intments from that in which his pieces were devised to be presented. In
his own day he was not so much read as a poet as applauded in the theatre
as a playwright; and properly to appreciate his dramatic, rather than his
literary, appeal, we must reconstruct in our imagination the conditions of
the theatre in his day. The point is that his plays, though planned
primarily as drama, have since been shifted over, by many generations of
critics and literary students, into the adjacent province of poetry; and
this shift of the critical point of view, which has insured the
immortality of Aeschylus, has been made possible only by the literary
merit of his dialogue. When a play, owing to altered physical conditions,
is tossed out of the theatre, it will find a haven in the closet only if it
be greatly written. From this fact we may derive the practical maxim that
though a skilful playwright need not write greatly in order to secure the
plaudits of his own generation, he must cultivate a literary excellence if
he wishes to be remembered by posterity.

This much must be admitted concerning the ultimate importance of the
literary element in the drama. But on the other hand it must be granted
that many plays that stand very high as drama do not fall within the range
of literature. A typical example is the famous melodrama by Dennery
entitled _The Two Orphans_. This play has deservedly held the stage for
nearly a century, and bids fair still to be applauded after the youngest
critic has died. It is undeniably a very good play. It tells a thrilling
story in a series of carefully graded theatric situations. It presents
nearly a dozen acting parts which, though scarcely real as characters, are
yet drawn with sufficient fidelity to fact to allow the performers to
produce a striking illusion of reality during the two hours' traffic of the
stage. It is, to be sure--especially in the standard English
translation--abominably written. One of the two orphans launches wide-eyed
upon a soliloquy beginning, "Am I mad?... Do I dream?"; and such sentences
as the following obtrude themselves upon the astounded ear,--"If you
persist in persecuting me in this heartless manner, I shall inform the
police." Nothing, surely, could be further from literature. Yet thrill
after thrill is conveyed, by visual means, through situations artfully
contrived; and in the sheer excitement of the moment, the audience is made
incapable of noticing the pompous mediocrity