to them
with terrible distinctness, "The crutch is floating!" It would be hard
to name any single phrase in literature in which more dramatic effect is
concentrated than in these four words--they are only two words in the
original. However dissimilar in its nature and circumstances, this
incident is comparable with the death of Othello, inasmuch as in each
case the poet, by a supreme felicity of invention, has succeeded in
doing a given thing in absolutely the most dramatic method conceivable.
Here we recognize in a consummate degree what has been called the
"fingering of the dramatist"; and I know not how better to express the
common quality of the two incidents than in saying that each is touched
with extraordinary crispness, so as to give to what in both cases has
for some time been expected and foreseen a sudden thrill of novelty and
unexpectedness. That is how to do a thing dramatically.[6]

And now, after all this discussion of the "dramatic" in theme and
incident, it remains to be said that the tendency of recent theory, and
of some recent practice, has been to widen the meaning of the word,
until it bursts the bonds of all definition. Plays have been written,
and have found some acceptance, in which the endeavour of the dramatist
has been to depict life, not in moments of crisis, but in its most level
and humdrum phases, and to avoid any crispness of touch in the
presentation of individual incidents. "Dramatic," in the eyes of writers
of this school, has become a term of reproach, synonymous with
"theatrical." They take their cue from Maeterlinck's famous essay on
"The Tragic in Daily Life," in which he lays it down that: "An old man,
seated in his armchair, waiting patiently, with his lamp beside
him--submitting with bent head to the presence of his soul and his
destiny--motionless as he is, does yet live in reality a deeper, more
human, and more universal life than the lover who strangles his
mistress, the captain who conquers in battle, or the husband who
'avenges his honour.'" They do not observe that Maeterlinck, in his own
practice, constantly deals with crises, and often with violent and
startling ones.

At the same time, I am far from suggesting that the reaction against the
traditional "dramatic" is a wholly mistaken movement. It is a valuable
corrective of conventional theatricalism; and it has, at some points,
positively enlarged the domain of dramatic art. Any movement is good
which helps to free a