’s way blocked. The resulting tragedy, or comedy, for the unyielding playwright, Mr. Archer states amusingly. “ ’Here,’ says a well-known playwright, ‘is a common experience. You are struck with an idea with which you fall in love. “Ha!” you say. “What a superb scene where the man shall find the will under the sofa! If that doesn’t make them sit up, what will?” You begin the play. The first act goes all right, and the second act goes all right. You come to the third act and somehow it won’t go at all. You battle with it for weeks in vain; and then it suddenly occurs to you, “Why, I see what’s wrong! It’s that confounded scene where the man finds the will under the sofa. Out it must come!” You cut it out and at once all goes smooth again. But you have thrown overboard the great effect that first tempted you.’ ”12

The point is not that when a dramatist first begins to think over his subject, he must decide exactly what is for him the heart of it. He may shift, reject, and change his own interest again and again, as attractive aspects of his subject suggest themselves. The point is that this shifting of interest should take place before he begins to put his play on paper. Not to be perfectly clear with one’s self which of three or four possible interests offered by a subject is the one really interesting is to waste time. As the play develops, a writer wobbles from one subject to another and so leaves no clear final impression. Or he is obliged to rewrite the play, placing the emphasis properly for clearness. In one case he fails. In the other he does his work twice. The present writer has seen many a manuscript, after a year or more of juggling with shifting interests, given up in despair and thrown into the waste basket.

Probably it is best to leave till revision the question whether the interest presented will appeal to the general audience just as it does to the writer. It certainly can do no harm, however, and may save labor, when an author knows just what he wants to treat and how he wishes to treat it, for him to consider whether this interest is likely to be as important for his public as for him. Many years ago, Mr. A.M. Palmer produced The Parisian Romance, a play so trite in subject and treatment that, as written, it might easily have failed. A young actor, seeing in a minor rôle the opportunities for a popular success built up a fine piece of characterization in the part of Baron Chevrial. That gave Richard Mansfield his first real start. The play was remodeled so that this element of novelty, this fresh piece of characterization, became central. Thus re-emphasized the play became known all over the country.13 Not long since a play written by its author to be wholly amusing, proved so hilarious in the second act that the actors rehearsed it with difficulty. When produced, however, the audience was so won by the hero in Act I that they took his mishaps in the second act with sympathetic seriousness. The play had to be rewritten.

It is at careful planning or plotting that the inexperienced dramatist balks. Scenarios, the outlines which will show any intelligent reader what plot the dramatist has in mind and its exact development, are none too popular. They are, however, the very best means by which a dramatist may force himself to find what for him is the heart of his subject.14 The moment that is clear to him, it is the open sesame to whatever story his play will demand. It is, too, the magnet which draws to him the bits of thought, character, action and dialogue which he shapes into plot.

With his purpose clearly in mind, the dramatist, as he passes from point of departure through story to plot, selects, and selects, and selects. Among all the possible people who might be the main figure in accomplishing his purpose, he picks the one most interesting him, or which he believes will most interest his public. From all the people who might surround his central figure he chooses the few who will best accomplish his purpose. If his people first appear to him as types, as in the case of The Country Boy to be cited in a moment, selectively he moves from type to individuals. Sooner or later he must determine how many of the possible characteristics of his figures he cares to present. As he writes, he selects from all that his people might say, and from all they might do in the way of illustrative action, only what seems to him necessary for his purpose. No dramatist uses all that occurs to him in the way of dramatic incident, characters, or dialogue. As he shapes his story; as he reshapes his story into plot; in many cases before he touches pen to paper, he has rejected much, always selecting what he uses by the touchstone of the definite purpose which knowing the heart of his subject has given him.

Doubtless some writers see situation first, and others character, but sooner or later all must come to some story. Now as story is only incident so unified that it has interesting movement from a beginning to an end, ultimately the task of all dramatists is to find illustrative action which as clearly and quickly as possible will present the characters of the story or make clear the purpose of the dramatist. Here is the selective process by which Mr. Selwyn got at the story of his Country Boy:

It happened to be just before Christmas of last year. The season some way impressed itself on me, and I began to think what a desolate place New York must be for a lot of fellows who had come here from small towns and who were thinking of the homes they had left there, and longing to go back to them for the Christmas season. Doubtless there are hundreds of them here who came here years ago vowing that they would never go back till they had “made good,” with the result that they have never since spent Christmas in the old home. [The initial idea.] There is always somebody to whom we are always successful, and some one to whom we are never successful, and many times, if these fellows would go back to their old homes, among the people who really care for them, they would be regarded as successes, whereas in the great city they are looked upon as failures. [Type character.]

