Among inherently feeble and greatly overdone expedients may be reckoned the oath or promise of secrecy, exacted for no sufficient reason, and kept in defiance of common sense and common humanity.  Lord Windermere’s conduct in Oscar Wilde’s play is a case in point, though he has not even an oath to excuse his insensate secretiveness.  A still clearer instance is afforded by Clyde Fitch’s play The Girl with the Green Eyes.  In other respects a very able play, it is vitiated by the certainty that Austin ought to have, and would have, told the truth ten times over, rather than subject his wife’s jealous disposition to the strain he puts upon it.

It would not be difficult to prolong this catalogue of themes and motives that have come down in the world, and are no longer presentable in any society that pretends to intelligence.  But it is needless to enter into further details.  There is a general rule, of sovereign efficacy, for avoiding such anachronisms:  “Go to life for your themes, and not to the theatre.”  Observe that rule, and you are safe.  But it is easier said than done.

* * * * *

[Footnote 1:  I have good reason for believing that, in M. Maeterlinck’s original scheme, Prinzivalle imposed no such humiliating condition.  Giovanna went of her own motive to appeal to his clemency; and her success was so complete that her husband, on her return, could not believe that it had been won by avowable means.  This is a really fine conception—­what a pity that the poet departed from it!]

[Footnote 2:  Much has been made of the Censor’s refusal to license Monna Vanna; but I think there is more to be said for his action in this than in many other cases.  In those countries where the play has succeeded, I cannot but suspect that the appeal it made was not wholly to the higher instincts of the public.]

[Footnote 3:  I am not sure what was the precise relationship of this play to the same author’s Beau Brummel.  D’Orsay’s death scene was certainly a repetition of Brummel’s.]

CHAPTER XXI

THE FULL CLOSE

In an earlier chapter, I have tried to show that a certain tolerance for anticlimax, for a fourth or fifth act of calm after the storm of the penultimate act, is consonant with right reason, and is a practically inevitable result of a really intimate relation between drama and life.  But it would be a complete misunderstanding of my argument to suppose that I deny the practical, and even the artistic, superiority of those themes in which the tension can be maintained and heightened to the very end.