Act IV. Scene 1. Northampton. A Room in the castle

Enter Hubert de Burgh with three men Enter Hubert and two Attendants

Hub. My masters, I have shewed you what warrant I have of this attempt; I perceive by your heavie countenances, you had rather be otherwise imployed, and for my owne part, I would the King had made choyce of some other executioner; onely this is my comfort, that a King commaunds, whose precepts neglected or omitted, threatneth torture for the default. Therefore in briefe, leave me, and be readie to attend the adventure: stay within that entry, and when you hear me crie, God save the King, issue sodainly foorth, lay handes on Arthur, set him in his chayre, wherein (once fast bound) leave him with me to finish the rest. Hub. Heat me these irons hot, and look thou stand
Within the arras: when I strike my foot
Upon the bosom of the ground, rush forth,
And bind the boy, which you shall find with me,
Fast to the chair: be heedful. Hence, and watch.

1. Attend. I hope, your warrant will bear out the deed.

Hub. Uncleanly scruples: fear not you: look to’t.—

(Exeunt Attendants.)

Young lad, come forth; I have to say with you.

Enter Arthur

Arth. Good morning, Hubert.

Hub. Good morrow, little prince.

Attendants. We goe, though loath. (Exeunt.) Arth. As little prince (having so great a title
To be more prince,) as may be.—You are sad.

Hub. My Lord, will it please your Honour to take the benefite of the faire evening? Hub. Indeed I have been merrier.

Enter Arthur to Hubert de Burgh

Arth. Gramercie Hubert for thy care of me,
In or to whom restraint is newly knowen,
The joy of walking is small benefit,
Yet will I take thy offer with small thankes,
I would not loose the pleasure of the eye.
But tell me curteous Keeper if you can,
How long the King will have me tarrie here Arth. Mercy on me!
Methinks nobody should be sad but I:
Yet, I remember, when I was in France,
Young gentlemen would be as sad as night,
Only for wantonness. By my christendom,
So I were out of prison and kept sheep,
I should be as merry as the day is long;
And so I would be here, but that I doubt
My uncle practises more harm to me:
He is afraid of me and I of him.
Is it my fault that I was Geffrey’s son?
No, indeed, is’t not; and I would to heaven,
I were your son, so you would love me, Hubert.

Hub. I know not Prince, but as I gesse, not long.
God send you freedome, and God save the King.

(They issue forth.)

Arth. Why now sirs, what may this outrage meane?
O help me Hubert, gentle Keeper helpe;
God send this sodaine mutinous approach
Tend not to reave a wretched guiltless life.

Hub. So sirs, depart, and leave the rest for me. Hub. (Aside.) If I talk to him, with his innocent prate
He will awake my mercy, which lies dead:
Therefore I will be sudden, and dispatch.

Arth. Then Arthur yeeld, death frowneth in thy face,
What meaneth this? Good Hubert plead the case. Arth. Are you sick, Hubert? you look pale today.
In sooth, I would you were a little sick;
That I might sit all night, and watch with you:
I warrant I love you more than you do me.

Hub. Patience yong Lord, and listen words of woe,
Harmful and harsh, hells horror to be heard:
A dismall tale fit for a furies tongue.
I faint to tell, deepe sorrow is the sound. Hub. (Aside.) His words do take possession of my bosom.—
Read here, young Arthur,
(Showing a paper.)
(Aside.) How now, foolish rheum!
Turning dispiteous torture out of door?
I must be brief; lest resolution drop
Out at mine eyes in tender womanish tears.—
Can you read it? Is it not fair writ?

Arth. What, must I die?

Hub. No newes of death, but tidings of more hate,
A wrathfull doome, and most unluckie fate:
Deaths dish were daintie at so fell a feast,
Be deafe, heare not, its hell to tell the rest.

Arth. Alas, thou wrongst my youth with words of feare,
Tis hell, tis horror, not for one to heare:
What is it man if needes be don,
Act it, and end it, that the paine were gon. Arth. Too fairly, Hubert, for so foul effect.
Must you with hot irons burn out both mine eyes?

Hub. Young boy, I must.

Hub. I will not chaunt such dolour with my tongue,
Yet must I act the outrage with my hand.
My heart, my head, and all my powers beside,
To aide the office have at once denide.
Peruse this Letter, lines of treble woe,
Reade ore my charge, and pardon when you know. Arth. And will you?

