Then they speak straight out of their hearts,
sometimes crudely, sometimes with a naivete which seems laughable; and
they act on sudden impulses, accepting the consequences when they come.
They live an artificial life, knowing lies to be lies, and choosing
them; they are civilised, they try to do their duty by society; only, at
every moment, some ugly gap opens in the earth, right in their path, and
they have to stop, consider, choose a new direction. They seem to go
their own way, almost without guiding; and indeed may have escaped
almost literally out of their author's hands. The last scene is an
admirable episode, a new thing on the stage, full of truth within its
own limits; but it is an episode, not a conclusion, much less a
solution. Mr. Barker can write: he writes in short, sharp sentences,
which go off like pistol-shots, and he keeps up the firing, from every
corner of the stage. He brings his people on and off with an
unconventionality which comes of knowing the resources of the theatre,
and of being unfettered by the traditions of its technique. The scene
with the gardener in the second act has extraordinary technical merit,
and it has the art which conceals its art.
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