e in the flight, how he and Hick Scorner were shackled together
in Newgate without money to pay for an upper room, how brazen-faced his
lies were, how near he was to hanging, how ingenious were his excuses,
and many other facts besides. We have seen him, too, as the ringleader
in mischief and the arrantest rogue in the play. Freewill and Hick
Scorner make less impression on us; they are more cloudy in outline,
more like types. As for Pity, Contemplation and Perseverance, they are
merely talking-machines. We must keep an eye on Imagination, as
possessing a dramatic value likely to be needed again.

We shall have been disappointed in the plot. That part of the drama
seems to be getting worse. Humankind was at least gaining fresh
experience in _The Castell of Perseverance_; he was even besieged in a
fortress and had the narrowest escape in the world from being carried
off to Hell. Everyman's startling doom, his eager quest for a companion
on his journey, and his zealous self-discipline keep us to the end in a
state of concern for his ultimate fate. But what interest have we in
Contemplation, Freewill and the rest, apart from what they say? No
suggestion is thrown out at the beginning that two of the rogues are to
be reclaimed: their fate concerns us not at all. The quarrel, and the
ill-treatment of poor old Pity, are the merest by-play, with no
importance whatsoever as a step in the evolution of a plot. Indeed it is
open to question whether there is a plot. There are speeches, there is
conversation, there is some scuffling, and there is a happy ending, but
there is no guiding thread running through the story, no discernible
objective steadily aimed at from the start. It looks as though the new
interest in drawing (or seeing) a real human individual has monopolized
the whole attention; that for the time being characterization has driven
plot-building completely into the shade.

A curious, yet not unnatural, thing has happened. In _The Castell of
Perseverance_ Humankind was more acted upon than acting. The real force
of the action lay in the antagonism between the Virtues and Vices, the
Good Angel and the Bad Angel, an antagonism so inveterate that even if
the temporary object of their struggle were removed, the strife would
still break out again from the sheer viciousness of the Vices. This
instinctive hostility between Virtues and Vices supplies the groundwork
of the Interludes. They dismiss Humankind from the stage. He wa