rain. But they have realised
the art there is in being quite still, in speaking naturally, as people
do when they are really talking, in fixing attention on the words they
are saying and not on their antics while saying them. The other day, in
the first act of "The Bishop's Move" at the Garrick, there is a Duchess
talking to a young novice in the refectory of a French abbey. After
standing talking to him for a few minutes, with only such movements as
would be quite natural under the circumstances, she takes his arm, not
once only but twice, and walks him up and down in front of the
footlights, for no reason in the world except to "cross stage to right."
The stage trick was so obvious that it deprived the scene at once of any
pretence to reality.

The fact is, that we do not sufficiently realise the difference between
what is dramatic and what is merely theatrical. Drama is made to be
acted, and the finest "literary" play in the world, if it wholly fails
to interest people on the stage, will have wholly failed in its first
and most essential aim. But the finer part of drama is implicit in the
words and in the development of the play, and not in its separate small
details of literal "action." Two people should be able to sit quietly in
a room, without ever leaving their chairs, and to hold our attention
breathless for as long as the playwright likes. Given a good play,
French actors are able to do that. Given a good play, English actors are
not allowed to do it.

Is it not partly the energy, the restless energy, of the English
character which prevents our actors from ever sitting or standing still
on the stage? We are a nation of travellers, of sailors, of business
people; and all these have to keep for ever moving. Our dances are the
most vigorous and athletic of dances, they carry us all over the stage,
with all kinds of leaping and kicking movements. Our music-hall
performers have invented a kind of clowning peculiar to this country, in
which kicking and leaping are also a part of the business. Our
melodramas are constructed on more movable planes, with more formidable
collapses and collisions, than those of any other country. Is not, then,
the persistent English habit of "crossing stage to right" a national
characteristic, ingrained in us, and not only a matter of training? It
is this reflection which hinders me from hoping, with much confidence,
that a reform in stage-management will lead to a really quieter and
si