Now this need for universality――for the thing with a wide appeal not limited to this or that class or character of intellect――has its effect, I think, on the actual form of the dialogue, though I freely admit that is an effect extremely hard to measure and define with any approach to accuracy. It in no way excludes individuality or even whimsicality, whether in situation or dialogue. The writer who is probably the most successful living British dramatist to-day is also probably the most individual and the most whimsical. It in no way demands undue concession to the commonplace――but it does, I think, require that the dialogue shall be in some sense in the vulgar tongue――that it shall be understanded of the people. The thing need not be seen or put as the audience would see or put it, but it must be seen and put as the audience can understand that character seeing and putting it. It must not be perverse, or too mannered, or too obscure. It may not be allowed so much licence in this respect as book-dialogue, if only for the reason that its effect has to be much more immediate――there can be no such thing as reading the speech over again the better to grasp its meaning――a necessity not unknown in novel reading. Its appeal is immediate, or it is nothing at all. It must also be, above all things, natural――and this again is on the stage even more pre-eminently requisite than in the written page――if only for the reason that the speaker is more vividly realized on the stage, and the author less vividly remembered――so that any discrepancy between the speaker as he lives before you and the particular thing he says is more glaringly apparent. And, as a corollary to this necessity for naturalness, follows the need for full and distinct differentiation of character. The dialogue must clearly attach to each character in the play his point of view and must consistently maintain it. On the whole therefore we may say that the universality of appeal which the stage demands operates on the form of the dialogue by way of imposing upon it certain obligations of straightforwardness of effect, of lucidity and immediateness in appeal, and of naturalness and exact appropriateness to the speaker――obligations which exist for book-dialogue also, but are less stringent and less peremptory there than in the theatre.