tragic. Stevenson, on the
other hand, patches up the matter into a rather tame comedy. It is
even much tamer than it would have been in the case of Lovelace and
Clarissa Harlowe; for Lovelace is a strong character, a man who could
have been put through some crucial atonement, and come out purged and
ennobled. But Beau Austin we feel is but a frip. He endures a few
minutes of sharp humiliation, it is true, but to the spectator this
cannot but seem a very insufficient expiation, not only of the wrong
he had done one woman, but of the indefinite number of wrongs he had
done others. He is at once the villain and the hero of the piece, and
in the narrow limits of a brief comedy this transformation cannot be
convincingly effected. Wrongly or rightly, a theatrical audience,
like the spectators of a trial, demand a definite verdict and
sentence, and no play can satisfy which does not reasonably meet this
demand. And this arises not from any merely Christian prudery or
Puritanism, for it is as true for Greek tragedy and other high forms
of dramatic art."

The transformation of villain into hero, if possible at all, could only
be convincingly effected in a piece of wide scope, where there was room
for working out the effect of some great shock, upheaval of the nature,
change due to deep and unprecedented experiences--religious conversion,
witnessing of sudden death, providential rescue from great peril of
death, or circumstance of that kind; but to be effective and convincing
it needs to be marked and _fully justified_ in some such way; and no
cleverness in the writer will absolve him from deference to this great
law in serious work for presentation on the stage; if mere farces or
little comedies may seem sometimes to contravene it, yet this--even
this--is only in appearance.

True, it is not the dramatists part _of himself_ to condemn, or to
approve, or praise: he has to present, and to present various characters
faithfully in their relation to each other, and their effect upon each
other. But the moral element cannot be expunged or set lightly aside
because it is closely involved in the very working out and presentation
of these relations, and the effect upon each other. Character is vital.
And character, if it tells in life, in influence and affection, must be
made to tell directly also in the drama. There is no escape from
this--none; the dramatist is lopsided if he