_La Dame aux Camelias_--a four-act play--in eight
successive days. But he had previously told the same story in a novel; he
knew everything that was to happen in his play; and the mere writing could
be done in a single headlong dash. Voltaire's best tragedy, _Zaire_, was
written in three weeks. Victor Hugo composed _Marion Delorme_ between June
1 and June 24, 1829; and when the piece was interdicted by the censor, he
immediately turned to another subject and wrote _Hernani_ in the next three
weeks. The fourth act of _Marion Delorme_ was written in a single day. Here
apparently was a very fever of composition. But again we must remember that
both of these plays had been devised before the author began to write them;
and when he took his pen in hand he had already been working on them in
scenario for probably a year. To write ten acts in Alexandrines, with
feminine rhymes alternating with masculine, was still, to be sure, an
appalling task; but Hugo was a facile and prolific poet, and could write
very quickly after he had determined exactly what it was he had to write.

It was with all of the foregoing points in mind that, in the opening
sentence of this chapter, I defined a play as a story "devised," rather
than a story "written." We may now consider the significance of the next
phrase of that definition, which states that a play is devised to be
"presented," rather than to be "read."

The only way in which it is possible to study most of the great plays of
bygone ages is to read the record of their dialogue; and this necessity has
led to the academic fallacy of considering great plays primarily as
compositions to be read. In their own age, however, these very plays which
we now read in the closet were intended primarily to be presented on the
stage. Really to read a play requires a very special and difficult exercise
of visual imagination. It is necessary not only to appreciate the dialogue,
but also to project before the mind's eye a vivid imagined rendition of the
visual aspect of the action. This is the reason why most managers and
stage-directors are unable to judge conclusively the merits and defects of
a new play from reading it in manuscript. One of our most subtle artists
in stage-direction, Mr. Henry Miller, once confessed to the present writer
that he could never decide whether a prospective play was good or bad until
he had seen it rehearsed by actors on a stage. Mr. Augustus Thomas's
unusually successful farc