Hub. And I will.

Hubert, these are to commaund thee, as thou tendrest our quiet in minde, and the estate of our person, that presently upon the receipt of our commaund, thou put out the eies of Arthur Plantaginet. Arth. Have you the heart? When your head did but ache,
I knit my handkerchief about your brows,
(The best I had, a princess wrought it me,)
And I did never ask it you again:
And with my hand at midnight held your head,
And, like the watchful minutes to the hour,
Still and anon cheer’d up the heavy time,
Saying, What lack you? and, Where lies your grief?
Or, What good love may I perform for you?
Many a poor man’s son would have lain still,
And ne’er have spoken a loving word to you;
But you at your sick service had a prince.
Nay you may think my love was crafty love,
And call it cunning: do, an if you will.
If heaven be pleas’d that you will use me ill,
Why, then you must.—Will you put out mine eyes?
These eyes that never did, nor never shall
So much as frown on you?

Arth. Ah, monstrous damned man! his very breath infects the elements.
Contagious venyme dwelleth in his heart;
Effecting meanes to poyson all the world.
Unreverent may I be to blame the heavens
Of great injustice, that the miscreant
Lives to oppresse the innocents with wrong.
Ah, Hubert! makes he thee his instrument,
To sound the tromp that causeth hell triumph?
Heaven weepes, the Saints do shed celestiall teares,
They feare thy fall, and cyte thee with remorse,
To knock thy conscience, moving pitie there,
Willing to fence thee from the range of hell, Hub. I have sworn to do it,
And with hot irons must I burn them out.

Arth. Ah! none but in this iron age would do it.
The iron of itself, though heat red-hot,
Approaching near these eyes would drink my tears,
And quench this fiery indignation,
Even in the matter of mine innocence:
Nay, after that, consume away in rust,
But for containing fire to harm mine eye.
Are you more stubborn hard than hammered iron?
An if an angel should have come to me,
And told me Hubert should put out mine eyes,
I would not have believ’d him; no tongue but Hubert’s.

Hell, Hubert, trust me all the plagues of hell
Hangs on performance of this damned deede.
This seale, the warrant of the bodies blisse,
Ensureth Satan chieftaine of thy soule:
Subscribe not Hubert, give not Gods part away,
I speake not only for eyes priviledge,
The chiefe exterior that I would enjoy:
But for they perill, farre beyond my paine,
Thy sweetes soules losse, more than my eyes vaine lack:
A cause internall, and eternall too,
Advise thee Hubert, for the case is hard,
To loose salvation for a Kings reward. Hub. Come forth. (Stamps.)
Re-enter Attendants, with Cord, Irons, &c.
Do as I bid you do.

Arth. Oh! save me, Hubert, save me! my eyes are out,
Even with the fierce looks of these bloody men.

Hub. Give me the iron, I say, and bind him here.

Hub. My Lord, a subject dwelling in the land
Is tyed to execute the Kings commaund. Arth. Alas! what need you be so boisterous-rough?
I will not struggle; I will stand stone-still.
For heaven’s sake, Hubert, let me not be bound.
Nay, hear me Hubert: drive these men away,
And I will sit as quiet as a lamb;
I will not stir nor wince, nor speak a word,
Nor look upon the iron angerly.
Thrust but these men away, and I’ll forgive you,
Whatever torment you do put me to.

Arth. Yet God commaunds whose power reacheth further,
That no commaund should stand in force to murther.

Hub. But that same Essence hath ordained a law, A death for guilt, to keepe the world in awe.

Arth. I pleade, not guiltie, treasonlesse and free.

Hub. But that appeale, my Lord, concernes not me. Hub. Go, stand within: let me alone with him.

Arth. Why thou art he that maist omit the perill. 1. Attend. I am best pleas’d to be from such a deed.
(Exeunt Attendants.)

Hub. I, if my Soveraigne would remit his quarrell.

Arth. His quarrell is unhallowed false and wrong. Arth. Alas! I then have chid away my friend:
He hath a stern look, but a gentle heart.—
Let him come back that his compassion may
Give life to yours.

Hub. Then be the blame to whom it doth belong.

Arth. Why thats to thee if thou as they proceede,
Conclude their judgement with so vile a deede.

Hub. Why then no execution can be lawfull, If Judges doomes must be reputed doubtfull. Hub. Come, boy, prepare yourself.

