But the great restriction is this, that a
dramatic author must deal with his actors, and with his
actors alone. Certain moments of suspense, certain
significant dispositions of personages, a certain logical
growth of emotion, these are the only means at the disposal
of the playwright. It is true that, with the assistance of
the scene-painter, the costumier and the conductor of the
orchestra, he may add to this something of pageant, something
of sound and fury; but these are, for the dramatic writer,
beside the mark, and do not come under the vivifying touch of
his genius. When we turn to romance, we find this no longer.
Here nothing is reproduced to our senses directly. Not only
the main conception of the work, but the scenery, the
appliances, the mechanism by which this conception is brought
home to us, have been put through the crucible of another
man's mind, and come out again, one and all, in the form of
written words. With the loss of every degree of such realism
as we have described, there is for art a clear gain of
liberty and largeness of competence. Thus, painting, in
which the round outlines of things are thrown on to a flat
board, is far more free than sculpture, in which their
solidity is preserved. It is by giving up these identities
that art gains true strength. And so in the case of novels
as compared with the stage.
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