The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Story of a Play, by W. D. Howells

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Title: The Story of a Play
A Novel

Author: W. D. Howells

Release Date: December 30, 2006 [EBook #20225]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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THE STORY OF A PLAY

A Novel

BY

W. D. HOWELLS

AUTHOR OF "THE LANDLORD AT LION'S HEAD" "AN OPEN-EYED CONSPIRACY" ETC.

[Illustration]

NEW YORK AND LONDON

HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS

1898

W. D. HOWELLS'S WORKS.

_IN CLOTH BINDING._

Copyright, 1898, BY W. D. HOWELLS.

_Electrotyped by J. A. Howells & Co., Jefferson, Ohio._

THE STORY OF A PLAY.

I.

The young actor who thought he saw his part in Maxwell's play had so far
made his way upward on the Pacific Coast that he felt justified in
taking the road with a combination of his own. He met the author at a
dinner of the Papyrus Club in Boston, where they were introduced with a
facile flourish of praise from the journalist who brought them together,
as the very men who were looking for each other, and who ought to be
able to give the American public a real American drama. The actor, who
believed he had an ideal of this drama, professed an immediate interest
in the kind of thing Maxwell told him he was trying to do, and asked him
to come the next day, if he did not mind its being Sunday, and talk the
play over with him.

He was at breakfast when Maxwell came, at about the hour people were
getting home from church, and he asked the author to join him. But
Maxwell had already breakfasted, and he hid his impatience of the
actor's politeness as well as he could, and began at the first moment
possible: "The idea of my play is biblical; we're still a very biblical
people." He had thought of the fact in seeing so many worshippers
swarming out of the churches.

"That is true," said the actor.

"It's the old idea of t