Arth. Is there no remedy?

Hub. None but to lose your eyes.

Arth. Yes where in forme of Lawe in place and time,
The offended is convicted of the crime.

Hub. My Lord, my Lord, this long expostulation,
Heapes up more griefe, than promise of redresse;
For this I know, and so resolude I end,
That subjects lives on Kings commaunds depend.
I must not reason why he is your foe,
But doo his charge since he commaunds it so.

Arth. Then doo thy charge, and charged be thy soule
With wrongfull persecution don this day.
You rowling eyes, whose superficies yet
I doo behold with eyes that Nature lent:
Send foorth the terror of your Moovers frowne,
To wreake my wrong upon the murtherers
That rob me of your faire reflecting view:
Let hell to them (as earth they wish to me)
Be darke and direfull guerdon for their guylt,
And let the black tormentors of deepe Tartary
Upbraide them with this damned enterprise,
Inflicting change of tortures on their soules.
Delay not Hubert, my orisons are ended,
Begin I pray thee, reave me of my sight:
But to performe a tragedie indeede,
Conclude the period with a mortal stab.
Constance farewell, tormenter come away,
Make my dispatch the Tyrants feasting day.

Hub. I faint, I feare, my conscience bids desist:
Faint did I say? fear was it that I named:
My King commaunds, that warrant sets me free:
But God forbids, and he commandeth Kings,
That great Commaunder counterchecks my charge,
He stayes my hand, he maketh soft my heart.
Goe cursed tooles, your office is exempt,
Cheere thee young Lord, thou shalt not loose an eye,
Though I should purchase it with losse of life.
Ile to the King and say his will is done,
And of the langor tell him thou art dead,
Goe in with me, for Hubert was not borne
To blinde those lampes that nature pollisht so.

Arth. Hubert, if ever Arthur be in state,
Looke for amends of this received gift,
I tooke my eyesight by thy curtesie,
Thou lentst them me, I will not be ingrate.
But now procrastination may offend
The issue that thy kindness undertakes:
Depart we Hubert, to prevent the worst. (Exeunt.) Arth. O heaven!—that there were but a mote in yours,
A grain, a dust, a gnat, a wandering hair,
Any annoyance in that precious sense!
Then, feeling what small things are boisterous there,
Your vile intent must needs seem horrible.

Hub. Is this your promise? go to; hold your tongue.

Arth. Hubert, the utterance of a brace of tongues
Must needs want pleading for a pair of eyes:
Let me not hold my tongue; let me not, Hubert:
Or Hubert, if you will, cut out my tongue.
So I may keep mine eyes. O! spare mine eyes;
Though to no use, but still to look on you.
Lo! by my troth, the instrument is cold,
And would not harm me.

Hub. I can heat it, boy.

Arth. No, in good sooth; the fire is dead with grief,
Being create for comfort, to be us’d
In undeserv’d extremes: see else yourself;
There is no malice in this burning coal;
The breath of heaven hath blown his spirit out,
And strew’d repentant ashes on his head.

Hub. But with my breath I can revive it, boy.

Arth. And if you do, you will but make it blush,
And glow with shame of your proceedings, Hubert:
Nay, it, perchance, will sparkle in your eyes;
And like a dog that is compell’d to fight,
Snatch at his master that doth tarre him on.
All things that you should use to do me wrong,
Deny their office: only you do lack
That mercy, which fierce fire, and iron, extends,
Creatures of note for mercy-lacking uses.

Hub. Well, see to live; I will not touch thine eyes
For all the treasures that thine uncle owes:
Yet I am sworn, and I did purpose, boy,
With this same very iron to burn them out.

Arth. O! now you look like Hubert; all this while
You were disguised.

Hubert. Peace! no more. Adieu.
Your uncle must not know but you are dead:
I’ll fill these dogged spies with false reports;
And pretty child, sleep doubtless, and secure,
That Hubert for the wealth of all the world
Will not offend thee.

Arth. O heaven!—
I thank you, Hubert.

Hub. Silence! no more. Go closely in with me;
Much danger do I undergo for thee. (Exeunt.)

