other. The question seems to be an unimportant matter of terminology.
Compositions cast in this shape were, without doubt, originally
written for the stage only, and as a consequence their nomenclature
of "Act," "Scene," and the like, was drawn directly from the vehicle
of representation. But in the course of time such a shape would
reveal itself to be an eminently readable one; moreover, by dispensing
with the theatre altogether, a freedom of treatment was attainable
in this form that was denied where the material possibilities of
stagery had to be rigorously remembered. With the careless
mechanicism of human speech, the technicalities of practical mumming
were retained in these productions when they had ceased to be
concerned with the stage at all.

To say, then, in the present case, that a writing in play-shape is
not to be played, is merely another way of stating that such writing
has been done in a form for which there chances to be no brief
definition save one already in use for works that it superficially
but not entirely resembles.

Whether mental performance alone may not eventually be the fate of
all drama other than that of contemporary or frivolous life, is a
kindred question not without interest. The mind naturally flies to
the triumphs of the Hellenic and Elizabethan theatre in exhibiting
scenes laid "far in the Unapparent," and asks why they should not
be repeated. But the meditative world is older, more invidious,
more nervous, more quizzical, than it once was, and being unhappily
perplexed by--


Riddles of Death Thebes never knew,