Even the driest scientific proposition may,
under special circumstances, become electrical with drama. The statement
that the earth moves round the sun does not, in itself, stir our pulses;
yet what playwright has ever invented a more dramatic utterance than
that which some one invented for Galileo: "E pur si muove!"? In all
this, to be sure, I am illustrating, not confuting, Mrs. Craigie's
maxim. I have no wish to confute it, for, in the largest interpretation,
it is true; but I suggest that it is true only when attenuated almost
beyond recognition, and quite beyond the point at which it can be of any
practical help to the practical dramatist. He must rely on his instinct,
not numb and bewilder it by constantly subjecting it to the dictates of
hard-and-fast aesthetic theory.
We shall scarcely come much nearer to helpful truth than the point we
have already reached, in the principle that all dialogue, except the
merely mechanical parts--the connective tissue of the play--should
consist either of "mots de caractere" or of "mots de situation.
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