Page:Robert Louis Stevenson, the dramatist.pdf/25

23 "Cap'n, do you think it wise to quarrel with me? I put it to you now, Cap'n, fairly as between man and man—do you think it wise?

"I fear nothing. My feet are on the Rock. Begone!"

The play is full of speeches as beautiful as those I have just read you of Gaunt's; and if beautiful speeches, and even beautiful passages of dialogue, made a good drama, Admiral Guinea would indeed be a great success. But what chiefly strikes one after seeing or reading the play is that Stevenson's idea of dramatic writing was that fine speeches, and fine speeches alone, would carry everything before them. I can picture the collaborators sitting together and discussing the composition of their work, and saying to each other "This position, or that, will furnish a capital opportunity for a good speech"; I can imagine Stevenson subsequently telling his friend what a splendid "speech" he had just written. In short, Admiral Guinea is mainly rhetoric, beautifully done but with no blood in it. The second act—the inn scene—is a monument of long-windedness; while the situation of Gaunt's walking in his sleep—by which Stevenson's friends and admirers, on the occasion of the production of the play in London, set such store—could be cut out of the drama bodily for any bearing it has upon the development of the story or the bringing about of the dénouement. I was a witness of the single performance of this piece in London and can testify to the ineffectiveness of its representation.

In Beau Austin we have certainly Stevenson's nearest approach to an effective drama. In spite of its inacceptable theme, it is a charming play and really interesting on the stage. A little more