ply
stirred, invisible, great audience, rising row on row to the roof. At
such moments I have experienced the creative joy of a mighty orator or
a sublime actor; I have actually felt my pulses leap. And then the
entrance of a stage-hand or a scrub-woman would shatter the illusion!

But it is when I am one of a real audience, and the stage is disclosed
set with scenery but barren of players, that I derive, perhaps, the
keenest pleasure. A few playwrights have recognized the power of the
vacant room in drama, but on the whole the opportunities for such
enjoyment are far too rare. This is odd, too, with such convincing
examples at hand. There is, for instance, the close of the second act
of _Die Meistersinger_, when the watchman passes through the sleepy
town after the street brawl is over, and then the empty, moon-bathed
street lies quiet for a time, before the curtain closes. Of course,
here there is music to aid in creating the poetic charm and soothing
repose of that moment. But at the end of _Shore Acres_ there was no
such aid. Who that saw it, however, can forget that final picture?
After Nat Berry--played by Mr. Herne, the author--had scratched a bit
of frost off the window-pane to peer out into the night, locked the
door, and banked the fire, he climbed with slow, aged footsteps up the
stairs to bed. At the landing he turned to survey the old kitchen
below, that lay so cozy and warm under the benediction of his eye.
Then he disappeared with his candle, and the stage grew quite dim,
save for the red glow from the fire. Yet the curtain did not fall; and
through a mist of tears, tears it cleansed one's soul to shed, the
audience looked for a long, hushed moment on the scene, on the now
familiar room where so much of joy and grief had happened,--deserted,
tranquil, but suddenly, in this new light of emptiness, realized to be
how vital a part of the lives of those people who had made the play!
It used to seem, indeed, as if the drama had not achieved full reality
until the old kitchen had thus had its say, thus spoken the epilogue.

It is strange to me that more playwrights have not profited by such
examples. The cry of the average playgoer is for "action," to be sure;
but even "action" may be heightened by contrast, by peace and
serenity. Certainly the vitality, the illusion, of a scenic background
on the stage can be enhanced by drawing a certain amount of attention
to it alone; and something as Mr. Hardy, in _The Re