s it.

This contrast of mood between scene and scene was unknown in ancient plays
and in the imitations of them that flourished in the first great period of
the French tragic stage. Although the ancient drama frequently violated the
three unities of action, time, and place, it always preserved a fourth
unity, which we may call unity of mood. It remained for the Spaniards and
the Elizabethan English to grasp the dramatic value of the great antithesis
between the humorous and the serious, the grotesque and the sublime, and to
pass it on through Victor Hugo to the contemporary theatre.

A further means of emphasis is, of course, the use of climax. This
principle is at the basis of the familiar method of working up an entrance.
My lady's coach is heard clattering behind the scenes. A servant rushes to
the window and tells us that his mistress is alighting. There is a ring at
the entrance; we hear the sound of footsteps in the hall. At last the door
is thrown open, and my lady enters, greeted by a salvo of applause.

A first entrance unannounced is rarely seen upon the modern stage.
Shakespeare's _King John_ opens very simply. The stage direction reads,
"Enter King John, Queen Elinor, Pembroke, Essex, Salisbury and others, with
Chatillon"; and then the king speaks the opening line of the play. Yet when
Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree revived this drama at Her Majesty's Theatre in
1899, he devised an elaborate opening to give a climacteric effect to the
entrance of the king. The curtain rose upon a vaulted room of state,
impressive in its bare magnificence. A throne was set upon a dais to the
left, and several noblemen in splendid costumes were lingering about the
room. At the back was a Norman corridor approached by a flight of lofty
steps which led upward from the level of the stage. There was a peal of
trumpets from without, and soon to a stately music the royal guards marched
upon the scene. They were followed by ladies with gorgeous dresses sweeping
away in long trains borne by pretty pages, and great lords walking with
dignity to the music of the regal measure. At last Mr. Tree appeared and
stood for a moment at the top of the steps, every inch a king. Then he
strode majestically to the dais, ascended to the throne, and turning about
with measured majesty spoke the first line of the play, some minutes after
the raising of the curtain.

But not only in the details of a drama is the use of climax necessary. The
whole action s