It seemed to me that a character of that kind would make a good subject for a play, and then I began to look around for some one tangible to work from. Suddenly I thought of a newspaper man I used to know when I lived at a boarding house on 51st Street, here in New York. He was a free lance, and a grouchy, rheumatic, envious, bitter fellow, who had all the “dope” on life—was a philosopher and could tell every one else how to live, but didn’t seem to be able to apply any of his knowledge to himself. He wouldn’t even speak to any one in the boarding house but me, and why he singled me out for the honor I don’t know. But anyway he did, and he used to tell me all of his troubles—how he had come from a little town with great ambitions, and had vowed never to go back till he had attained all that he had set out to get. And yet he had never been back. He was a failure; dressed shabbily and had given up hope for himself—and still, as I say, he could tell everybody else just what to do to succeed. When I lived there in the boarding house and used to see him, I thought he was the only one of his kind in town, but since then I have found that there are many others just like him. [Individual character.]

So it occurred to me that he would be a good subject for The Country Boy, and I worked out his life as it had actually been lived here in New York. Though the character was good I presently discovered that it would not do for my central figure, for the reason that he had been here too long. He had gone through the mill and knew all about it, and what I really needed was a boy who could be shown to come from the country, and who could be taken through the temptations and discouragements that a boy of that sort would have to endure. So I just drew this younger character from my imagination. [Selection of special figure.]

I had to have this chap a bumptious, conceited sort of youth so as to have the contrast stronger when he met the hard knocks that were to come to him in the city. There are many boys of that sort in small towns. They do not see the opportunities around them but imagine nothing short of a big city has space enough for them to develop in. [Purpose determining characterization.]15

From idea through type-character to the individual Mr. Selwyn worked to the life in New York of the older man, and the story of the temptations and discouragements of the boy. When he had reached these, Mr. Selwyn saw that the best story for his purpose would be a mingling of the two. The boy “worked, in very well with the character of the old newspaper man, because it allowed him to give the youngster the benefit of his experience, and to succeed eventually by taking advantage of it. That brought a happy ending for both of them.”16

Any one of these stories as it lay in the mind of Mr. Selwyn before he turned it into plot, was a sequence of incidents, actions illustrative of one or both of the two characters, and, through them, of the original idea. Just what is meant by this “illustrative action” so often mentioned? In Les Oberlé, by René Bazin, is a charming chapter describing the Alsatian vintage festival. At their work the women sing the song of the Black Bow of Alsace—in the novel but one detail of an interesting description. The account comes about midway in the book. When the novel was dramatized it became necessary to make the audience understand, even before the hero, Jean, enters in Act I, that absorbed in his studies in Germany, he has been unaware of the constant friction in the home land between the governing Germans and the Alsatians. Here is the way the dramatist, emotionalizing the description of the novel, turned it into dramatic illustration of Jean’s ignorance of the condition of the country. Uncle Ulrich, Bastian, a neighbor, and his daughter, Odile, at sunset are waiting in a wood road for Jean, just arrived from Germany and walking home from the station.

(Outside a voice sings as it approaches in the distance.)

The Black Bow of the daughters of Alsace

Is like a bird with spreading wings.

Ulrich. Ah, look there! Who can be so imprudent as to sing that air of Alsace?

The Voice.

It can overpass the mountains.

Bastian. If it should be he!

The Voice.

And watch what goes on there.

Odile. I am sure it is Jean’s voice.

Ulrich. Foolhardy! They will hear him!

The Voice. (Nearer.)

The Black Bow of the daughters of Alsace—

Ulrich. Again, and louder than ever!

The Voice.

Is like a cross we carry

In memory of those men and women

Whose souls were like our own.

Ulrich. Jean! Upon my word that young lawyer cannot know the laws. Jean!17

Just at the end of the same act it is necessary to illustrate the constant presence, the activity and alertness of the German forces and the irritation all this means to the Alsatians. In a story much of this would be described by the author. In the play we feel with each of the speakers the irritating presence of the troops, and so have perfect dramatic illustrative action.

