Does this sound like an individual woman or like the author using one of his characters for the sounding phrases of his own thinking?
In the next illustration, from George Barnwell, the colorlessness comes from the lack of quickening sympathy with character which marks most of Lillo’s work.
Thorowgood. Thou know’st I have no heir, no child but thee; the fruits of many years successful industry must all be thine. Now, it would give me pleasure great as my love, to see on whom you would bestow it. I am daily solicited by men of the greatest rank and merit for leave to address you; but I have hitherto declin’d it, in hopes that by observation I shou’d learn which way your inclination tends; for as I know love to be essential to happiness in the marriage state, I had rather my approbation should confirm your choice than direct it.
Maria. What can I say? How shall I answer, as I ought, this tenderness, so uncommon even in the best of parents? But you are without example; yet had you been less indulgent, I had been most wretched. That I look on the croud of courtiers that visit here with equal esteem, but equal indifference, you have observed, and I must needs confess; yet had you asserted your authority, and insisted on a parent’s right to be obey’d, I had submitted and to my duty sacrificed my peace.
Thor. From your perfect obedience in every other instance, I fear’d as much; and therefore wou’d leave you without a byass in an affair wherein your happiness is so immediately concern’d.
Ma. Whether from a want of that just ambition that wou’d become your daughter, or from some other cause, I know not; but I find high birth and titles don’t recommend the man who owns them to my affections.
Thor. I wou’d not that they shou’d, unless his merit recommends him more. A noble birth and fortune, tho’ they make not a bad man good, yet they are a real advantage to a worthy one, and place his virtues in the fairest light.
Ma. I cannot answer for my inclinations, but they shall ever be submitted to your wisdom and authority; and, as you will not compel me to marry where I cannot love, so love shall never make me act contrary to my duty. Sir, I have your permission to retire?
Thor. I’ll see you to your chamber. (Exeunt.)[11]
Too often even somewhat skilled dramatists are led astray by the belief that to write in a style approved at the moment, or which they themselves hold beautiful, is better than to let the characters speak their own language. Examining the early plays of John Lyly—Alexander and Campaspe, Sapho and Phao, Endymion[12] (1579-1590)—we find in the more serious portions both action and characterization subordinated to standards of expression supposed at the time to be best. Contrasting the lovers’ dialogue of Love’s Labor’s Lost with the scenes of Orsino and Viola in Twelfth Night, we see perfect illustration of the greater effectiveness of dialogue growing out of the characters as compared with dialogue which puts style first. The Heroic Drama of the second half of the seventeenth century rested upon theory rather than reality. Here is the way in which Almahide and Almanzor state strong feeling.