For further illustration of Shakespeare’s clear understanding that the emotions of well-characterized figures are better means of controlling an audience than a merely horrific situation, study his handling of the ghost scene in Richard III or Julius Cæsar in contrast with similar places in Hamlet. What most transmuted the Ur-Hamlet of Thomas Kyd into one of the greatest tragedies of all time was the characterization Shakespeare put into it. Certainly, characterization makes for dramatists the stepping-stones on which they may rise from dead selves to higher things.

How may all this needed characterization best be done? A dramatist should not permit himself to describe his characters, for in his own personality he has no proper place in the text. There the characters must speak and act for themselves. There has been, however, an increasing tendency lately to describe the dramatis personæ of the play in programs, either in the list of characters or in a summary of the plot. Some writers apparently assume that every auditor reads his program carefully before the curtain goes up. Such an assumption is false: more than that it is lazy, incompetent, and thoroughly vicious, putting a play on the level with the motion pictures, which cannot depend wholly on themselves but would often be wholly vague without explanatory words thrown upon the canvas. Nor can the practice of the older dramatists like Wycherley and Shadwell, who often prefixed to their printed plays elaborate summaries describing the dramatis personæ, be cited as a final defense.

Sir William Belfond, a Gentleman of above 3,000 per annum, who in his youth had been a spark of the town, but married and retired into the country, where he turned to the other extreme, rigid and morose, most sordidly covetous, clownish, obstinate, positive, and froward.

Sir Edward Belfond, his Brother, a merchant, who by lucky hits had gotten a great estate, lives single, with ease and pleasure, reasonably and virtuously. A man of great humanity and gentleness and compassion towards mankind; well read in good books possessed with all gentleman-like qualities.

Belfond, Senior, eldest son to Sir William; bred after his father’s rustic, swinish manner, with great rigour and severity; upon whom his father’s estate is entailed; the confidence of which makes him break out into open rebellion to his father, and become lewd, abominably vicious, stubborn, and obstinate.

Belfond, Junior, second Son to Sir William; adopted by Sir Edward, and bred from his childhood by him, with all tenderness, and familiarity, and bounty, and liberty that can be, instructed in all the liberal sciences, and in all gentlemanlike education. Somewhat given to women, and now and then to good fellowship, but an ingenious, well-accomplished gentleman: a man of honour, and of excellent disposition and temper.

Truman, his friend, a man of honour and fortune.

Cheatly, a rascal, who by reason of debts dares not stir out of Whitefriars, but there inveigles young heirs in tail, and helps them to goods and money upon great disadvantages; is bound for them, and shares with them, till he undoes them. A lewd, impudent, debauched fellow, very expert in the cant about town.

Shamwell, cousin to the Belfonds, an heir, who being ruined by Cheatly, is made a decoy-duck for others; not daring to stir out of Alsatia, where he lives. Is bound with Cheatly for heirs, and lives upon them a dissolute, debauched life.

Captain Hackum, a blockheaded bully of Alsatia; a cowardly, impudent, blustering fellow; formerly a sergeant in Flanders, run from his colours, retreated into Whitefriars for a very small debt, where, by the Alsatians, he is dubbed a captain; marries one that lets lodgings, sells cherry brandy, and is a bawd.

Scrapeall, a hypocritical, repeating, praying, psalm-singing, precise fellow, pretending to great piety, a godly knave, who joins with Cheatly, and supplies young heirs with goods and money.

Attorney to Sir William Belfond, who solicits his business and receives all his packets.

Lolpoop, a North-country fellow, servant to Belfond, Senior, much displeased at his master’s proceedings.

It is more than doubtful if anything so elaborate could be found in the manuscripts of Wycherley and Shadwell. Their purpose was doubtless the same as that of certain modern dramatists who, with a view to making plays less difficult for those unaccustomed to reading them, greatly amplify the stage directions before their plays go to print. Mr. Granville Barker in the manuscripts of his plays is particularly frugal of stage directions, but in the printed form of The Madras House, practically the whole history of Julia is given in the opening stage direction:

Julia started life—that is to say, left school—as a genius. The head mistress had had two or three years of such dull girls that really she could not resist this excitement. Watercolour sketches were the medium. So Julia was dressed in brown velveteen, and sent to an art school, where they wouldn’t let her do watercolour drawing at all. And in two years she learnt enough about the trade of an artist not ever to want to do those watercolour drawings again. Julia is now over thirty, and very unhappy. Three of her watercolours (early masterpieces) hang on the drawing-room wall. They shame her, but her mother won’t have them taken down. On a holiday she’ll be off now and then for a solid day’s sketching; and as she tears up the vain attempt to put on paper the things she has learnt to see, she sometimes cries. It was Julia, Emma, and Jane who, some years ago, conspired to present their mother with that intensely conspicuous cosy corner. A cosy corner is apparently a device for making a corner just what the very nature of a corner should forbid it to be. They beggared themselves; but one wishes that Mr. Huxtable were more lavish with his dress allowances, then they might at least have afforded something not quite so hideous.

