tion is developed in great measure
by means of things that remain outside of the art; by means of real
things, that is, and not artistic conventions for things. This is a sort
of realism that is not to be confounded with that realism in painting of
which we hear so much. The realism in painting is a thing of purposes;
this, that we have to indicate in the drama, is an affair of method. We
have heard a story, indeed, of a painter in France who, when he wanted
to paint a sea-beach, carried realism from his ends to his means, and
plastered real sand upon his canvas; and that is precisely what is done
in the drama. The dramatic author has to paint his beaches with real
sand: real live men and women move about the stage; we hear real voices;
what is feigned merely puts a sense upon what is; we do actually see a
woman go behind a screen as Lady Teazle, and, after a certain interval,
we do actually see her very shamefully produced again. Now all these
things, that remain as they were in life, and are not transmuted into
any artistic convention, are terribly stubborn and difficult to deal
with; and hence there are for the dramatist many resultant limitations
in time and space. These limitations in some sort approximate towards
those of painting: the dramatic author is tied down, not indeed to a
moment, but to the duration of each scene or act; he is confined to the
stage almost as the painter is confined within his frame. But the great
restriction is this, that a dramatic author must deal with his actors,
and with his actors alone. Certain moments of suspense, certain
significant dispositions of personages, a certain logical growth of
emotion,--these are the only means at the disposal of the playwright. It
is true that, with the assistance of the scene-painter, the costumier
and the conductor of the orchestra, he may add to this something of
pageant, something of sound and fury; but these are, for the dramatic
writer, beside the mark, and do not come under the vivifying touch of
his genius. When we turn to romance, we find this no longer. Here
nothing is reproduced to our senses directly. Not only the main
conception of the work, but the scenery, the appliances, the mechanism
by which this conception is brought home to us, have been put through
the crucible of another man's mind, and come out again, one and all, in
the form of written words. With the loss of every degree of such realism
as we have described, there is for art a cl