o a large class of pieces of which the title, though not itself a
proverb, makes direct allusion to some fable or proverbial saying: for
example, _Les Brebis de Panurge, La Chasse aux Corbeaux, La Cigale chez
les Fourmis_.]

[Footnote 2: I learn, on the best authority, that I am wrong, in point
of fact, as to the origin of _Strife_. The play arose in Mr.
Galsworthy's mind from his actually having seen in conflict the two men
who were the prototypes of Anthony and Roberts, and thus noted the waste
and inefficacy arising from the clash of strong characters unaccompanied
by balance. It was accident that led him to place the two men in an
environment of capital and labour. In reality, both of them were, if not
capitalists, at any rate on the side of capital. This interesting
correction of fact does not invalidate the theory above stated.]

[Footnote 3: Mr. Henry Arthur Jones writes to me: "Sometimes I start
with a scene only, sometimes with a complete idea. Sometimes a play
splits into two plays, sometimes two or three ideas combine into a
concrete whole. Always the final play is altered out of all knowledge
from its first idea." An interesting account of the way in which two
very different plays by M. de Curel: _L'Envers d'une Sainte_ and
_L'Invitee_,--grew out of one and the same initial idea, may be found in
_L'Annee Psychologique_, 1894, p. 121.]

[Footnote 4: In my discussion of this point, I have rather simplified
Aristotle's position. He appears to make action the essential element in
tragedy and not merely the necessary vehicle of character. "In a play,"
he says, "they do not act in order to portray the characters, they
include the characters for the sake of the action. So that it is the
action in it, _i.e._ its Fable or Plot, that is the end and purpose of
the tragedy, and the end is everywhere the chief thing. Besides this, a
tragedy is impossible without action, but there may be one without
character." (Bywater's Translation.) The last sentence is, in my view,
the gist of the matter; the preceding sentences greatly overstate the
case. There was a lively controversy on the subject in the _Times_
Literary Supplement in May, 1902. It arose from a review of Mr.
Phillips's _Paolo and Francesco_, and Mr. Andrew Lang, Mr. Churton
Collins, and Mr. A.B. Walkley took part in it.]

[Footnote 5: "Are the first beginnings of imaginative conception
directed by the will? Are they, indeed, conscious at all? Do they not
rathe