"...replied Alfred, flipping the ash from his cigar."(This explains nothing; it only wastes space.)"...responded Richard, with a laugh." (There was nothing to laugh about; there never is.The writer puts it in from habit--automatically; he is paying no attention to his work; or he would see that there is nothing to laugh at; often, when a remark is unusually and poignantly flat and silly, he tries to deceive the reader by enlarging the stage direction and making Richard break into "frenzies of uncontrollable laughter." This makes the reader sad.)"...murmured Gladys, blushing." (This poor old shop-worn blush is a tiresome thing.We get so we would rather Gladys would fall out of the book and break her neck than do it again.
She is always doing it, and usually irrelevantly.Whenever it is her turn to murmur she hangs out her blush; it is the only thing she's got.In a little while we hate her, just as we do Richard.)"...repeated Evelyn, bursting into tears." (This kind keep a book damp all the time.They can't say a thing without crying.They cry so much about nothing that by and by when they have something to cry ABOUT they have gone dry; they sob, and fetch nothing; we are not moved.We are only glad.)They gavel me, these stale and overworked stage directions, these carbon films that got burnt out long ago and cannot now carry any faintest thread of light.It would be well if they could be relieved from duty and flung out in the literary back yard to rot and disappear along with the discarded and forgotten "steeds" and "halidomes" and similar stage-properties once so dear to our grandfathers.But I am friendly to Mr.Howells's stage directions; more friendly to them than to any one else's, Ithink.They are done with a competent and discriminating art, and are faithful to the requirements of a state direction's proper and lawful office, which is to inform.Sometimes they convey a scene and its conditions so well that I believe I could see the scene and get the spirit and meaning of the accompanying dialogue if some one would read merely the stage directions to me and leave out the talk.For instance, a scene like this, from THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY:
"...and she laid her arms with a beseeching gesture on her father's shoulder.""...she answered, following his gesture with a glance.""...she said, laughing nervously."
"...she asked, turning swiftly upon him that strange, searching glance.""...she answered, vaguely."
"...she reluctantly admitted."
"...but her voice died wearily away, and she stood looking into his face with puzzled entreaty."Mr.Howells does not repeat his forms, and does not need to;he can invent fresh ones without limit.It is mainly the repetition over and over again, by the third-rates, of worn and commonplace and juiceless forms that makes their novels such a weariness and vexation to us, I think.We do not mind one or two deliveries of their wares, but as we turn the pages over and keep on meeting them we presently get tired of them and wish they would do other things for a change.
"...replied Alfred, flipping the ash from his cigar.""...responded Richard, with a laugh."
"...murmured Gladys, blushing."
"...repeated Evelyn, bursting into tears.""...replied the Earl, flipping the ash from his cigar.""...responded the undertaker, with a laugh.""...murmured the chambermaid, blushing.""...repeated the burglar, bursting into tears.""...replied the conductor, flipping the ash from his cigar.""...responded Arkwright, with a laugh.""...murmured the chief of police, blushing.""...repeated the house-cat, bursting into tears."And so on and so on; till at last it ceases to excite.Ialways notice stage directions, because they fret me and keep me trying to get out of their way, just as the automobiles do.At first; then by and by they become monotonous and I get run over.
Mr.Howells has done much work, and the spirit of it is as beautiful as the make of it.I have held him in admiration and affection so many years that I know by the number of those years that he is old now; but his heart isn't, nor his pen; and years do not count.Let him have plenty of them; there is profit in them for us.
