Such a rubbing-in, as it were, of an obvious device ought at all
hazards to be avoided. If the information cannot be otherwise imparted
(as in this case it surely could), the solicitor had better be allowed
to ask one or two improbable questions--it is the lesser evil of
the two.
When the whole of a given subject cannot be got within the limits of
presentation, is there any means of determining how much should be left
for retrospect, and at what point the curtain ought to be raised? The
principle would seem to be that slow and gradual processes, and
especially separate lines of causation, should be left outside the frame
of the picture, and that the curtain should be raised at the point where
separate lines have converged, and where the crisis begins to move
towards its solution with more or less rapidity and continuity. The
ideas of rapidity and continuity may be conveniently summed up in the
hackneyed and often misapplied term, unity of action. Though the unities
of time and place are long ago exploded as binding principles--indeed,
they never had any authority in English drama--yet it is true that a
broken-backed action, whether in time or space, ought, so far as
possible, to be avoided.
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