fruitful in its place and order; but as the confusion of kinds is the
inelegance of letters and the stultification of values, so to renounce
that line utterly and do something quite different instead may become in
another connexion the true course and the vehicle of effect. Something
in the very nature, in the fine rigour, of this special sacrifice (which
is capable of affecting the form-lover, I think, as really more of a
projected form than any other) lends it moreover a coercive charm; a
charm that grows in proportion as the appeal to it tests and stretches
and strains it, puts it powerfully to the touch. To make the presented
occasion tell all its story itself, remain shut up in its own presence
and yet on that patch of staked-out ground become thoroughly interesting
and remain thoroughly clear, is a process not remarkable, no doubt, so
long as a very light weight is laid on it, but difficult enough to
challenge and inspire great adroitness so soon as the elements to be
dealt with begin at all to "size up."

The disdainers of the contemporary drama deny, obviously, with all
promptness, that the matter to be expressed by its means--richly and
successfully expressed that is--CAN loom with any largeness; since from
the moment it does one of the conditions breaks down. The process simply
collapses under pressure, they contend, proves its weakness as quickly
as the office laid on it ceases to be simple. "Remember," they say to
the dramatist, "that you have to be, supremely, three things: you have
to be true to your form, you have to be interesting, you have to be
clear. You have in other words to prove yourself adequate to taking a
heavy weight. But we defy you really to conform to your conditions with
any but a light one. Make the thing you have to convey, make the picture
you have to paint, at all rich and complex, and you cease to be clear.
Remain clear--and with the clearness required by the infantine
intelligence of any public consenting to see a play--and what becomes