e a spirit and make it seem real. So my desire
to write a play of the dead, and my belief in Warfield's artistry
culminated in "The Return of Peter Grimm." The subject was very
difficult, and the greatest problem confronting me was to preserve
the illusion of a spirit while actually using a living person. The
apparition of the ghost in "Hamlet" and in "Macbeth," the spirits
who return to haunt _Richard III_, and other ghosts of the theatre
convinced me that green lights and dark stages with spot-lights
would not give the illusion necessary to this play. All other
spirits have been visible to someone on the stage, but_ PETER _was
visible to none, save the dog (who wagged his tail as his master
returned from the next world) and to _Frederik_, the nephew, who was
to see him but for a second._ PETER _was to be in the same room with
the members of the household, and to come into close contact with
them. They were to feel his influence without seeing him. He was to
move among them, even appear to touch them, but they were to look
past him or above him--never into his face. He must, of course, be
visible to the audience. My problem, then, was to reveal a dead man
worrying about his earthly home, trying to enlist the aid of
anybody--everybody--to take his message. Certainly no writer ever
chose a more difficult task; I must say that I was often very much
discouraged, but something held me to the work in spite of myself.
The choice of an occupation for my leading character was very
limited. I gave_ PETER _various trades and professions, none of
which seemed to suit the part, until I made him a quaint old
Dutchman, a nursery-man who loved his garden and perennials--the
flowers that pass away and return season after season. This gave a
clue to his character; gave him the right to found his belief in
immortality on the lessons learned in his garden.

"God does not send us strange flowers every year,
When the warm winds blow o'er the pleasant places,
The same fair flowers lift up the same fair faces.
The violet is here ...
It all comes back, the odour, grace and hue,
... it IS the THING WE KNEW.
So after the death winter it shall be," etc.

Against a background of budding trees, I placed the action of the
play in the month of April; April with its swift transitions from
bright sunlight to the darkness of passing clouds and showers. April
weather furnished a natural reason for raising and lowering the
lights--that