the fact that a piece is always intended for performance before an
audience. And Marmontel, dramatist as well as dramatic theorist,
asserted that the first rule the play-wright must obey is "to move the
spectators, and the second is to move them only in so far as they are
willing to be moved.... This depends on the disposition and the manners
of the people to whom appeal is made and on the degree of sensibility
they bring to the theater.... This is therefore a point in which tragedy
is not invariable."

The same principle underlies George Meredith's statement in regard to
Comedy: "There are plain reasons why the comic poet is not a frequent
apparition; and why the great comic poet remains without a fellow. A
society of cultivated men and women is required wherein ideas are
current and the perception quick, that he may be supplied with matter
and an audience."

B. M.

OF THIS BOOK THREE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-THREE COPIES WERE PRINTED FROM
TYPE BY CORLIES, MACY AND COMPANY IN NOVEMBER: MCMXIV

PUBLICATIONS

_of the_

Dramatic Museum
of Columbia University

IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK

_First Series_

Papers on Playmaking:

I THE NEW ART OF WRITING PLAYS. By Lope de Vega. Translated by
William T. Brewster. With an Introduction and Notes by Brander
Matthews.

II THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A PLAY. By Bronson Howard. With an
Introduction by Augustus Thomas.

III THE LAW OF THE DRAMA. By Ferdinand Brunetiere. Translated by
Philip M. Hayden. With an Introduction by Henry Arthur Jones.

IV ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON AS A DRAMATIST. By Arthur Wing Pinero.
With an Introduction and Bibliographical Appendix by Clayton
Hamilton.

End of Project Gutenberg's The Autobiography of a Play, by Bronson Howard

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A PLAY ***

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