ildish
things; but there was a sweetness about the naivete of childhood that we
can never quite regain. No longer do we dream ourselves in a garden of
springtide blossoms; we can only look upon canvas trees and paper flowers.
No longer are we charmed away to that imagined spot where journeys end in
lovers' meeting; we can only look upon love in a parlor and notice that the
furniture is natural. No longer do we harken to the rich resonance of the
Drama of Rhetoric; no longer do our minds kindle with the brilliant
epigrams of the Drama of Conversation. Good reading is disappearing from
the stage; and in its place we are left the devices of the stage-carpenter.

It would be absurd to deny that modern stagecraft has made possible in the
theatre many excellent effects that were not dreamt of in the philosophy of
Shakespeare. Sir Arthur Pinero's plays are better made than those of the
Elizabethans, and in a narrow sense hold the mirror up to nature more
successfully than theirs. But our latter-day fondness for natural
representment has afflicted us with one tendency that the Elizabethans were
luckily without. In our desire to imitate the actual facts of life, we
sometimes become near-sighted and forget the larger truths that underlie
them. We give our plays a definite date by founding them on passing
fashions; we make them of an age, not for all time. We discuss contemporary
social problems on the stage instead of the eternal verities lodged deep in
the general heart of man. We have outgrown our pristine simplicity, but we
have not yet arrived at the age of wisdom. Perhaps when playgoers have
progressed for another century or two, they may discard some of the
trappings and the suits of our present drama, and become again like little
children.

V

ECONOMY OF ATTENTION IN THEATRICAL PERFORMANCES

I

According to the late Herbert Spencer, the sole source of force in writing
is an ability to economise the attention of the reader. The word should be
a window to the thought and should transmit it as transparently as
possible. He says, toward the beginning of his _Philosophy of Style_:

A reader or listener has at each moment but a limited amount of
mental power available. To recognise and interpret the symbols
presented to him requires a part of this power; to arrange and
combine the images suggested requires a further part; and only
that part which remains can be used for realising the t