Before passing to the more particular secrets of handling scenes in a dramatic success, one other general point remains to be treated, which is the respective merits of Greek and Gothic dramatic construction, as developed, in modern times, into the French and English methods. The distinction is broad and simple. The French write all their plays, or almost all, in single-scene acts, and never employ front scenes in a regular play; the English of the old school use front scenes, and multiply the divisions of an act into as many as five in some instances. Each method has its strong and weak points. The French method is apt to become stiff and formal, the English to fritter away the action of the drama into a mass of subordinate pictures. On the other hand, the French method gives a degree of realism to each act in a drama to which it cannot pretend where the scenes are shifted. Each act becomes a living picture, revealed by the rising of the curtain and closed by its fall. As long as it lasts it is perfect, and every year of advance in the mechanical part of theatricals increases the resources of the stage in the direction of realism. In interiors particularly the advance has become very great, since the general introduction of box scenes, with a regular ceiling and walls, simulating the appearance of a room with complete fidelity. Such a scene is barely practicable and always clumsy if set in sight of the audience, and its removal is hardly possible, save as hidden by the curtain. Open-air scenes may be enriched with all sorts of heavy set-pieces, when acts are composed of one scene, which must be dispensed with if the scenes are numerous, or their removal will entail such a noise as seriously to disturb the illusion. The removal of scenes, moreover, always disturbs, more or less, the action of a drama, and unless that action be very complex, requiring several sets of characters, to be introduced in different places simultaneously, is unwise. On the other hand, the breaking up of acts into three or more scenes offers one great advantage, that of variety, and prevents many a play from dragging. If there are two sets of characters in a play, the virtuous and the wicked, it is a very good device to keep them apart, acting simultaneously in different scenes, during the action of a play, to be brought together only at the climax; and such a method has been employed by the best artists, with a gain in interest that could not have been obtained with the single-scene act for a basis.