are
at rest; that never-to-be answered doubt: Whether it was the same
jack-knife, or another one, after all its blades and handle had been
changed--must ever linger in my own mind as to the identity of this
play. But a dramatic author stops worrying himself about doubts of this
kind very early in his career. The play which finally takes its place on
the stage usually bears very little resemblance to the play which first
suggested itself to his mind. In some cases the public has abundant
reason to congratulate itself on this fact, and especially on the way
plays are often built up, so to speak, by the authors, with advice and
assistance from other intelligent people interested in their success.
The most magnificent figure in the English drama of this century was a
mere faint outline, merely a fatherly old man, until the suggestive mind
of Macready stimulated the genius of Bulwer Lytton, and the great
author, eagerly acknowledging the assistance rendered him, made Cardinal
Richelieu the colossal central figure of a play that was written as a
pretty love-story. Bulwer Lytton had an eye single, as every dramatist
ought to have--as every successful dramatist must have--to the final
artistic result; he kept before him the one object of making the play of
'Richelieu' as good a play as he possibly could make it. The first duty
of a dramatist is to put upon the stage the very best work he can, in
the light of whatever advice and assistance may come to him. Fair
acknowledgment afterward is a matter of mere ordinary personal honesty.
It is not a question of dramatic art.

So Lilian is to live, and not die, in the last act. The first question
for us to decide--I say "us"--the New York manager, the literary attache
of the theatre, and myself--the first practical question before us was:
As Lilian is to live, which of the two men who love her is to die? There
are axioms among the laws of dramatic construction, as in mathematics.
One of them is this--three hearts cannot beat as one. The world is not
large enough, from an artistic point of view, for three good human
hearts to continue to exist, if two of them love the third. If one of
the two hearts is a bad one, art assigns it to the hell on earth of
disappointed love; but if it is good and tender and gentle, art is
merciful to it, and puts it out of its misery by death. Routledge was
wounded in a duel. Strebelow was supposed to be lost in the wreck of a
steamer. It was easy enough to