Such characterizing is an implied censure on the ability of most readers to see the full significance of deft touches in the dialogue. If not, then it is necessary because some part of it is not given in the text as it should be, or it is wholly unnecessary and undesirable, for the text, repeating all this detail, will be wearisome to an intelligent reader. The safest principle is, in preparing a manuscript for acting, to keep stage directions to matters of setting, lighting, essential movements, and the intonations which cannot, by the utmost efforts of the author, be conveyed by dialogue. In this last group belong certain every-day phrases susceptible of so many shadings that the actor needs guidance. In the last line of this extract from the opening of Act III of Mrs. Dane’s Defence, the “tenderly” is necessary.

Enter Wilson right, announcing Lady Eastney. Enter Lady Eastney. Exit Wilson.

Lady Eastney. (Shaking hands.) You’re busy?

Sir Daniel. Yes, trying to persuade myself I am forty—solely on your account.

Lady Eastney. That’s not necessary. I like you well enough as you are.

Sir Daniel. (Tenderly.) Give me the best proof of that.

Notice that the statement just formulated as to stage directions reads, “cannot be conveyed,” not “may not.” Cross the line, and differences between the novel and the play are blurred, for the author runs a fair chance of omitting exposition needed in the text and of writing colorless dialogue. A recently published play prefaces not only every speech, but even parts of the speeches with careful statements as to how they should be given, even when the text is perfectly clear. Nothing is left to the imagination, and the text is often emotionally colorless.

Let it be remembered, then, that the stage direction is not a pocket into which a dramatist may stuff whatever explanation, description, or analysis a novelist might allow himself, but is more a last resort to which he turns when he cannot make his text convey all that is necessary.

The passing of the soliloquy and the aside makes the dramatist of today much more limited than were his predecessors in letting a character describe itself. Today everything depends on the naturalness of the self-exposition. The vainglorious, the self-centered, the garrulous will always talk of themselves freely. The reserved, the timid, and persons under suspicion will be sparing of words. When the ingenuity of the dramatist cannot make self-exposition plausible, the scene promptly becomes unreal. The point to be remembered is, as George Meredith once said, that “The verdict is with the observer.” Not what seems plausible to the author but what, as he tries it on auditors, proves acceptable, may stand.

Description of one character by another is usually more plausible than the method just treated. Even here, however, the test remains plausibility. It requires persuasive acting to make the following description of Tartuffe perfectly natural. There is danger that it will appear more the detailed picture the dramatist wishes to place in our minds than the description the speaker would naturally give his listeners:

Orgon. Ah! If you’d seen him, as I saw him first,

You would have loved him just as much as I.

He came to church each day, with contrite mien,

Kneeled, on both knees, right opposite my place,

And drew the eyes of all the congregation,

To watch the fervor of his prayers to heaven;

With deep-drawn sighs and great ejaculations.

He humbly kissed the earth at every moment;

And when I left the church, he ran before me

To give me holy water at the door.

I learned his poverty, and who he was,

By questioning his servant, who is like him,

And gave him gifts; but in his modesty

He always wanted to return a part.

“It is too much,” he’d say, “too much by half;

I am not worthy of your pity.” Then,

When I refused to take it back, he’d go,

Before my eyes, and give it to the poor.

At length Heaven bade me take him to my home,

And since that day, all seems to prosper here.

He censures nothing, and for my sake

He even takes great interest in my wife;

He lets me know who ogles her, and seems

Six times as jealous as I am myself.

You’d not believe how far his zeal can go:

He calls himself a sinner just for trifles;

The merest nothing is enough to shock him;

So much so, that the other day I heard him

Accuse himself for having, while at prayer,

In too much anger caught and killed a flea.

The scene in which Melantius draws from his friend Amintor (The Maid’s Tragedy, Act III, Scene 2) admission of his wrongs, shows admirable use of both kinds of description—of oneself and of another person.

