I doubt if the production of novels, even to the writer
temperamentally disposed to that form of expression, is as absorbing
as play-making. The difference between the novel and the play is the
difference between _was_ and _is_. Something has _happened_ for the
writer of the novel and for his people. He describes it as it was; and
them as they were. In the play something _is happening_. Its form is
controversial--and the playwright, by force of this controversy, is
in turn each one of his characters, and not merely a witness of their
doings. When they begin to take hold of him, their possession is more
and more insistent--all interests in real life become more and more
secondary and remote until the questions in dispute are not only
decided, but there is also a written record of the debates and the
decision.

By the time our train pulled into New York, I was impatient to make a
running transcript of speeches of my contending people. But that is
a relief that must be deferred. Like over-anxious litigants, the
characters are disposed to talk too much, and must be controlled
and kept in bounds by a proportioned scenario, assigning order, and
respective and progressive values to them. That was the work of a day
by that time, and then, with the material gathered, and the intimacy
with the people and the places, the play was one that wrote itself.

AUGUSTUS THOMAS.


[Footnote 1: The Witching Hour; Mrs. Leffingwell's Boots; The Earl
of Pawtucket; The Harvest Moon; Oliver Goldsmith [Published by Samuel
French].]