place either in literature or on the stage. It
is still open to the philosophic dramatist to write a logical _Pygmalion
and Galatea_.

* * * * *

[Footnote 1: I am here writing from memory, having been unable to obtain
a copy of _The City_; but my memory is pretty clear.]

_CHAPTER XVII_

KEEPING A SECRET

It has been often and authoritatively laid down that a dramatist must on
no account keep a secret from his audience. Like most authoritative
maxims, this one seems to require a good deal of qualification. Let us
look into the matter a little more closely.

So far as I can see, the strongest reason against keeping a secret is
that, try as you may, you cannot do it. This point has already been
discussed in Chapter IX, where we saw that from only one audience can a
secret be really hidden, a considerable percentage of any subsequent
audience being certain to know all about it in advance. The more
striking and successful is the first-night effect of surprise, the more
certainly and rapidly will the report of it circulate through all strata
of the theatrical public. But for this fact, one could quite well
conceive a fascinating melodrama constructed, like a detective story,
with a view to keeping the audience in the dark as long as possible. A
pistol shot might ring out just before the rise of the curtain: a man
(or woman) might be discovered in an otherwise empty room, weltering in
his (or her) gore: and the remainder of the play might consist in the
tracking down of the murderer, who would, of course, prove to be the
very last person to be suspected. Such a play might make a great
first-night success; but the more the author relied upon the mystery for
his effect, the more fatally would that effect be discounted at each
successive repetition.

One author of distinction, M. Hervieu, has actually made the experiment
of presenting an enigma--he calls the play _L'Enigme_--and reserving the
solution to the very end. We know from the outset that one of two
sisters-in-law is unfaithful to her husband, and the question is--which?
The whole ingenuity of the author is centred on keeping the secret, and
the spectator who does not know it in advance is all the time in the
attitude of a detective questing for clues. He is challenged to guess
which of the ladies is the frail one; and he is far too intent on this
game to think or care about the emotional process of the play. I myself
(I r