by beginning at the end. One may urge that no one
expects a play to do full justice to the novel, and that it is
permissible to leave out much. The important fact, however, is that the
much necessarily left out in the case of good novels as a rule is
exactly that which distinguishes them from the bad. The atmosphere
vanishes; secondary characters, often the most pleasing, have to be
eliminated or rendered shadowy; thrilling incidents must be cut for want
of space, and the remainder is almost inevitably the bare bones of the
book, which never, however, really constitute anything like a complete
skeleton.

Plays with a Purpose

During one season we had a comparatively large number of plays with a
purpose--for instance, _An Englishman's Home_, _The Head of the Finn_,
_Strife_, and _The House of Bondage_.

For the sake of convenience let us refer to them and works of a similar
character as "problem plays" although that useful term got spoilt some
years ago by acquiring a secondary meaning, and became applied almost
exclusively to pieces concerning fallen women.

In respect of this rather rare branch of drama there is one matter
worthy of notice which has not been quite sufficiently discussed. Yet
the point is one referred to several times in criticisms contained in
these articles. This is the author's duty to write in such a fashion as
to seem impartial. It is needless to suggest that he ought to be
impartial, since no one ever takes a real interest in any debatable
matter without ceasing to be impartial, and nobody will ever write a
play worth seeing unless he takes a deep interest in his subject.

Now, looking at the four plays already mentioned, one may see to some
extent how this impartiality operates. There is a difficulty connected
with _An Englishman's Home_, for it was alleged--and also denied--that
the author had no intention when writing it of dealing seriously with
the question of national defence and invasion, and it must be
recollected that some alterations were made without his knowledge, which
included the addition of a vulgar clap-trap ending, that may do him real
injustice. It has generally been regarded as a problem play, as intended
to exhibit to us dramatically the fact that we live fondly in fancied
security. As drama, it was seriously injured by the obvious bias, by the
want of impartiality; it was taken by some to be a warning that we must
not trust to the Territorials; but, although the conscr