FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139  
140   141   142   143   >>  
und myself reading it again with delight. Suddenly a voice beside me said:-- "'Very clever, my boy, very clever indeed. If you would just turn it topsy-turvy, change all those bitter, truthful speeches into noble sentiments; make your Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs (who never has been a popular character) die in the last act instead of the Yorkshireman, and let your bad woman be reformed by her love for the hero and go off somewhere by herself and be good to the poor in a black frock, the piece might be worth putting on the stage.' "I turned indignantly to see who was speaking. The opinions sounded like those of a theatrical manager. No one was in the room but I and the cat. No doubt I had been talking to myself, but the voice was strange to me. "'Be reformed by her love for the hero!' I retorted, contemptuously, for I was unable to grasp the idea that I was arguing only with myself, 'why it's his mad passion for her that ruins his life.' "'And will ruin the play with the great B.P.,' returned the other voice. 'The British dramatic hero has no passion, but a pure and respectful admiration for an honest, hearty English girl--pronounced "gey-url." You don't know the canons of your art.' "'And besides,' I persisted, unheeding the interruption, 'women born and bred and soaked for thirty years in an atmosphere of sin don't reform.' "'Well, this one's got to, that's all,' was the sneering reply, 'let her hear an organ.' "'But as an artist--,' I protested. "'You will be always unsuccessful,' was the rejoinder. 'My dear fellow, you and your plays, artistic or in artistic, will be forgotten in a very few years hence. You give the world what it wants, and the world will give you what you want. Please, if you wish to live.' "So, with Pyramids beside me day by day, I re-wrote the play, and whenever I felt a thing to be utterly impossible and false I put it down with a grin. And every character I made to talk clap-trap sentiment while Pyramids purred, and I took care that everyone of my puppets did that which was right in the eyes of the lady with the lorgnettes in the second row of the dress circle; and old Hewson says the play will run five hundred nights. "But what is worst," concluded Dick, "is that I am not ashamed of myself, and that I seem content." "What do you think the animal is?" I asked with a laugh, "an evil spirit"? For it had passed into the next room and so out through the open
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139  
140   141   142   143   >>  



Top keywords:
character
 

Pyramids

 

passion

 

reformed

 

artistic

 
clever
 
utterly
 

atmosphere

 
reform
 

rejoinder


forgotten

 

fellow

 
unsuccessful
 

sneering

 
protested
 

artist

 
Please
 
ashamed
 

content

 

concluded


hundred

 

nights

 

passed

 

animal

 

spirit

 

Hewson

 

sentiment

 

purred

 

thirty

 

circle


lorgnettes

 
puppets
 

impossible

 

dramatic

 

Yorkshireman

 
popular
 

putting

 
turned
 

indignantly

 
Affairs

Foreign
 

Suddenly

 
reading
 
delight
 

sentiments

 

Secretary

 
speeches
 

truthful

 
change
 

bitter