and hearing what the actors say; these with deficient visual imagery should read novels and see the scenery.  But to say that the movies allow no scope for the imagination is absurd.  As I said at the outset, the movie play is just a play seen through the medium of a moving picture.  It is like seeing a drama near enough to note the slightest play of feature and at the same time so far away that the actors can not be heard—­somewhat like seeing a distant play through a fine telescope.  The action should therefore differ in no respect from what would be proper if the words were intended to be heard.  Doubtless this imposes a special duty upon both the author of the scenario and the producer, and they do not always respond to it.  Action is introduced that fails to be intelligible without the words, and to clear it up the actors are made to use pantomime.  Pantomime is an interesting and valuable form of dramatic art, but it is essentially symbolic and stagy and has, I believe, no place in the moving picture play as we have developed it.  If owing to the faulty construction of the play, or a lack of skill on the part of producer or actors, all sorts of gestures and grimaces become necessary that would not be required if the words were heard, the production can not be considered good.  Sometimes, of course, words are seen; though not heard.  The story of the deaf mutes who read the lips of the movie actors, and detected remarks not at all in consonance with the action of the play, is doubtless familiar.  It crops up in various places and is as ubiquitous as Washington’s Headquarters.  It is good enough to be true, but I have never run it to earth yet.  Even those of us who are not deaf-mutes, however, may detect an exclamation now and then and it gives great force to the action, though I doubt whether it is quite legitimate in a purely picture-play.

I beg leave to doubt whether realism is fostered by a method of production said to be in vogue among first rate producers; namely keeping actors in ignorance of the play and directing the action as it goes on.

“Come in now, Mr. Smith; sit in that chair; cross your legs; light a cigar; register perplexity; you hear a sound; jump to your feet”—­and so on.  This may save the producer trouble, but it reduces the actors to marionettes; it is not thus that masterpieces are turned out.

Is there any chance of a movie masterpiece, anyway?  Yes, but not in the direction that most producers see it.  What Vachell Lindsay calls “Splendor” in the movies is an interesting and striking feature of them—­the moving of masses of people amid great architectural construction—­sieges, triumphs, battles, mobs—­but all this is akin to scenery.  Its movements are like those of the trees or the surf.  One can not make a play entirely of scenery, though the contrary seems to be the view of some managers, even on the stage of the regular theatre.  So far, the individual acting and plot construction in the great spectacular