Page:The thirty-six dramatic situations (1921).djvu/126

124 in our works to come, spring easily and naturally from the theory of the Thirty-Six Situations. Thus, from the first edition of this little book. I might offer (speaking not ironically but seriously) to dramatic authors and theatrical managers, ten thousand scenarios, totally different from those used repeatedly upon our stage in the last fifty years * * * * * * "The scenarios will be, needless to say, of a realistic and effective character. I will contract to deliver a thousand in eight days. For the production of a single gross, but twenty-four hours are required. Prices quoted on single dozens. Write or call. No. 19, Passage de l'Elysee des Beaux-Arts. The Situations will be detailed act by act, and, if desired, scene by scene" * * *

But I hear myself accused, with much violence, of an intent to "kill imagination." "Enemy of fancy!" "Destroyer of wonders!" "Assassin of prodigy!" * * * These and similar titles cause me not a blush.

A singular history, in truth, is that of the "Imagination." Certainly no one in classic times thought of priding himself upon it. Far from it! Every novelty on its first appearance, hastened to support itself by appeal to some antique authority. From 1830 dates the accession to the literary throne of this charlatanesque "faculty," analysis of which is, it would seem, eternally interdicted. The results of this new regime were not slow in appearing, and they may be seen, in their final decay, among the last successors of ultraromantic Romanticism. Mysterious crime, judicial error, followed by the inevitable love affair between the children of slayer and victim; a pure and delicate working-girl in her tiny room, a handsome young engineer who passes by; a kind-hearted criminal, two police spies, the episode of the stolen child; and in conclusion, for the satisfaction of sentimental souls, a double love-match at the very least, and a suicide imposed upon the villain—this, one year with another, is the product of the Imagination. For the rest, in the whole