e recited. And this actual seeing on the stage
brings conviction, since "seeing is believing," by the old saw. Scenery,
too, necessitates a certain truthfulness in the reproducing of life by
word and act and scene, because the spectator, who is able to judge it
all by the test of life, will more readily compare the mimic
representation with the actuality than if he were reading the words of a
character in a book, or being told, narrative fashion, of the
character's action. In this way the stage story seems nearer life.

Moreover, the seeing is fortified by hearing; the spectator is also the
auditor. And here is another test of reality. If the intonation or
accent or tone of voice of the actor is not life-like and in consonance
with the character portrayed, the audience will instantly be quicker to
detect it and to criticize than if the same character were shown in
fiction; seeing, the spectator insists that dress and carriage, and
scenery, which furnishes a congruous background, shall be plausible; and
hearing, the auditor insists upon the speech being true to type.

The play has an immense superiority also over all printed literature in
that, making its appeal directly through eye and ear, it is not literary
at all; I mean, the story in this form can be understood and enjoyed by
countless who read but little or even cannot read. Literature, in the
conventional sense, may be a closed book to innumerable theater-goers
who nevertheless can witness a drama and react to its exhibition of
life. The word, which in printed letters is so all-important, on the
stage becomes secondary to action and scene, for the story can be, and
sometimes is, enacted in pantomime, without a single word being spoken.
In essence, therefore, a play may be called unliterary, and thus it
makes a wider, more democratic appeal than anything in print can. Yet,
by an interesting paradox, when the words of the play are written by
masters like Calderon, Shakespeare, Moliere or Ibsen, the drama becomes
the chief literary glory of Spain, England, France and Norway. For in
the final reckoning only the language that is fit and fine preserves the
drama of the world in books and classifies it with creative literature.
Thus the play can be all things to all men; at once unliterary in its
appeal, and yet, in the finest examples, an important contribution to
letters.

A peculiar advantage of the play over the other story-telling forms is
found in the fact that w