ull light of the stage. The
ordinary student of drama will not find anywhere in _The Well of the
Saints_ that excitement of the will in the presence of attainable
advantages, which he is accustomed to think the natural stuff of drama,
and if he see it played he will wonder why act is knitted to act so
loosely, why it is all, as it were, flat, why there is so much leisure
in the dialogue, even in the midst of passion. If he see the _Shadow of
the Glen_, he will ask, why does this woman go out of her house? Is it
because she cannot help herself, or is she content to go? Why is it not
all made clearer? And yet, like everybody when caught up into great
events, she does many things without being quite certain why she does
them. She hardly understands at moments why her action has a certain
form, more clearly than why her body is tall or short, fair or brown.
She feels an emotion that she does not understand. She is driven by
desires that need for their expression, not 'I admire this man,' or 'I
must go, whether I will or no,' but words full of suggestion, rhythms of
voice, movements that escape analysis. In addition to all this, she has
something that she shares with none but the children of one man's
imagination. She is intoxicated by a dream which is hardly understood by
herself, but possesses her like something half remembered on a sudden
wakening.

While I write, we are rehearsing _The Well of the Saints_, and are
painting for it decorative scenery, mountains in one or two flat colours
and without detail, ash trees and red salleys with something of
recurring pattern in their woven boughs. For though the people of the
play use no phrase they could not use in daily life, we know that we are
seeking to express what no eye has ever seen.

ABBEY THEATRE, January 27, 1905.

DISCOVERIES

PROPHET, PRIEST AND KING

The little theatrical company I write my plays for had come to a west of
Ireland town, and was to give a performance in an old ball-room, for
there was no other room big enough. I went there from a neighbouring
country-house, and, arriving a little before the players, tried to open
a window. My hands were black with dirt in a moment, and presently a
pane of glass and a part of the window-frame came out in my hands.
Everything in this room was half in ruins, the rotten boards cracked
under my feet, and our new proscenium and the new boards of the platform
looked out of place, and yet the room was not reall