"Stage dialogue," she says, "may or may not have
many qualities, but it must be emotional." Here we have a statement
which is true in a vague and general sense, untrue in the definite and
particular sense in which alone it could afford any practical guidance.
"My lord, the carriage waits," may be, in its right place, a highly
dramatic speech, even though it be uttered with no emotion, and arouse
no emotion in the person addressed. What Mrs. Craigie meant, I take it,
was that, to be really dramatic, every speech must have some bearing,
direct or indirect, prospective, present, or retrospective, upon
individual human destinies. The dull play, the dull scene, the dull
speech, is that in which we do not perceive this connection; but when
once we are interested in the individuals concerned, we are so quick to
perceive the connection, even though it be exceedingly distant and
indirect, that the dramatist who should always hold the fear of Mrs.
Craigie's aphorism consciously before his eyes would unnecessarily
fetter and restrict himself.
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