ver Box_ and _Justice_. Sir Arthur Pinero, a character-drawer of
great versatility, becomes a psychologist in some of his studies of
feminine types--in Iris, in Letty, in the luckless heroine of
_Mid-Channel_. Mr. Clyde Fitch had, at least, laudable ambitions in the
direction of psychology. Becky in _The Truth_, and Jinny in _The Girl
with the Green Eyes_, in so far as they are successfully drawn, really
do mean a certain advance on our knowledge of feminine human nature.
Unfortunately, owing to the author's over-facile and over-hasty method
of work, they are now and then a little out of drawing. The most
striking piece of psychology known to me in American drama is the Faith
Healer in William Vaughn Moody's drama of that name. If the last act of
_The Faith Healer_ were as good as the rest of it, one might safely call
it the finest play ever written, at any rate in the English language,
beyond the Atlantic. The psychologists of the modern French stage, I
take it, are M. de Curel and M. de Porto-Riche. MM. Brieux and Hervieu
are, like Mr. Shaw, too much concerned with ideas to probe very deep
into character. In Germany, Hauptmann, and, so far as I understand him,
Wedekind, are psychologists, Sudermann, a vigorous character-drawer.

It is pretty clear that, if this distinction were accepted, it would be
of use to the critic, inasmuch as we should have two terms for two
ideas, instead of one popular term with a rather pedantic synonym. But
what would be its practical use to the artist, the craftsman? Simply
this, that if the word "psychology" took on for him a clear and definite
meaning, it might stimulate at once his imagination and his ambition.
Messrs. Hichens and Fagan, for example, might have asked themselves--or
each other--"Are we getting beneath the surface of this woman's nature?
Are we plucking the heart out of her mystery? Cannot we make the
specific processes of a murderess's mind clearer to ourselves and to our
audiences?" Whether they would have been capable of rising to the
opportunity, I cannot tell; but in the case of other authors one not
infrequently feels: "This man could have taken us deeper into this
problem if he had only thought of it." I do not for a moment mean that
every serious dramatist should always be aiming at psychological
exploration. The character-drawer's appeal to common knowledge and
instant recognition is often all that is required, or that would be in
place. But there are also occasio