pective careers. Nothing
indispensable would have been omitted; but how languid would have been
the interest of the audience! As it is, a brief, bright scene has
already introduced us, not only to Nora, but to Helmer, and aroused an
eager desire for further insight into the affairs of this--to all
appearance--radiantly happy household. Therefore, we settle down without
impatience to listen to the fireside gossip of the two old
school-fellows.

The problem of how to open a play is complicated in the English theatre
by considerations wholly foreign to art. Until quite recently, it used
to be held impossible for a playwright to raise his curtain upon his
leading character or characters, because the actor-manager would thus be
baulked of his carefully arranged "entrance" and "reception," and,
furthermore, because twenty-five per cent of the audience would probably
arrive about a quarter of an hour late, and would thus miss the opening
scene or scenes. It used at one time to be the fashion to add to the
advertisement of a play an entreaty that the audience should be
punctually in their seats, "as the interest began with the rise of the
curtain." One has seen this assertion made with regard to plays in
which, as a matter of fact, the interest had not begun at the fall of
the curtain. Nowadays, managers, and even leading ladies, are a good
deal less insistent on their "reception" than they used to be. They
realize that it may be a distinct advantage to hold the stage from the
very outset. There are few more effective openings than that of _The
Second Mrs. Tanqueray_, where we find Aubrey Tanqueray seated squarely
at his bachelor dinner-table with Misquith on his right and Jayne on his
left. It may even be taken as a principle that, where it is desired to
give to one character a special prominence and predominance, it ought,
if possible, to be the first figure on which the eye of the audience
falls. In a Sherlock Holmes play, for example, the curtain ought
assuredly to rise on the great Sherlock enthroned in Baker Street, with
Dr. Watson sitting at his feet. The solitary entrance of Richard III
throws his figure into a relief which could by no other means have been
attained. So, too, it would have been a mistake on Sophocles' part to
let any one but the protagonist open the _Oedipus Rex_.

So long as the fashion of late dinners continues, however, it must
remain a measure of prudence to let nothing absolutely essential to the