“So the last shall be first, and the first last.”–HOLY WRIT. It was a dark room at that hour of six in the evening, when just the single oil reading-lamp under its green shade let fall a dapple of light over the Turkey carpet; over the covers of books taken out of the bookshelves, and […]

“The Apple-tree, the singing and the gold.”MURRAY’S “HIPPOLYTUS of EURIPIDES.” In their silver-wedding day Ashurst and his wife were motoring along the outskirts of the moor, intending to crown the festival by stopping the night at Torquay, where they had first met. This was the idea of Stella Ashurst, whose character contained a streak of […]

I 1 “Aequam memento rebus in arduisServare mentem:”–Horace. In the City of Liverpool, on a January day of 1905, the Board-room of “The Island Navigation Company” rested, as it were, after the labours of the afternoon. The long table was still littered with the ink, pens, blotting-paper, and abandoned documents of six persons–a deserted battlefield […]

“Don’t you see, brother, I was reading yesterday the Gospel about Christ, the little Father; how He suffered, how He walked on the earth. I suppose you have heard about it?” “Indeed, I have,” replied Stepanuitch; “but we are people in darkness; we can’t read.”–TOLSTOI. Mr. Henry Bosengate, of the London Stock Exchange, seated himself […]

“Orpheus with his lute made treesAnd the mountain tope that freeze…..” PERSONS OF THE PLAY JAMES G. FRUST …………..The Boss E. BLEWITT VANE ………….The Producer MR. FORESON ……………..The Stage Manager “ELECTRICS”………………The Electrician “PROPS” …………………The Property Man HERBERT …………………The Call Boy OF THE PLAY WITHIN THE PLAY GUY TOONE ……………….The ProfessorVANESSA HELLGROVE ………..The WifeGEORGE FLEETWAY ………….OrpheusMAUDE […]

CHARACTERS THE OFFICER.THE GIRL. DEFEAT During the Great War. Evening. [An empty room. The curtains drawn and gas turned low. The furniture and walls give a colour-impression as of greens and beetroot. There is a prevalence of plush. A fireplace on the Left, a sofa, a small table; the curtained window is at the back. […]

CHARACTERS HERSELF.LADY ELLA.THE SQUIRE.THE MAID.MAUD.THE RECTOR.THE DOCTOR.THE CABMAN.HANNIBAL and EDWARD HALL-MARKED [The scene is the sitting-room and verandah of HER bungalow. The room is pleasant, and along the back, where the verandah runs, it seems all window, both French and casement. There is a door right and a door left. The day is bright; the […]

A SCENE CHARACTERS THE GIRL.THE MAN.THE SOLDIER. THE SUN [A Girl, sits crouched over her knees on a stile close to a river. A MAN with a silver badge stands beside her, clutching the worn top plank. THE GIRL’S level brows are drawn together; her eyes see her memories. THE MAN’s eyes see THE GIRL; […]

“And Summer’s lease hath all too short a date.” –Shakespeare I In the last day of May in the early ‘nineties, about six o’clock of the evening, old Jolyon Forsyte sat under the oak tree below the terrace of his house at Robin Hill. He was waiting for the midges to bite him, before abandoning […]

TO MY BROTHER HUBERT GALSWORTHY I Swithin Forsyte lay in bed. The corners of his mouth under his white moustache drooped towards his double chin. He panted: “My doctor says I’m in a bad way, James.” His twin-brother placed his hand behind his ear. “I can’t hear you. They tell me I ought to take […]

To MY SISTER MABEL EDITH REYNOLDS I In a car of the Naples express a mining expert was diving into a bag for papers. The strong sunlight showed the fine wrinkles on his brown face and the shabbiness of his short, rough beard. A newspaper cutting slipped from his fingers; he picked it up, thinking: […]

TO MY MOTHER I At Monte Carlo, in the spring of the year 189-, I used to notice an old fellow in a grey suit and sunburnt straw hat with a black ribbon. Every morning at eleven o’clock, he would come down to the Place, followed by a brindled German boarhound, walk once or twice […]

TO MY FATHER I “MOOR, 20th July. …. It is quiet here, sleepy, rather–a farm is never quiet; the sea, too, is only a quarter of a mile away, and when it’s windy, the sound of it travels up the combe; for distraction, you must go four miles to Brixham or five to Kingswear, and […]

It was on a day of rare beauty that I went out into the fields to try and gather these few thoughts. So golden and sweetly hot it was, that they came lazily, and with a flight no more coherent or responsible than the swoop of the very swallows; and, as in a play or […]

Yes! Why is this the chief characteristic of our art? What secret instincts are responsible for this inveterate distaste? But, first, is it true that we have it? To stand still and look at a thing for the joy of looking, without reference to any material advantage, and personal benefit, either to ourselves or our […]

A certain writer, returning one afternoon from rehearsal of his play, sat down in the hall of the hotel where he was staying. “No,” he reflected, “this play of mine will not please the Public; it is gloomy, almost terrible. This very day I read these words in my morning paper: ‘No artist can afford […]

Since, time and again, it has been proved, in this country of free institutions, that the great majority of our fellow-countrymen consider the only Censorship that now obtains amongst us, namely the Censorship of Plays, a bulwark for the preservation of their comfort and sensibility against the spiritual researches and speculations of bolder and too […]

A drama must be shaped so as to have a spire of meaning. Every grouping of life and character has its inherent moral; and the business of the dramatist is so to pose the group as to bring that moral poignantly to the light of day. Such is the moral that exhales from plays like […]

In the Grand Canyon of Arizona, that most exhilarating of all natural phenomena, Nature has for once so focussed her effects, that the result is a framed and final work of Art. For there, between two high lines of plateau, level as the sea, are sunk the wrought thrones of the innumerable gods, couchant, and […]

“Et nous jongleurs inutiles, frivoles joueurs de luth!”. . . Useless jugglers, frivolous players on the lute! Must we so describe ourselves, we, the producers, season by season, of so many hundreds of “remarkable” works of fiction?–for though, when we take up the remarkable works of our fellows, we “really cannot read them!” the Press […]