y are waiting for. The dramatist must play with
his spectators as we play with a kitten when we trail a ball of yarn before
its eyes, only to snatch it away just as the kitten leaps for it.

This method of emphasising by suspense gives force to what are known
technically as the _scenes a faire_ of a drama. A _scene a faire_--the
phrase was devised by Francisque Sarcey--is a scene late in a play that is
demanded absolutely by the previous progress of the plot. The audience
knows that the scene must come sooner or later, and if the element of
suspense be ably managed, is made to long for it some time before it comes.
In _Hamlet_, for instance, the killing of the king by the hero is of course
a _scene a faire_. The audience knows before the first act is over that
such a scene is surely coming. When the king is caught praying in his
closet and Hamlet stands over him with naked sword, the spectators think at
last that the _scene a faire_ has arrived; but Shakespeare "makes 'em wait"
for two acts more, until the very ending of the play.

In comedy the commonest _scenes a faire_ are love scenes that the audience
anticipates and longs to see. Perhaps the young folks are frequently on the
stage, but the desired scene is prevented by the presence of other
characters. Only after many movements are the lovers left alone; and when
at last the pretty moment comes, the audience glows with long-awaited
enjoyment.

It is always dangerous for a dramatist to omit a _scene a faire_,--to raise
in the minds of his audience an expectation that is never satisfied.
Sheridan did this in _The School for Scandal_ when he failed to introduce a
love scene between Charles and Maria, and Mr. Jones did it in _Whitewashing
Julia_ when he made the audience expect throughout the play a revelation of
the truth about the puff-box and then left them disappointed in the end.
But these cases are exceptional. In general it may be said that an
unsatisfied suspense is no suspense at all.

One of the most effective instances of suspense in the modern drama is
offered in the opening of _John Gabriel Borkman_, one of Ibsen's later
plays. Many years before the drama opens, the hero has been sent to jail
for misusing the funds of a bank of which he was director. After five years
of imprisonment, he has been released, eight years before the opening of
the play. During these eight years, he has lived alone in the great gallery
of his house, never going forth even in t