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Rh I never think about methods, and when I read in the newspapers that a play is not technically a play I lay the paper aside.


 * And you are right. There are plays of all kinds, and all we ask is that the writer shall produce a play good of its kind.


 * You condemn monologues—


 * Not always. I wrote to you that the three or four lines of monologue with which you begin The Apostle were unnecessary, admitting, however, that they might annoy our friend Archer.


 * I have dedicated the play to you.


 * I am honoured.

And hope that one or two monologues and perhaps an aside will not blind you to other merits, should any be discoverable.


 * And you are pleased with The Apostle, now that you have finished it to the last revision of the last comma?

No correspondence with managers, no rehearsals, no withdrawing the play from rehearsals—an admirable play!


 * But from what you told me and from what I saw in your first draft the play seemed to me designed for the stage.

The stage was in my mind as fourteen lines are in the mind of him who sits down to write a sonnet.


 * The characters of Jesus and His Apostle are treated with much reverence; the Archbishops could hardly have treated them with more, and, the Censor being no longer adamantine, it might be worth while asking a management to send the play to the Censor's office.

There is not an irreverent word in the play, but I doubt if the Censor could pass it even if he wished to do so.


 * You may be right, in that a Jesus who does not die on the cross conflicts too flagrantly with current theology.

The play may be acted in America; America is full of Unitarians. It may be acted in Germany, or in Paris, even in England privately; if I have succeeded in representing St Paul in all his instincts and attributions, he will not escape the ambition of a great actor.


 * Who will know little ease till he has been seen in the part, which he will, mayhap, illuminate by his genius. You are content to wait?


 * I do not attach overmuch importance to a performance.