is not a clash, but an ecstatic concordance, of wills. Is the
death-scene of Cleopatra undramatic? Or the Banquet scene in _Macbeth_?
Or the pastoral act in _The Winter's Tale_? Yet in none of these is
there any conflict of wills. In the whole range of drama there is
scarcely a passage which one would call more specifically dramatic than
the Screen Scene in _The School for Scandal_; yet it would be the
veriest quibbling to argue that any appreciable part of its effect
arises from the clash of will against will. This whole comedy, indeed,
suffices to show the emptiness of the theory. With a little strain it is
possible to bring it within the letter of the formula; but who can
pretend that any considerable part of the attraction or interest of the
play is due to that possibility?

The champions of the theory, moreover, place it on a metaphysical basis,
finding in the will the essence of human personality, and therefore of
the art which shows human personality raised to its highest power. It
seems unnecessary, however, to apply to Schopenhauer for an explanation
of whatever validity the theory may possess. For a sufficient account of
the matter, we need go no further than the simple psychological
observation that human nature loves a fight, whether it be with clubs or
with swords, with tongues or with brains. One of the earliest forms of
mediaeval drama was the "estrif" or "flyting"--the scolding-match
between husband and wife, or between two rustic gossips. This motive is
glorified in the quarrel between Brutus and Cassius, degraded in the
patter of two "knockabout comedians." Certainly there is nothing more
telling in drama than a piece of "cut-and-thrust" dialogue after the
fashion of the ancient "stichomythia." When a whole theme involving
conflict, or even a single scene of the nature described as a
"passage-at-arms," comes naturally in the playwright's way, by all means
let him seize the opportunity. But do not let him reject a theme or