Page:The Cambridge History of American Literature, v3.djvu/303

 James A. Heme 285 this quality which keeps so many of his plays still alive and fresh. At the time Fitch and Thomas were gaining headway, another playwright came to the front, having attained before- hand a reputation for powerful acting and excellent stage management. This was James A. Heme (i 839-1901). His distinctive gifts as a writer were clarity and simplicity, and his art of expression lay in the illumination he infused into homely things and simple people. Coming East from California with the traditions of florid melodrama which influenced Belasco (the two having worked together at the Baldwin Theatre), Heme fell under the influence of Darwin and Herbert Spen- cer, in philosophy, and of Henry George in economics. He arrived in Boston at the time W. D. Howells,' an exponent of realism in the novel, was the foremost writer of the day. All these forces prompted Heme to deal with the fundamentals of character in his dramatic work. He became interested, as Maeterlinck would say, in conditions of soul. His dialogue in Margaret Fleming (Lynn, Mass., 4 July, 1880), rang true, in- stinct with homely life; his Griffith Davenport (Washington, D. C, 16 January, 1899) — a drama of the. Civil War based not on external action but on inward struggle — was filled with sin- cerity; his Shore Acres (Chicago, 23 May, 1892) — which, because of the precieuse success of Margaret Fleming, made con- cessions to the old-time melodrama, had passages of dominant realism, simple conversation warm with human meaning, which have not been surpassed by an American playwright thus far. The popular notion is that Heme wrote "by gosh" drama of the type of The Vermont Wool-Dealer and Denman Thompson's Old Homestead (Boston, 5 April, 1885). But that is farthest from a true comparison, for Heme's observation was based on pro- found appreciation of character and human relationship, and the Yankee-type drama was dependent on outward eccentricity. The work in play-writing of William Gillette has been so closely identified with his peculiar technique as an actor that it is diffictilt to separate the two. Apart from his first collabora- tion with Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett in Esmeralda (29 Octo- ber, 1881) ; apart from his dependence on French sources in Too Much Johnson (26 November, 1894) ^^^ Because She Loved » See Book III, Chap. xi.