Do you know those books and
stories in which parts of the dialogues often have no words at all?
Only dots and dashes and asterisks and interrogations? I wonder what
the people are paid for it? If I knew I would earn a mint of money,
for I believe I have a talent for it. Look at this -
There. That seems to me worth a good deal more money than all the
modern 'delineation of character', and 'folk' nonsense ever written.
What verve! What terseness! And yet how clear!
LECTOR. Let us be getting on.
AUCTOR. By all means, and let us consider more enduring things.
After a few miles the road going upwards, I passed through another gap
in the hills and -
LECTOR. Pardon me, but I am still ruminating upon that little tragedy
of yours. Why was the guardian a duchess?
AUCTOR. Well, it was a short play and modern, was it not?
LECTOR. Yes. And therefore, of course, you must have a title in it. I
know that. I do not object to it. What I want to know is, why a
duchess?
AUCTOR. On account of the reduction of scale: the concentration of the
thing. You see in the full play there would have been a lord, two
baronets, and say three ladies, and I could have put suitable words
into their mouths.
