Henry James’s second play was like his first, a dramatization of one of his own stories, a stage-version of the ‘American.’ It was more fortunate than the stage-version of ‘Daisy Miller,’ in that it did thrust itself into the theater, where it lived only a brief life. It was produced in 1891 by Edward Compton in England, at first in the provinces and then for a few performances in London. When he commenced playwriting Henry James did not appreciate that it is a more difficult task to dramatize a novel than to compose an original play, since the author is necessarily unable to deal with his material as freely as he could if it were still molten and had not already been run into the mold of a narrative. Seemingly he made this discovery in due course; and he did not again attempt to turn any of his stories into plays. His third effort was an original piece, ‘Guy Domville,’ brought out by Sir George Alexander at the St. James’s Theater in 1895. That it failed to be favorably received and that it had to be withdrawn at the end of a month, was a grievous disappointment to the author,—a disappointment made more poignant by the gross discourtesy, not to call it wanton brutality, with which he was received by a portion of the audience when he was called before the curtain at the end of the first performance. It was perhaps due to this indignity that he did not publish the play which had failed on the stage in the natural expectation that it might please in the study, appealing from the noisy verdict of its spectators to the quieter judgment of its possible readers. He had already, the year before, printed in two volumes, entitled ‘Theatricals,’ four other comedies which he had vainly proffered to the managers,—‘Tenants,’ ‘Disengaged,’ the ‘Album,’ and the ‘Reprobate.’ One other play he turned into a tale, called ‘Covering End,’ published in 1898. Here he was not contending with any insuperable difficulty in transposition, since the novel may very well be dramatic, whereas the play shrinks in abhorrence from any tincture of the epic. The drama never lost its attraction for Henry James, but he was repelled, as well as repulsed, by the theater, wherein it has its domicile. In 1893 he wrote to his brother: The whole odiousness of the thing lies in the connection between the drama and the theater; the one is admirable in its interest and its difficulty, the other loathsome in its conditions. If the drama could only be theoretically or hypothetically acted, the fascination resident in its all but unconquerable form would be unimpaired, and one would be able to have the exquisite exercise without the horrid sacrifice. This was a suggestion natural enough in a retiring and fastidious artist in letters, but inconceivable in the mouth of any born playwright, Shakspere or Molière, Sheridan or Beaumarchais, in whom the pain was physicked by the labor they delighted in.