About the same time, there occurred one of
the most glaring instances within my recollection of inept
conventionalism. The hero of the play was Eugene Aram. Alone in his room
at dead of night, Aram heard Houseman breaking open the outside shutters
of the window. Designing to entrap the robber, what did he do? He went
up to the window and drew back the curtains, with a noise loud enough to
be heard in the next parish. It was inaudible, however, to Houseman on
the other side of the shutters. He proceeded with his work, opened the
window, and slipped in, Aram hiding in the shadow. Then, while Houseman
peered about him with his lantern, not six feet from Aram, and actually
between him and the audience, Aram indulged in a long and loud monologue
as to whether he should shoot Houseman or not, ending with a prayer to
heaven to save him from more blood-guiltiness! Such are the childish
excesses to which a playwright will presently descend when once he
begins to dally with facile convention.

An aside is intolerable because it is _not_ heard by the other person on
the stage: it outrages physical possibility. An overheard soliloquy, on
the other hand, is intolerable because it _is_ heard. It keeps within
the bounds of physical possibility, but it stultifies the only logical
excuse for the soliloquy, namely, that it is an externalization of
thought which would in reality remain unuttered. This point is so clear
that I need not insist upon it.

Are there, in modern drama, any admissible soliloquies? A few brief
ejaculations of joy, or despair, are, of course, natural enough, and no
one will cavil at them. The approach of mental disease is often marked
by a tendency to unrestrained loquacity, which goes on even while the
sufferer is alone; and this distressing symptom may, on rare occasions,
be put to artistic use. Short of actual derangement, however, there are
certain states of nervous surexcitation which cause even healthy people
to talk to themselves; and if an author has the skill to make us realize
that his character is passing through such a crisis, he may risk a
soliloquy, not only without reproach, but with conspicuous psychological
justification. In the third act of Clyde Fitch's play, _The Girl with
the Green Eyes_, there is a daring attempt at such a soliloquy, where
Jinny says: "Good Heavens! why am I maudling on like this to myself out
loud? It's really nothing--Jack will explain once more that he can't
explain"--and