ad his wits about him he would say: "I
know this dodge: it comes from Sardou. Lady Saumarez has just slipped
out by that door, up R., and if I look about I shall certainly find her
fan, or her glove, or her handkerchief somewhere on the premises." The
author may object that such criticism would end in paralysing the
playwright, and that, if men always profited by the lessons of the
stage, the world would long ago have become so wise that there would be
no more room in it for drama, which lives on human folly. "You will tell
me next," he may say, "that I must not make groundless jealousy the
theme of a play, because every one who has seen Othello would at once
detect the machinations of an Iago!" The retort is logically specious,
but it mistakes the point. It would certainly be rash to put any limit
to human gullibility, or to deny that Sir William Saumarez, in the given
situation, might conceivably be hoodwinked. The question is not one of
psychology but of theatrical expediency: and the point is that when a
situation is at once highly improbable in real life and exceedingly
familiar on the stage, we cannot help mentally caricaturing it as it
proceeds, and are thus prevented from lending it the provisional
credence on which interest and emotion depend.

An instructive contrast to _The Degenerates_ may be found in a nearly
contemporary play, _Mrs. Dane's Defence_, by Mr. Henry Arthur Jones. The
first three acts of this play may be cited as an excellent example of
dexterous preparation and development. Our interest in the sequence of
events is aroused, sustained, and worked up to a high tension with
consummate skill. There is no feverish overcrowding of incident, as is
so often the case in the great French story-plays--_Adrienne
Lecouvreur_, for example, or _Fedora_. The action moves onwards,
unhasting, unresting, and the finger-posts are placed just where they
are wanted.

The observance of a due proportion between preparation and result is a
matter of great moment. Even when the result achieved is in itself very
remarkable, it may be dearly purchased by a too long and too elaborate
process of preparation. A famous play which is justly chargeable with
this fault is _The Gay Lord Quex_. The third act is certainly one of the
most breathlessly absorbing scenes in modern drama; but by what long,
and serpentine, and gritty paths do we not approach it! The elaborate
series of trifling incidents by means of which Sophy Fullgar