" As a
matter of fact, the letter was probably not "hurled" more suddenly or
swiftly than the most ordinary invitation to dinner: nor can its
contents have been particularly surprising to any one. It was probably
the conclusiveness, the finality, of the announcement that struck these
writers as "dramatic." The letter put an end to all dubiety with a
"short, sharp shock." It was, in fact, crisp. As a rule, however,
"dramatic" is employed by the modern journalist simply as a rather
pretentious synonym for the still more hackneyed "startling."]
[Footnote 7: As a specimen, and a successful specimen, of this new
technic, I may cite Miss Elizabeth Baker's very interesting play,
_Chains_. There is absolutely no "story" in it, no complication of
incidents, not even any emotional tension worth speaking of. Another
recent play of something the same type, _The Way the Money Goes_, by
Lady Bell, was quite thrilling by comparison. There we saw a workman's
wife bowed down by a terrible secret which threatened to wreck her whole
life--the secret that she had actually run into debt to the amount of
L30.
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