To produce such a work would be a step up. It would present him as an actor in a new light. He would encourage a deeper-thinking public. He would, ipso facto, become a modern. Modern influences were afoot on the stage nowadays, and he, Eliphalet, still floundered in the dead seas of rodomontade. Why should he live in the past, when here was “A Man’s Way” to lead him to the future? Eliphalet sat up in bed and lit the candle. Somewhere in the second act were some lines that struck the key-note of what was and what had been. They arose from where a poor, half-starved penitent came with a piteous tale to tell, and he, the doctor, made answer, “It’ll keep, won’t it? Get some grub and a good sleep. We’ll fix the rest in the morning.”
Eliphalet suddenly remembered a play he had done years and years before, in which a somewhat similar scene occurred, in which he had said, “Not to-night, my brother. Your body needs nourishment, your brain needs rest. Go—take what my poor dwelling has to offer. Eat, sleep, and pray to Him to visit your dreams with peace.”
Probably for the first time in his life it dawned on Eliphalet Cardomay that this kind of talk was bosh—stilted bosh. People didn’t say things like that; wherefore it was sheer dishonesty to proclaim such stuff to an audience.
He would have done with this nonsense—he would rise superior to these absurd stage conventions, and for the future devote himself solely to reproducing the actualities of life and the actualities of speech. And having arrived at this sensational resolve, Eliphalet rose, donned a dressing-gown and seating himself at the little davenport desk by the window, drew pen and paper towards him.
Finally and absolutely he had made up his mind he would “do” “A Man’s Way,” and then and there he wrote to Mr. Theodore Lennard and said that, though his work had made a distinctly favourable impression, he could see no prospects immediate or otherwise of producing the play. Nevertheless it might be to their mutual advantage to meet and discuss the matter.
This done, he paddled across the moonlit street in gown and carpet slippers, and dropped the letter into the pillar-box at the corner, and it was not until he heard it fluttering down against the iron sides of its cage that the first doubt assailed him.
It was a gentle night and warm. Fifty yards away the iron railings of the esplanade traced black lines across the luminous sea.
Eliphalet forgot his unconventional attire, and a few moments later was leaning over the railings, listening to the swish and rustle of the pebbles as the water washed them to and fro.
“The same old sea,” he thought, “just the same as ever—unchangeable—from Christ’s time to mine.” Then aloud, and with startling emphasis, “Get some grub and a good sleep—we can fix the rest in the morning. I don’t know,” said Eliphalet, “really I don’t know. ‘Eat, sleep and pray to Him to visit your dreams with peace.’ ”
Realism and Art—if it were Art.