(They are just starting off when Bastian stops them.)

Bastian. Chut!

Jean. What?

Bastian. (Softly.) Listen!

Jean. (Softly.) A rolling stone in the ravine.

Ulrich. Another!

Jean. Steps!

Ulrich. Of horses.

Jean. Well?

Ulrich. A patrol!

Jean. (Moved.) Ah!

Bastian. The Hussars!

Jean. What are they doing?

Ulrich. They are keeping watch.

Bastian. They are drilling.

Ulrich. Always!

Jean. Ah!

Bastian. Day and night.

Ulrich. Never resting.

Bastian. Perhaps they are trailing some deserter.

Jean. Ah! There are deserters?

Bastian. They won’t tell you so in the town.

Odile. But we on the frontiers see them.

Jean. Ah!

Bastian. They who go out by the Grand’ fontaine pass this way.

Odile. (Softly.) Near our farm. From our house one can see them passing.

Jean. Ah!

Ulrich. Chut!

Jean. I hear the breathing of their horses.

Ulrich. Be still.

Jean. We are doing nothing wrong.

Bastian. Wait.

Ulrich. Down there—wait—lean over.

Jean. I see—

Ulrich. They are coming up.

Bastian. They are going by.

Jean. They have crossed the road.

Ulrich. We can go down for the moment.

Bastian. Ouf!

Jean. It is strange—twenty times, a hundred times in Germany I have met the patrols of dragoons, or hussars, and admired their fine form. Here—

Ulrich. Here?

Jean. Only to see them gives me a queer feeling at the heart.

Ulrich. Don’t you understand, my dear Jean? There they were in their own country, here they are in ours.18

Early in the first scene of The Changeling, by Thomas Middleton, Beatrice states clearly, and more than once, the physical repulsion De Flores causes her. Knowing full well, however, the dramatic value of illustrative action, Middleton handled the ending of the scene in this way. Beatrice turning to leave the room, starts as she finds De Flores close at hand.

Beatrice. (Aside.) Not this serpent gone yet? (Drops a glove.)

Vermandero. Look, girl, thy glove’s fallen, Stay, stay! De Flores, help a little.

(Exeunt Vermandero, Alsemero and Servant.)

De Flores. Here, lady. (Offers her glove.)

Beatrice. Mischief on your officious forwardness! Who bade you stoop? they touch my hand no more: There! for the other’s sake I part with this;

(Takes off and throws down the other glove.)

Take ’em, and draw thine own skin off with ’em.

(Exit with Diaphanta and Servants.)

De Flores. Here’s a favour with a mischief now! I know She had rather wear my pelt tanned in a pair Of dancing pumps, than I should thrust my fingers Into her sockets here.19

Here the dramatist makes repulsion clear by illustrative action so emotional that it moves us to keenest sympathy or dislike for the woman herself. Dramatically speaking, then, illustrative action is not merely something which illustrates an idea or character, but it must be an illustration mirroring emotion of the persons in the play or creating it in the observer.

What is the relation of illustrative action to dramatic situation? The first is the essence of the second. A dramatic episode presents an individual or group of individuals so moved as to stir an audience to responsive emotion. Illustrative action by each person in the group or by the group as a whole is basal. The glove incident in The Changeling concerns both Beatrice and De Flores. Hers is illustrative action when she shrinks from the glove his hand has touched. He shows it when kissing and amorously fondling the glove she has refused. Their illustrative actions make together the dramatic episode of the glove—which is in turn a part of Scene 1 of the first act of the play. There are the divisions: play, act, scene, episode, and illustrative action. Just as sometimes the development of a single episode may make a scene, or there may be but one scene to an act, there are cases when an illustrative action is a dramatic episode. The ending of Act II of Ostrovsky’s Storm illustrates this.

Varvara, who has just gone out, has put into the hands of Catherine the key to a gate in the garden hedge. This Varvara has taken without the knowledge of her mother, who is the mother-in-law of Catherine. Just as Varvara goes, she has said that if she meets Catherine’s lover, Boris, she will tell him to come to the gate. Catherine, terrified, at first tries to refuse the key, but Varvara insists on leaving it with her.