erse in _Jeanne d'Arc_, for example, was at certain
moments lyric, at most moments narrative, and scarcely ever dramatic in
technical mold and manner. It resembled the verse of Tennyson more nearly
than it resembled that of any other master; and Tennyson was a narrative,
not a dramatic, poet. It set a value on literary expression for its own
sake rather than for the purpose of the play; it was replete with
elaborately lovely phrases; and it admitted the inversions customary in
verse intended for the printed page. But I am firm in the belief that verse
written for the modern theatre should be absolutely simple. It should
incorporate no words, however beautiful, that are not used in the daily
conversation of the average theatre-goer; it should set these words only in
their natural order, and admit no inversions whatever for the sake of the
line; and it should set a value on expression, never for its own sake, but
solely for the sake of the dramatic purpose to be accomplished in the
scene. Verse such as this would permit of every rhythmical variation known
in English prosody, and through the appeal of its rhythm would offer the
dramatist opportunities for emotional effect that prose would not allow
him; but at the same time it could be spoken with entire naturalness by
actors as ultra-modern as Mme. Nazimova.

Mr. Stephen Phillips has not learned this lesson, and the verse that he has
written in his plays is the same verse that he used in his narratives,
_Marpessa_ and _Christ in Hades_. It is great narrative blank verse, but
for dramatic uses it is too elaborate. Mr. Mackaye has started out on the
same mistaken road: in _Jeanne d'Arc_ his prosody is that of closet-verse,
not theatre-verse. The poetic drama will be doomed to extinction on the
modern stage unless our poets learn the lesson of simplicity. I shall
append some lines of Shakespeare's to illustrate the ideal of directness
toward which our latter-day poetic dramatists should strive. When Lear
holds the dead Cordelia in his arms, he says:

Her voice was ever soft,
Gentle, and low,--an excellent thing in woman.

Could any actor be unnatural in speaking words so simple, so familiar, and
so naturally set? Viola says to Orsino:

My father had a daughter loved a man,
As it might be, perhaps, were I woman,
I should your lordship.

Here again the words are all colloquial and are set in their accustomed
order; but by sheer maste