symmetrically, one on either hand, and implore her
rather to bear the ills she has than to fly to others that she knows not
of. "Symmetry of symmetries, all is symmetry" in the poetics of M.
Brieux. But life does not fall into such obvious patterns. The
obligatory scene which is imposed upon us, not by the logic of life, but
by the logic of demonstration, is not a _scene a faire_, but a _scene
a fuir_.

Mr. Bernard Shaw, in some sense the Brieux of the English theatre, is
not a man to be dominated by logic, or by anything else under the sun.
He has, however, given us one or two excellent examples of the
obligatory scene in the true and really artistic sense of the term. The
scene of Candida's choice between Eugene and Morell crowns the edifice
of _Candida_ as nothing else could. Given the characters and their
respective attitudes towards life, this sententious thrashing-out of the
situation was inevitable. So, too, in _Mrs. Warren's Profession_, the
great scene of the second act between Vivie and her mother is a superb
example of a scene imposed by the logic of the theme. On the other hand,
in Mr. Henry Arthur Jones's finely conceived, though unequal, play,
_Michael and his Lost Angel_, we miss what was surely an obligatory
scene. The play is in fact a contest between the paganism of Audrie
Lesden and the ascetic, sacerdotal idealism of Michael Feversham. In the
second act, paganism snatches a momentary victory; and we confidently
expect, in the third act, a set and strenuous effort on Audrie's part to
break down in theory the ascetic ideal which has collapsed in practice.
It is probable enough that she might not succeed in dragging her lover
forth from what she regards as the prison-house of a superstition; but
the logic of the theme absolutely demands that she should make the
attempt. Mr. Jones has preferred to go astray after some comparatively
irrelevant and commonplace matter, and has thus left his play
incomplete. So, too, in _The Triumph of the Philistines_, Mr. Jones
makes the mistake of expecting us to take a tender interest in a pair of
lovers who have had never a love-scene to set our interest agoing. They
are introduced to each other in the first act, and we shrewdly suspect
(for in the theatre we are all inveterate match-makers) that they are
going to fall in love; but we have not the smallest positive evidence of
the fact before we find, in the second act, that misunderstandings have
arisen, and the lady d