the humbler
classes of fiction the injury to the writer is even greater: he has
endeavoured by manoeuvres, limited in character by certain laws of the
game, to spring a surprise upon the reader by puzzling her as to the
ending of the story and she, instead of "playing the game" and trying to
unravel it, "cuts the Gordian knot," the most hackneyed _cliche_ in the
_repertoire_ of the journalist. This grossly unfair treatment of
novelists ought to be punished, or at least be subject to procedure in
the Chancery Division for breach of confidence.

The really honest reader shrinks from such an offence as if it were
eavesdropping. It is well known that many novels actually begin with the
last chapter. The Irishism represents the fact that the author starts
by exhibiting people in a dramatic position and then proceeds to show
how they came to be there.

There is always something of this method in a play. One cannot
conveniently begin, like Sterne, with the birth of the hero--and even a
little before--and work steadily forward. "Tristram Shandy," it may be,
is a poor example, since "steadily" is perhaps the worst adjective in
the dictionary to describe the progress of that novel. Of course there
are plays in which a prologue is employed, but the device is clumsy; and
in these instances, when the real drama is reached, an explanation of
what has happened during the gap between the prologue and the first act
is necessary.

In other words, part of the author's work and a great part of his
difficulty lie in telling the audience a number of antecedent facts. The
task has grown very difficult since soliloquies have gone out of vogue
and audiences become so sophisticated as to smile at the old-fashioned
conversations in which information is given to the house by causing the
hero to tell to his friend--"his friend Charles"--a number of matters
with which, to the knowledge of everybody, Charles is already well
acquainted.

It is a misfortune that in the case of cleverly constructed dramas the
uncritical members of the playgoing world, whilst half-conscious of the
fact that the preliminary circumstances are not being told to them in
the clumsy method now out of date, fail to get the full amount of
pleasure from the technical skill exhibited. Take, for instance, what in
this respect is perhaps the masterpiece, _Rosmersholm_. Few spectators
consider it closely enough to appreciate the wonderful skill shown in
conveying to the audienc