h success. A somewhat similar story of financial ruin,
the grimly powerful _House with the Green Shutters_, has not even
tempted the dramatiser. There are, in this novel, indeed, many
potentially dramatic crises; the trouble is that they are too numerous
and individually too small to be suitable for theatrical presentment.
Moreover, they are crises affecting a taciturn and inarticulate race,[3]
a fact which places further difficulties in the way of the playwright.
In all these cases, in short, the bankruptcy portrayed is a matter of
slow development, with no great outstanding moments, and is consequently
suited for treatment in fiction rather than in drama.

But bankruptcy sometimes occurs in the form of one or more sudden, sharp
crises, and has, therefore, been utilized again and again as a dramatic
motive. In a hundred domestic dramas or melodramas, we have seen the
head of a happy household open a newspaper or a telegram announcing the
failure of some enterprise in which all his fortune is embarked. So
obviously dramatic is this incident that it has become sadly hackneyed.
Again, we have bankruptcy following upon a course of gambling, generally
in stocks. Here there is evident opportunity, which has been frequently
utilized, for a series of crises of somewhat violent and commonplace
emotion. In American drama especially, the duels of Wall Street, the
combats of bull and bear, form a very popular theme, which clearly falls
under the Brunetiere formula. Few American dramatists can resist the
temptation of showing some masterful financier feverishly watching the
"ticker" which proclaims him a millionaire or a beggar. The "ticker" had
not been invented in the days when Ibsen wrote _The League of Youth_,
otherwise he would doubtless have made use of it in the fourth act of
that play. The most popular of all Bjoernson's plays is specifically
entitled _A Bankruptcy_. Here the poet has had the art to select a
typical phase of business life, which naturally presents itself in the
form of an ascending curve, so to speak, of emotional crises. We see the
energetic, active business man, with a number of irons in the fire,
aware in his heart that he is insolvent, but not absolutely clear as to
his position, and hoping against hope to retrieve it. We see him give a
great dinner-party, in order to throw dust in the eyes of the world, and
to secure the support of a financial magnate, who is the guest of
honour. The financial magnate i