Melantius. You may shape, Amintor,

Causes to cozen the whole world withall,

And you yourselfe too; but tis not like a friend

To hide your soule from me. Tis not your nature

To be thus idle: I have seene you stand

As you were blasted midst of all your mirth;

Call thrice aloud, and then start, faining joy

So coldly!—World, what doe I here? a friend

Is nothing! Heaven, I would ha told that man

My secret sinnes! Ile search an unknowne land,

And there plant friendship; all is withered here.

Come with a complement! I would have fought,

Or told my friend a lie, ere soothed him so.

Out of my bosome!

Amintor. But there is nothing.
Mel. Worse and worse! farewell.

From this time have acquaintance, but no friend.

Amin. Melantius, stay; you shall know what that is.
Mel. See; how you plaid with friendship! be advis’d

How you give cause unto yourselfe to say

You ha lost a friend.

Amin. Forgive what I ha done;

For I am so oregone with injuries

Unheard of, that I lose consideration

Of what I ought to doe.—Oh!—Oh!

Mel. Doe not weepe.

What ist? May I once but know the man

Hath turn’d my friend thus!

Amin. I had spoke at first,

But that—

Mel. But what?
Amin. I held it most unfit

For you to know. Faith, doe not know it yet.

Mel. Thou seest my love, that will keepe company

With thee in teares; hide nothing, then, from me;

For when I know the cause of thy distemper,

With mine old armour Ile adorn myselfe,

My resolution, and cut through my foes,

Unto thy quiet, till I place thy heart

As peaceable as spotless innocence.

What is it?

Amin. Why, tis this—it is too bigge

To get out—let my teares make way awhile.

Mel. Punish me strangely, Heaven, if he escape

Of life or fame, that brought this youth to this.

The cry with which Electra turns to her peasant husband in the play of Euripides is perhaps as fine an instance as there is of natural description by one person of her relations to another.

Peasant. What wouldst thou now, my sad one, ever fraught

With toil to lighten my toil? And so soft

Thy nurture was! Have I not chid thee oft,

And thou wilt cease not, serving without end?

Electra. (Turning to him with impulsive affection.) O friend, my friend, as God might be my friend,

Thou only hast not trampled on my tears.

Life scarce can be so hard, ’mid many fears

And many shames, when mortal heart can find

Somewhere one healing touch, as my sick mind

Finds thee.... And should I wait thy word, to endure

A little for thine easing, yea, or pour

My strength out in thy toiling fellowship?

Thou hast enough with fields and kine to keep;

’Tis mine to make all bright within the door.

’Tis joy to him that toils, when toil is o’er,

To find home waiting, full of happy things.

Peasant. If so it please thee, go thy way.

Unquestionably, however, the best method of characterization is by action. In the first draft of Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, Krogstad uses with his employer Helmar, because he is an old school fellow, the familiar “tu.” This under the circumstance illustrates his tactlessness better than any amount of description. When Helmar is irritated by this familiarity, his petty vanity is perfectly illustrated. Any one who recalls the last scene of Louis XI as played by the late Sir Henry Irving remembers vividly the restless, greedily moving fingers of the praying King. They told far more than words. The way in which Mrs. Lindon, throughout the opening scene of Clyde Fitch’s The Truth, touches any small article she finds in her way perfectly indicates her fluttering nervousness.

At Mrs. Warder’s.... A smart, good-looking man-servant, Jenks, shows in Mrs. Lindon and Laura Fraser. The former is a handsome, nervous, overstrung woman of about thirty-four, very fashionably dressed; Miss Fraser, on the contrary, a matter-of-fact, rather commonplace type of good humor—wholesomeness united to a kind of sense of humor....

Mrs. Lindon nervously picks up check-book from the writing-table, looks at it but not in it, and puts it down....

She opens the cigar box on the writing-table behind her and then bangs it shut....

She picks up stamp box and bangs it down.

Rises and goes to mantel, looking at the fly-leaves of two books on a table which she passes.

Does not the action of this extract from Middleton’s A Chaste Maid in Cheapside help most in depicting the greed and dishonesty of Yellowhammer, as well as the humor and ingenuity of the suitor?

