In the second act she has got the length of knowing
the enormity of taking life, and appreciating the fine distinction
between taking it of one's own motive, and taking it for money. Yet the
next moment, when Leucippe enters with a fawn he has killed, it appears
that she does not realize the difference between man and the brute
creation. Thus we are for ever shifting from one plane of convention to
another. There is no fixed starting-point for our imagination, no
logical development of a clearly-stated initial condition. The play, it
is true, enjoyed some five-and-twenty years of life; but it certainly
cannot claim an enduring place either in literature or on the stage. It
is still open to the philosophic dramatist to write a logical _Pygmalion
and Galatea_.
* * * * *
[Footnote 1: I am here writing from memory, having been unable to obtain
a copy of _The City_; but my memory is pretty clear.]
_CHAPTER XVII_
KEEPING A SECRET
It has been often and authoritatively laid down that a dramatist must on
no account keep a secret from his audience.
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