words they use. If you read a play――not seeing the actors――and if the author has given no stage-directions as to how the characters look or speak――as to whether they show anger or fright, or pleasure, or surprise, for instance, you will find, I think, that you have to read with an increased degree of attention――perhaps I may say of sympathetic imagination――and that, even with this brought to bear, you will sometimes be in doubt. So with novel dialogue. If the author denied himself description or comment interlarded with the actual words spoken, he would set a harder task both to his own skill and to the reader’s intelligence. The comments of the novelist, like the ‘business’ of the playwright, clothe the skeleton of the actually spoken words with a living form, expressing itself in action, in gesture, by frowns or smiles, by tears or laughter. I have little doubt that if we possessed not only Shakespeare’s words, but Shakespeare’s ‘business’, many a controversy as to the exact meaning of this passage or that, many a question as to the precise character or mental condition of this or that of his _dramatis personae_, could never have arisen――and many learned, and possibly some tedious, books would have gone unwritten. Now, so far as I know――but I hasten to add that I am not a wide reader of plays, though I am much addicted to seeing them acted――Mr. Bernard Shaw was the first among English dramatists to see and exploit fully the possibilities of stage-directions in helping the imagination of those who read, as distinct from those who see, his plays. Some of his stage-directions are, in my humble opinion, among the best things he has ever done――terse, humorous, incisive, complete――see, for example, his description of Mrs. Warren. But novelists were quicker to see the possibility of their stage-directions, their comments on moods, their descriptions of the actions or the gestures accompanying the spoken words. When you talk to a man or woman, you don’t shut your eyes and merely listen to the voice. You do listen carefully to the voice――since he may say ‘Yes’ as if he really meant it, or as if he only half-meant it, or as if he meant just the opposite――but you also watch his eyes and his mouth――and in moments of strong excitement it is recorded of many a villain that his fingers twitched, and of many a heroine that her bosom heaved; so fingers and bosoms are worth watching too. Now the point is that a skilful use of these stage-directions can not only immensely assist the meaning of novel dialogue, but can also add enormously to its artistic value and merit. It can diffuse an atmosphere, impart a hint, create an interest by a dexterous suspending of the answer. This last is, from a professional point of view, a particularly pretty trick――it’s not much more than a trick, but let us call it a literary device――and Sterne brought it to great perfection――and knew well what he was doing. I will make bold to quote