er in the ear of Robert Moray to keep certain letters of La
Pompadour well hidden. The fact that it is the desire of a dying man
gives sharpness to his request. Later in the story Moray is hard-pressed
by the villain for those same papers. Then the scene of the death is
flashed for an instant on the screen, representing the hero's memory of
the event. It is as though he should recollect and renew a solemn oath.
The documents are more important than John Goderic. His departure is but
one of their attributes. So it is in any film. There is no emotional
stimulation in the final departure of a non-public character to bring
tears, such tears as have been provoked by the novel or the stage over
the death of Sidney Carton or Faust's Marguerite or the like.

All this, to make sharper the fact that the murder of Becket the
archbishop is a climax. The great Church and hierarchy are profaned. The
audience feels the same thrill of horror that went through Christendom.
We understand why miracles were wrought at the martyr's tomb.

In the motion pictures the entrance of a child into the world is a mere
family episode, not a climax, when it is the history of private people.
For instance, several little strangers come into the story of Enoch
Arden. They add beauty, and are links in the chain of events. Still they
are only one of many elements of idyllic charm in the village of Annie.
Something that in real life is less valuable than a child is the goal of
each tiny tableau, some coming or departure or the like that affects the
total plot. But let us imagine a production that would chronicle the
promise to Abraham, and the vision that came with it. Let the film show
the final gift of Isaac to the aged Sarah, even the boy who is the
beginning of a race that shall be as the stars of heaven and the sands of
the sea for multitude. This could be made a pageant of power and glory.
The crowd-emotions, patriotic fires, and religious exaltations on which
it turns could be given in noble procession and the tiny fellow on the
pillow made the mystic centre of the whole. The story of the coming of
Samuel, the dedicated little prophet, might be told on similar terms.

The real death in the photoplay is the ritualistic death, the real birth
is the ritualistic birth, and the cathedral mood of the motion picture
which goes with these and is close to these in many of its phases, is an
inexhaustible resource.

The film corporations fear religious questi