unhesitatingly reckon the fourth act of _Mrs. Dane's
Defence_. It would not have been difficult, but surely most inartistic,
to huddle up the action in five minutes after Mrs. Dane's tragic
collapse under Sir Daniel Carteret's cross-examination. She might have
taken poison and died in picturesque contortions on the sofa; or Lionel
might have defied all counsels of prudence and gone off with her in
spite of her past; or she might have placed Lionel's hand in Janet's,
saying: "The game is up. Bless you, my children. I am going into the
nearest nunnery." As a matter of fact, Mr. Jones brought his action to
its natural close in a quiet, sufficiently adroit, last act; and I do
not see that criticism has any just complaint to make.

In recent French drama, _La Douloureuse_, already cited, affords an
excellent instance of a quiet last act. After the violent and
heartrending rupture between the lovers in the third act, we feel that,
though this paroxysm of pain is justified by the circumstances, it will
not last for ever, and Philippe and Helene will come together again.
This is also M. Donnay's view; and he devotes his whole last act, quite
simply, to a duologue of reconciliation. It seems to me a fault of
proportion, however, that he should shift his locality from Paris to the
Riviera, and should place the brief duologue in a romantic woodland
scene. An act of anticlimax should be treated, so to speak, as
unpretentiously as possible. To invent an elaborate apparatus for it is
to emphasize the anticlimax by throwing it into unnecessary relief.

This may be a convenient place for a few words on the modern fashion of
eschewing emphasis, not only in last acts, but at every point where the
old French dramaturgy demanded it, and especially in act-endings.
_Punch_ has a pleasant allusion to this tendency in two suggested
examination-papers for an "Academy of Dramatists":

A--FOR THE CLASSICAL SIDE ONLY.
1. What is a "curtain"; and how should it be led up to?

B--FOR THE MODERN SIDE ONLY.
1. What is a "curtain"; and how can it be avoided?

Some modern playwrights have fled in a sort of panic from the old
"picture-poster situation" to the other extreme of always dropping their
curtain when the audience least expects it. This is not a practice to be
commended. One has often seen an audience quite unnecessarily chilled by
a disconcerting "curtain." There should be moderation even in the
shrinking from theatricality.