James Matthew Barrie

Dear Brutus James Matthew Barrie

The scene is a darkened room, which the curtain reveals so stealthily that ifthere was a mouse on the stage it is there still. Our object is to catch our twochief characters unawares; they are Darkness and Light. The room is so obscure as to be invisible, but at the back of the obscurity areFrench windows, through which is seen Lob's garden bathed in moon-shine. The Darkness and Light, which this room and garden represent, are very still, but we should feel that it is only the pause in which old enemies regard eachother before they come to the grip. The moonshine stealing about among theflowers, to give them their last instructions, has left a smile upon them, but itis a smile with a menace in it for the dwellers in darkness. What we expect tosee next is the moonshine slowly pushing the windows open, so that it maywhisper to a confederate in the house, whose name is Lob. But though wemay be sure that this was about to happen it does not happen; a stir amongthe dwellers in darkness prevents it. These unsuspecting ones are in the dining-room, and as a communicatingdoor opens we hear them at play. Several tenebrious shades appear in thelighted doorway and hesitate on the two steps that lead down into the unlitroom. The fanciful among us may conceive a rustle at the same momentamong the flowers. The engagement has begun, though not in the way wehad intended