The curtain fell, rose a foot from the floor, and disclosed a row of legs—legs—legs—twinkling across behind the footlights. Into those legs was concentrated the infinite sorcery of the theatre.... But it was time to go home. It was time to re-enter the world of reality.—Another leg appeared, the eloquent left leg of the tall slapstick comedian, clothed round with heavy woolen drawers and clasped by a Boston garter. It seemed to say: “After all, my friends, a leg is only a leg!” The spell was broken, and the audience began slowly to file out into the dusty street.
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FELIX, having torn up all his previous attempts, was again at work upon a play. It seemed clear to him now that plays were not written to please the author: they were written to please the public.
There was plenty of time to work, now. They were seeing hardly anybody that summer. Clive came occasionally, and they spent a few week-ends at his place in Woods Point. They did not see Phyllis, for she was still at the normal school, having heroically decided to shorten the term of her training by taking the summer course. Dorothy Sheridan came once or twice to their studio before leaving to spend the summer in some eastern fishing village where things were very “paintable.” Howard Morgan had dropped in one evening to smoke a cigarette with them. They had made the acquaintance of a taciturn etcher in the studio next door, and of an unhappily married boy-painter who lived around the corner and who used sometimes to take refuge from domestic infelicities in a cup of their coffee....
It seemed to Felix that in these idle summer months, with life flowing lazily past in the sunshine, he should be able to accomplish something in play-writing. Certainly there was nothing else to distract or excite him.
He went about his task soberly and conscientiously this time. He undertook to learn how plays were written. He read books on “play-construction.” He even, conquering his instinctive distaste, studied the methods of Pinero and H. A. Jones. Their plays bored him ineffably—they seemed trite, false, vulgar and dull. But the public had liked them, and doubtless they had something to teach him.