A good instance of the unemphatic ending is the last act of Sir Arthur
Pinero's _Letty_. This "epilogue"--so the author calls it--has been
denounced as a concession to popular sentimentality, and an unpardonable
anticlimax. An anticlimax it is, beyond all doubt; but it does not
follow that it is an artistic blemish. Nothing would have been easier
than not to write it--to make the play end with Letty's awakening from
her dream, and her flight from Letchmere's rooms. But the author has set
forth, not merely to interest us in an adventure, but to draw a
character; and it was essential to our full appreciation of Letty's
character that we should know what, after all, she made of her life.
When Iris, most hapless of women, went out into the dark, there was
nothing more that we needed to know of her. We could guess the sequel
only too easily. But the case of Letty was wholly different. Her exit
was an act of will, triumphing over a form of temptation peculiarly
alluring to her temperament.
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