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ACT I It is noon. In the Underwoods' dining-room a bright fire isburning. On one side of the fireplace are double-doors leadingto the drawing-room, on the other side a door leading to thehall. In the centre of the room a long dining-table without acloth is set out as a Board table. At the head of it, in theChairman's seat, sits JOHN ANTHONY, an old man, big,clean-shaven, and high-coloured,... more...

THE TURN OF THE ROAD. Mrs. Granahan.Is that the whole of them now Ellen?Ellen.Yes that's all now but one.She goes across to grandfather and lifts the plate.Have you finished granda?Grandfather.Yes dearie I have done.He pauses and fumbles for his pipe, &c.Is'nt that a fiddle I'm hearing?Ellen.Yes. Robbie's playing the fiddle in the low room. Mrs. Granahan.Arranging plates on... more...

The Drone A COMEDY IN THREE ACTS ACT I. Scene: The farm kitchen of John Murray. It is large and spacious, with a wide open fire-place to the right. At the back is one door leading to the parlour and other rooms in the house, also a large window overlooking the yard outside. To the left of this window is the door leading into the yard, and near the door an old-fashioned grandfather's clock.... more...

PROLOGUE. Scene.—A Russian Inn. Large door opening on snowy landscape at back of stage. Peter Sabouroff and Michael. Peter (warming his hands at a stove). Has Vera not come back yet, Michael? Mich. No, Father Peter, not yet; 'tis a good three miles to the post office, and she has to milk the cows besides, and that dun one is a rare plaguey creature for a wench to handle. Peter. Why didn't... more...

SCENE 1 SCENE—A room with lighted fire, and a door into the open air, through which one sees, perhaps, the trees of a wood, and these trees should be painted in flat colour upon a gold or diapered sky. The walls are of one colour. The scene should have the effect of missal Painting. MARY, a woman of forty years or so, is grinding a quern. MARY. What can have made the grey hen flutter so? (TEIG, a boy... more...

INTRODUCTION The greatest of English dramatists except Shakespeare, the first literary dictator and poet-laureate, a writer of verse, prose, satire, and criticism who most potently of all the men of his time affected the subsequent course of English letters: such was Ben Jonson, and as such his strong personality assumes an interest to us almost unparalleled, at least in his age. Ben Jonson came of the... more...

THE FIRST ACT. Debt The scene is a conservatory built and decorated in Moorish style, in the house of the Rt. Hon. Sir Julian Twombley, M.P., Chesterfield Gardens, London. A fountain is playing, and tall palms lend their simple elegance to the elaborate Algerian magnificence of the place. The drawing-rooms are just beyond the curtained entrances. It is a May afternoon. Brooke Twombley, a good-looking... more...

PREFACE A preface to a play seems generally to be considered as a kind of closet-prologue, in which—if his piece has been successful—the author solicits that indulgence from the reader which he had before experienced from the audience: but as the scope and immediate object of a play is to please a mixed assembly in representation (whose judgment in the theatre at least is decisive,) its degree of... more...

INTRODUCTORY NOTE ROBERT BROWNING stands, in respect to his origin and his career, in marked contrast to the two aristocratic poets beside whose dramas his "Blot in the 'Scutcheon" is here printed. His father was a bank clerk and a dissenter at a time when dissent meant exclusion from Society; the poet went neither to one of the great public schools nor to Oxford or Cambridge; and no... more...

ACT I. Scene 1—Drawing room in 3. Trenchard Manor, C. D., backed by interior, discovering table with luncheon spread. Large French window, R. 3 E., through which a fine English park is seen. Open archway, L. 3 E. Set balcony behind. Table, R., books and papers on it. Work basket containing wools and embroidery frame. A fashionable arm chair and sofa, L. 2 E., small table near C. D. Stage handsomely... more...