THE DREAD OF THE DRAMATIC.
[To THE EDITOR 01 THE "BrzarATors."]
Si,—May I suggest that one point seems to me overlooked in your interesting article with the above title, though the mention of it will not, I fear, help one to arrive any nearer to "the final reason which makes Englishmen desire to eliminate the dramatic element " ? I refer to the " super- stitious " element in many of the race. Is it not this, in certain natures, that prevents them from doing minima actions, generous or otherwise, viz, some idea that, having done some uncommon act, " something " may "happen" to them afterwards ? The memory at once intensifies this fear by recalling Mr. X, who, after doing some specially generous act, met with some serious accident, fatal or other- wise. Bearing on this, I may refer to a slang expression one constantly hears after unusual actions by certain people, "So-and-so must be going to die" or "going up aloft." That it is not a very recently evolved phase of the English character is attested by a passage in Shakespeare's Measure
for Measure, Act i., Scene 1, where the Duke, speaking of going privily away, says :— "I love the people But do not like to stage me to their eyes, Though it do well, I do not relish well Their loud applause, and Ayes vehement. Nor do I think the man of safe discretion That does affect it."
—I am, Sir, &c.,
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