R,CHARD MONCKTON MILNES was born in the year - OUDL Home

176 Harley Granville-Barkerwrites, and whatever else he may lack, it will not beemotion. His determination in Bothwell to leave nothingunsaid, cannot result in that most selective of literaryforms, a play; but it is amazing how much emotionalpressure he can sustain behind the hundred-line, twohundred,three-hundred-line speeches from which hepours history. When the work was in the doing he wouldvisit his friends, an act or two under his arm, and amazethem by 'shrieking, thundering, whispering, fluting'through scene after scene of it, far into the night. Theywere left stunned or sleeping, one supposes; incapable,certainly, of any such thing as 'delighted attention'after an hour or more's buffeting by the charged monotonousverse. One gratefully borrows Mr MiddletonMurry's phrase and, reading the play now, only wishesthat Swinburne could have profited by his dictum.Again, open the book almost at random:Tell him, night and dayAnd fear and hope are grown one thing to meSave for his sake: and say mine hours and thoughtsAre as one fire devouring grain by grainThis pile of tares and drift of crumbling brandsThat shrivels up in the slow breath of timeThe part of life that keeps me far from him.The heap of dusty days that sunder usI would I could burn all at once awayAnd our lips meet across the wild red flameThence unconsumed, being made a keener fireThan any burns on earth. Say that mine eyesAche with my heart and thirst with all my veins,Requiring him they have not. Say my lifeIs but as sleep and my sleep very lifeThat dreams upon him...and so on for a hundred and ninety lines more. It isMary's message to Bothwell. The thing soon becomes intolerable.As the old country saying has it: ' Tisn't thehunting nor the hurdles that makes the holes in thehorses' hoofs, 'tis the hammer, hammer, hammer, on the