Touchwood junior. (Aside.) ’Twere a good mirth now to set him a-work

To make her wedding-ring; I must about it:

Rather than the gain should fall to a stranger,

’Twas honesty in me t’ enrich my father.

Yellowhammer. (Aside.) The girl is wondrous peevish. I fear nothing

But that she’s taken with some other love,

Then all’s quite dashed: that must be narrowly looked to;

We cannot be too wary in our children.—

What is’t you lack?

Touch. jun. O, nothing now; all that I wish is present:

I’d have a wedding-ring made for a gentlewoman

With all speed that may be.

Yel. Of what weight, sir?
Touch. jun. Of some half ounce, stand fair

And comely with the spark of a diamond;

Sir, ’twere pity to lose the least grace.

Yel. Pray, let’s see it. (Takes stone from Touchwood junior.)

Indeed, sir ’tis a pure one.

Touch. jun. So is the mistress.
Yel. Have you the wideness of her finger, sir?
Touch. jun. Yes, sure, I think I have her measure about me:

Good faith, ’tis down, I cannot show it to you;

I must pull too many things out to be certain.

Let me see—long and slender, and neatly jointed;

Just such another gentlewoman—that’s your daughter, sir?

Yel. And therefore, sir, no gentlewoman.
Touch. jun. I protest.

I ne’er saw two maids handed more alike;

I’ll ne’er seek farther, if you’ll give me leave, sir.

Yel. If you dare venture by her finger, sir.
Touch. jun. Ay, and I’ll bide all loss, sir.
Yel. Say you so, sir?

Let us see.—Hither, girl.

Touch. jun. Shall I make bold

With your finger, gentlewoman?

Moll. Your pleasure, sir.
Touch. jun. That fits her to a hair, sir.
(Trying ring on Moll’s finger.)
Yel. What’s your posy, now, sir?
Touch. jun. Mass, that’s true: posy? i’faith, e’en thus, sir:
“Love that’s wise
Blinds parents’ eyes.”
Yel. How, how? if I may speak without offence, sir, I hold my life—
Touch. jun. What, sir?
Yel. Go to,—you’ll pardon me?
Touch. jun. Pardon you? ay, sir.
Yel. Will you, i’ faith?
Touch. jun. Yes, faith, I will.
Yel. You’ll steal away some man’s daughter: am I near you?

Do you turn aside? you gentlemen are mad wags!

I wonder things can be so warily carried,

And parents blinded so: but they’re served right,

That have two eyes and were so dull a’ sight.

Touch. jun. (Aside.) Thy doom take hold of thee!
Yel. Tomorrow noon

Shall show your ring well done.

Touch. jun. Being so, ’tis soon.—

Thanks, and your leave, sweet gentlewoman.

Moll. Sir, you’re welcome.—
(Exit Touchwood junior.)

O were I made of wishes, I went with thee!

Could any description or analysis by the author or another character paint as perfectly as does the action of the following lines the wistful grief of the child pining for his mother?

Enter Giovanni, Count Lodovico.

Francisco. How now, my noble cossin! what, in blacke?
Giovanni. Yes, unckle, I was taught to imitate you

In vertue, and you must imitate mee

In coloures of your garments: my sweete mother

Is—

Fran. How? where?
Giov. Is there; no, yonder; indeed, sir, Ile not tell you,

For I shall make you weepe.

Fran. Is dead.
Giov. Do not blame me now,

I did not tell you so.

Lodovico. She’s dead, my lord.
Fran. Dead!
Monticelso. Blessed lady; thou art now above thy woes!

Wilt please your lordships to withdraw a little?

(Exeunt Ambassadors.)
Giov. What do the deade do, uncle? do they eate,

Heare musicke, goe a hunting, and bee merrie,

As wee that live?

Fran. No, cose; they sleepe.
Giov. Lord, Lord, that I were dead!

I have not slept these sixe nights. When doe they wake?

Fran. When God shall please.
Giov. Good God let her sleepe ever!

For I have knowne her wake an hundredth nights,

When all the pillow, where she laid her head,

Was brine-wet with her teares. I am to complaine to you, sir.

Ile tell you how they have used her now shees dead:

They wrapt her in a cruell fould of lead,

And would not let me kisse her.

Fran. Thou didst love her.
Giov. I have often heard her say she gave mee sucke,

And it would seeme by that shee deerely lov’d mee

Since princes seldome doe it.

Fran. O, all of my poore sister that remaines!

