Page:Mr. Bunt.pdf/142

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AFTERWORD

Mr. Remsen has honored me by an invita tion to write a footnote to MR. BUNT. I have heard the play read and seen it acted; but there has been, of course in the midst of its simultaneous production and publication - no copy available for bystanders to read; nor indeed, had there been, would there have been due time to read it—at least to read it aright, for the play demands and deserves a quiet and unhurried mind. So all that I can say is said from those two memories, of hearing it read and seeing it played.

When, a week or two before its production, the author read it to his producing staff and let me listen, no one who was present - even if, like myself, he had before known at first hand none of Mr. Remsen's plays, nor indeed any of his writings - could but recognize that here was some thing with a real reason for existence: the things said were things that mattered; they were mellow, they were radiant and wise, they were infinitely tender, and they were said with rapture.

Its dramatic qualities were harder to judge; but there seemed, perhaps, faults in the architecture, a lack of structural unity, almost, it might be,