gravely. When, in the following pages, I am found treating with all
solemnity matters of apparently trivial detail, I beg the reader to
believe that very possibly I do not in my heart overrate their
importance. One thing is certain, and must be emphasized from the
outset: namely, that if any part of the dramatist's art can be taught,
it is only a comparatively mechanical and formal part--the art of
structure. One may learn how to tell a story in good dramatic form: how
to develop and marshal it in such a way as best to seize and retain the
interest of a theatrical audience. But no teaching or study can enable a
man to choose or invent a good story, and much less to do that which
alone lends dignity to dramatic story-telling--to observe and portray
human character. This is the aim and end of all serious drama; and it
will be apt to appear as though, in the following pages, this aim and
end were ignored. In reality it is not so. If I hold comparatively
mechanical questions of pure craftsmanship to be worth discussing, it is
because I believe that only by aid of competent craftsmanship can the
greatest genius enable his creations to live and breathe upon the stage.
The profoundest insight into human nature and destiny cannot find valid
expression through the medium of the theatre without some understanding
of the peculiar art of dramatic construction. Some people are born with
such an instinct for this art, that a very little practice renders them
masters of it. Some people are born with a hollow in their cranium where
the bump of drama ought to be. But between these extremes, as I said
before, there are many people with moderately developed and cultivable
faculty; and it is these who, I trust, may find some profit in the
following discussions.[3] Let them not forget, however, that the topics
treated of are merely the indispensable rudiments of the art, and are
not for a moment to be mistaken for its ultimate and incommunicable
secrets. Beethoven could not have composed the Ninth Symphony without a
mastery of harmony and counterpoint; but there are thousands of masters