ay--might perhaps have let us
see her "keeping house" with Hugh Ardale. But either of these openings
would have been disproportionate and superfluous. It would have excited,
or tried to excite, our interest in something that was not the real
theme of the play, and in characters which were to drop out before the
real theme--the Aubrey-Paula marriage--was reached. Therefore the
author, in all probability, never thought of beginning at either of
these points. He passed instinctively to the point at which the two
lines of causation converged, and from which the action could be carried
continuously forward by one set of characters. He knew that we could
learn in retrospect all that it was necessary for us to know of the
first Mrs. Tanqueray, and that to introduce her in the flesh would be
merely to lead the interest of the audience into a blind alley, and to
break the back of his action. Again, in _His House in Order_ it may seem
that the intrigue between Maurewarde and the immaculate Annabel, with
its tragic conclusion, would have made a stirring introductory act. But
to have presented such an act would have been to destroy the unity of
the play, which centres in the character of Nina. Annabel is "another
story"; and to have told, or rather shown us, more of it than was
absolutely necessary, would have been to distract our attention from the
real theme of the play, while at the same time fatally curtailing the
all-too-brief time available for the working-out of that theme. There
are cases, no doubt, when verbal exposition may advantageously be
avoided by means of a dramatized "Prologue"--a single act, constituting
a little drama in itself, and generally separated by a considerable
space of time from the action proper. But this method is scarcely to be
commended, except, as aforesaid, for purposes of melodrama and romance.
A "Prologue" is for such plays as _The Prisoner of Zenda_ and _The Only
Way_, not for such plays as _His House in Order_.

The question whether a legato or a staccato opening be the more
desirable must be decided in accordance with the nature and
opportunities of each theme. The only rule that can be stated is that,
when the attention of the audience is required for an exposition of any
length, some attempt ought to be made to awaken in advance their general
interest in the theme and characters. It is dangerous to plunge straight
into narrative, or unemotional discussion, without having first made the
audi