y
and properly varies with the seriousness of the theme under treatment.
Improbabilities are admissible in light comedy, and still more in farce,
which would wreck the fortunes of a drama purporting to present a sober
and faithful picture of real life.

Acts, then, mark the time-stages in the development of a given crisis;
and each act ought to embody a minor crisis of its own, with a
culmination and a temporary solution. It would be no gain, but a loss,
if a whole two hours' or three hours' action could be carried through in
one continuous movement, with no relaxation of the strain upon the
attention of the audience, and without a single point at which the
spectator might review what was past and anticipate what was to come.
The act-division positively enhances the amount of pleasurable emotion
through which the audience passes. Each act ought to stimulate and
temporarily satisfy an interest of its own, while definitely advancing
the main action. The psychological principle is evident enough; namely,
that there is more sensation to be got out of three or four
comparatively brief experiences, suited to our powers of perception,
than out of one protracted experience, forced on us without relief,
without contrast, in such a way as to fatigue and deaden our faculties.
Who would not rather drink three, four, or five glasses of wine than put
the bottle to his lips and let its contents pour down his throat in one
long draught? Who would not rather see a stained-glass window broken
into three, four, or five cunningly-proportioned "lights," than a great
flat sheet of coloured glass, be its design never so effective?

It used to be the fashion in mid Victorian melodramas to give each act a
more or less alluring title of its own. I am far from recommending the
revival of this practice; but it might be no bad plan for a beginner, in
sketching out a play, to have in his mind, or in his private notes, a
descriptive head-line for each act, thereby assuring himself that each
had a character of its own, and at the same time contributed its due
share to the advancement of the whole design. Let us apply this
principle to a Shakespearean play--for example, to _Macbeth_. The act
headings might run somewhat as follows--

ACT I.--TEMPTATION.

ACT II.--MURDER AND USURPATION.

ACT III.--THE FRENZY OF CRIME AND THE HAUNTING OF REMORSE.

ACT IV.--GATHERING RETRIBUTION.

ACT V.--RETRIBUTION CONSUMMATED.

Can it be doubted that