; less
expenditure of nervous force and mere brains would be required for two
plays than for one novel. (I emphasise the word "write," because if the
whole weariness between the first conception and the first performance
of a play is compared with the whole weariness between the first
conception and the first publication of a novel, then the play has it. I
would sooner get seventy-and-seven novels produced than one play. But my
immediate object is to compare only writing with writing.) It seems to
me that the sole persons entitled to judge of the comparative difficulty
of writing plays and writing novels are those authors who have succeeded
or failed equally well in both departments. And in this limited band I
imagine that the differences of opinion on the point could not be
marked. I would like to note in passing, for the support of my
proposition, that whereas established novelists not infrequently venture
into the theatre with audacity, established dramatists are very cautious
indeed about quitting the theatre. An established dramatist usually
takes good care to write plays and naught else; he will not affront the
risks of coming out into the open; and therein his instinct is quite
properly that of self-preservation. Of many established dramatists all
over the world it may be affirmed that if they were so indiscreet as to
publish a novel, the result would be a great shattering and a great
awakening.

II

An enormous amount of vague reverential nonsense is talked about the
technique of the stage, the assumption being that in difficulty it far
surpasses any other literary technique, and that until it is acquired a
respectable play cannot be written. One hears also that it can only be
acquired behind the scenes. A famous actor-manager once kindly gave me
the benefit of his experience, and what he said was that a dramatist who
wished to learn his business must live behind the scenes--and study the
works of Dion Boucicault! The truth is that no technique is so crude and
so simple as the technique of the stage, and that the proper place to
learn it is not behind the scenes but in the pit. Managers, being the
most conservative people on earth, except compositors, will honestly try
to convince the naive dramatist that effects can only be obtained in
the precise way in which effects have always been obtained, and that
this and that rule must not be broken on pain of outraging the public.

And indeed it is natural t