Take him away, for Gods sake!

(Exeunt Giovanni, Lodovico, and Marcello.)

In brief, then, understand your characters thoroughly, but do not, in your own personality, describe them anywhere. Let them describe themselves, or let other people on the stage describe or analyze them, when this is naturally convincing or may be made plausible by your skill. Trust, however, above all, to letting your characters live before your audience the emotions which interest you, thus making them convey their characters by the best means of communication between actor and audience—namely, action.

In the chapter (VI) dealing with clearness in exposition the extreme importance of identifying the characters for the audience has been carefully treated. Closely connected with this identifying is the matter of entrances and exits.

The characterizing value of exits and entrances is usually little understood by the inexperienced dramatist. Yet in real life, men and women cannot enter or leave a room without characterization. Watch the people in a railroad car as it nears the terminus. The people who rise and stand in the aisles are clearly of different natures from those who remain quietly seated till the train reaches its destination. The twenty or thirty standing wait differently and leave the car with different degrees of haste, nervousness or anticipation. Those who remain seated differ also. Some are absorbed in conversation, oblivious of the approaching station; others, somewhat ostentatiously, watch the waiters in the aisles with amused contempt. Study, therefore, exits and entrances. Very few will be found negative in the sense that they add nothing to the knowledge of the characters. How did Claude enter in the following extract from a recent play? Claude, it should be said, has been mentioned just in passing, as a suitor of Marna. Other matters, however, have been occupying attention.

Enter Claude

Claude. (Sitting beside her on the settle.) I thought I should not see you tonight.

Marna. I wondered if you would come.

Claude must really have entered in character—quickly, impetuously, or ardently. He may have paused an instant on the threshold; he may have dashed in, leaving the door ajar; he may have closed it cautiously; he may have come in through the window. And how did they get to the settle? The author may know all this, but he certainly does not tell. He should visualize his figures as he writes, seeing them from moment to moment as they move, sit, or stand. Otherwise, he will miss much that is significant and characterizing in their actions.

In a play that was largely a study of a self-indulgent, self-centred youth, to the annoyance of all he is late at the family celebration of his cousin’s birthday. Sauntering in, he meets a disappointing silence. Looking about, he says, “Nobody has missed me.” And then, as all wait for his excuses, he shifts the burden of speech to his mother with the words, “Hasn’t her ladyship anything to say?” Surely this entrance characterizes.

Illusion disappears, also, when people needed on the stage, from taxi-cab drivers to ambassadors, are apparently waiting just outside the door. A play of very interesting subject-matter became almost ridiculous because whenever anybody was needed, he or she was apparently waiting just outside one of the doors. As some of these were persons involved in affairs of state and others supposedly lived at a distance, their prompt appearance partook of wizardry. People should not only come on in character, but after time enough has been allowed or suggested to permit them to come from the places where they are supposed to have been.

How much the entrance of a character should be prepared for must be left to the judgment of the dramatist. Whatever is needed to make the entrance produce the effect desired must be planted in the minds of the audience before the character appears. Phormio, in Terence’s play of that name, does not appear before the second act. His entrance is undoubtedly held back both to whet curiosity to the utmost before he appears, and in order to set forth clearly the tangle of events which his ingenuity must overcome. Magda, in Sudermann’s Heimat, also appears first in the second act. This is not done because some leading lady wished to make as triumphant an entrance as possible, an inartistic but time-honored reason in some plays, but because, till we have lived with Magda’s family in the home from which she was driven by her father’s narrowness and inflexibility, we cannot grasp the full significance of her character in this environment when she returns. Usually, of course, a character of importance does appear in the first act, but naturalness first and theatrical effectiveness second determine the point at which it is proper that a character should appear. The supposed need in the audience for detailed information, slight information, or no information as to a figure about to enter must decide the amount of preliminary statement in regard to him. If possible, a character enters, identifies himself, and places himself with regard to the other persons involved in the action as nearly as possible at one and the same time. The more important the character, the more involved the circumstances which we must understand before he can enter properly, the greater the amount of preliminary preparation for him. In Phormio and Heimat (or Magda) this preparation fills an act; in Tartuffe it fills two acts. More often bits here and there prepare the way, or some one passage of dialogue, as in the introduction of Sir Amorous La-Foole in Ben Jonson’s Epicœne.

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.

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.)

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