It is a misfortune that in the case of cleverly constructed dramas the uncritical members of the playgoing world, whilst half-conscious of the fact that the preliminary circumstances are not being told to them in the clumsy method now out of date, fail to get the full amount of pleasure from the technical skill exhibited. Take, for instance, what in this respect is perhaps the masterpiece, _Rosmersholm_. Few spectators consider it closely enough to appreciate the wonderful skill shown in conveying to the audience the vast number of facts and ideas necessary to explain the exact relations between Rosmer and Rebecca West when the play begins. However, it is hardly worth the while of the casual playgoer to study the structure of dramas sufficiently to appreciate fully such marvels of technique--the marvels are very rare. Something might be said in favour of plays--and it was said by Prosper Mérimée--in which no knowledge of the previous histories of the parties is necessary. It is doubtful, however, whether there exists any specimen of this class of drama, and perhaps it is impossible completely to comply with such conditions. Whether much or little is told to the audience of the things that have happened and the characters before the play begins, the last act in the ordinary drama is of an extravagant importance in relation to the whole. It has been said, with a fair amount of truth, that anybody can write a good first act, and that most plays fail towards the end. Instead of putting his confidence in the maxim "Well begun is half done," the author must rely on another which may be expressed as "Well ended is much mended." The question how to bring a play to a close has been terribly difficult on very many occasions to the dramatist. There are various kinds of conclusion, most of them more or less formal or conventional. For instance, everyone knows what will happen towards the last fall of the curtain in the peculiarly exasperating species of drama founded upon a misunderstanding which in real life would be cleared up in five minutes, but on the stage remains unsolved for three hours or so. Countless plays end with a definite engagement of young sweethearts the course of whose love became rough at the close of the first act, or with the reconciliation of youthful spouses who quarrelled in the earlier part of the piece. This, of course, is the so-called "happy-ever-after" ending: in most cases the comedies of this type are so artificial that few of the audience take sufficient interest in the characters to think of them as people who live after the play, and to notice the fact that the sweethearts are from their nature unlikely to live happily together, or that the young husband and wife, on account of their dispositions, are certain to quarrel within a week of the reconciliation. Plays of these kinds are essentially unimportant. Nobody cares very much how they end provided that the curtain falls not later than at a quarter-past eleven.