| Introduction by Augustus Thomas The Autobiography of a Play by Bronson Howard Notes by B. M. |
The qualities that made Bronson Howard a dramatist, and then made himthe first American dramatist of his day, were his human sympathy, hisperception, his sense of proportion, and his construction. With hisperception, his proportion, and his construction, respectively, he couldhave succeeded as a detective, as an artist, or as a general. It was hishuman sympathy, his wish and his ability to put himself in the otherman's place, that made play-writing definitely attractive to him. As asoldier he would have shown the courage of the dogged defender in thetrench or the calmly supervising general at headquarters, rather thanthe mad bravery that carried the flag at the front of a forlorn hope.His gifts were intellectual. His writing was more disciplined thaninspired. If we shall claim for him genius, it must be preferably thegenius of infinite pains.
He saw intimately and clearly. His proportion made him write withdiscretion and a proper sense of cumulative emphasis, and hisconstruction enabled him so to combine his materials as to secure thiseffect. He was intensely self-critical; and while almost without conceitconcerning his own work, he had an accuracy of detached estimation thatenabled him to stand by his own opinion with a proper inflexibility whenhis judgment convinced him that the opinion was correct.
He worked slowly. At one time, in his active period, it was his customto go from New York, where he lived, to New Rochelle, where he hadformerly lived. There, upon the rear end of a suburban lot, he had aplain board cabin not more than ten feet square. In it were a dealtable, a hard chair, and a small stove. He would go to this cabin in themorning when the tide of suburban travel was setting the other way, andspend his entire day there with his manuscript and his cigars. Hecarried a small lunch from his home. He once told me he was satisfiedwith his day's work if it provided him with ten good lines that wouldnot have to be abandoned. I did not take that statement to imply thatthere were not in his experience the more profitable days that are inthe work of every writer—days when the subject seems to command thepen and when the hand cannot keep pace with the vision. He was often toosaturated with his story, too much the prisoner of his people, for it tohave been otherwise; but his training had verified for him the truththat easy writing is hard reading.
Then, too, while Bronson Howard arranged his characters for the eye andbuilt his story for the judgment, he wrote his speeches for the ear.This attention to the cadence of a line was so essential to him thatwhen writing as he sometimes did for a magazine he studied the sound ofhis phrase as if the print were to be read aloud. This same care for thedialog would retard its production; and critical revision would enforcestill further delay.
William Gillette once said to an interviewer that "plays were notwritten, but were rewritten." The experience of many play-wrights wouldsupport that statement.