E-text prepared by Roger Frank
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“If he wanted to fight, he’d hardly be in an office”
SECRET SERVICE
IN RICHMOND IN THE SPRING OF 1865
DONE INTO BOOK FORM FROM
THE PLAY BY
WILLIAM GILLETTE
By
CYRUS TOWNSEND BRADY
Illustrated by
THE KINNEYS
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS
DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
Published, January, 1912
TO
The many people of the stage, personally known and unknownby me, who have so often interested, amused, instructed, andinspired me by their presentations of life in all its infinitevariety. They are a much misunderstood people by thepublic generally, and I take this occasion to testify that,in my wide acquaintance with stage people, I havefound them as gentle, as generous, as refined, andas considerate as any group of people with whomI have associated in my long and varied career.
Once upon a time a novel of mine was turnedinto a play. The dramatist who prepared thestory for stage production sent me a copy ofhis efforts toward that end. About the onlypoint of resemblance between his productionand mine was the fact that they both bore thesame title, the hero in each had the same name,and the action in both cases took place on thisearth.
I was a young author then, and timid. I venturedhumbly to enquire why the drama differedso entirely from the novel; and this ingenious,I might almost say ingenuous, explanation wasvouchsafed me:
“Well, to tell you the truth, after I had reada chapter or two of your book, I lost it, and I justwrote the play from my own imagination.”
I do not wish to criticise the results of hisefforts, for he has since proved himself to be adramatist of skill and ability, but to describethat particular effort as a dramatisation of mybook was absurd. Incidentally, it was absurd inother ways and, fortunately for the reputationof both of us, it never saw the light.
When my dear friends, the publishers, askedme to turn this play into a novel, I recalled myexperience of by-gone days, and the idea flashedinto my mind that here was an opportunity toget even, but I am a preacher as well as a story-writer,and in either capacity I found I couldnot do it. Frankly, I did not want to do it.
My experience, however, has made me perhapsunduly sensitive, and I determined, sinceI had undertaken this work, to make it representMr. Gillette’s remarkable and brilliant play asfaithfully as I could, and I have done so. I haveused my own words only in those slight changesnecessitated by book presentation instead of