“But then the novel, since the days of Scott, has so encroached upon the domain of the drama, and become so dramatic in form that the author who has ‘the sense of the theatre’ may express himself fairly well without tempting his fate in that most fascinating but often most fatal little world.”
Such was Mr. Caine’s opinion on the novelist as dramatist.
Hall Caine’s personality is too well known to need describing; but his handwriting is a marvel. He gets more into a page than any one I know, unless it be Whistler, Sydney Lee, or Zangwill. Mr. Caine’s calligraphy at a little distance looks like Chinese, it is beautifully neat and tidy—but most difficult to read. Like Frankfort Moore, Richard Le Gallienne, and a host of others, he scribbles with a small pad in his hand, or on his knee. Some people prefer writing in queer positions, cramped for room—others, on the contrary, require huge tables and vast space.
“John Oliver Hobbes” is the uneuphonious pseudonym chosen by Pearl Teresa Craigie, another of our novel-dramatists. She has hardly been as successful with her plays as with her brilliant books, and therefore it seems unlikely that she will discard the latter for the former. The world has smiled on Mrs. Craigie, for she was born of rich parents. Although an American she lives in London (Lancaster Gate), and has a charming house in the Isle of Wight. She has only one son, so is more or less independent, can travel about and do as she likes, therefore her thoughtful work and industry are all the more praiseworthy. Ability will out.
Mrs. Craigie is an extremely good-looking woman. She is petite, with chestnut hair and eyes; is always dressed in the latest gowns from Paris; has a charming voice; is musical and devoted to chess.
J. M. Barrie, one of the most successful of our novel dramatists, is most reticent about his work. He is a shy, retiring little man with a big brain and a charitable heart; but he dislikes publicity in every form. He seems almost ashamed to own that he writes, and he cannot bear his plays to be discussed—so when he says, “Please excuse me. I have such a distaste for saying or writing anything about my books or plays for publication; if it were not so I should do as you suggest with pleasure,” one’s hand is tied, and Mr. Barrie’s valuable opinion on the novel and the drama is lost.
It was a difficult problem to decide. Naturally the public expect much mention of J. M. Barrie among the playwrights of the day, for had he not four pieces running at London theatres at the same moment? But to make mention means to offend Mr. Barrie and lose a friend.
This famous author creates and writes, but no one must write about him. Whether his simple childhood, passed in a quaint little Scotch village, is the source of this reticence, or whether it is caused by the oppression of the fortune he has accumulated by his plays, no one discourses upon Mr. Barrie except at the risk of earning his grave displeasure. He is probably the most fantastic writer of the day, and most of the accounts of him have been as fantastic as his work. Thus the curtain cannot be lifted, while he smokes and dreams delicately pitiless sentiment behind the scenes so far as this volume is concerned.
“Anthony Hope” is another dramatic novelist. He began his career as a barrister, tried for Parliamentary honours, and failed; took to writing novels and succeeded, and now seems likely to end his days in the forefront of British dramatists.