The actual keeping of a secret, then--the appeal to the primary curiosity of actual ignorance--may be ruled out as practically impossible, and, when possible, unworthy of serious art. But there is also, as we have seen, the secondary curiosity of the audience which, though more or less cognizant of the essential facts, instinctively assumes ignorance, and judges the development of a play from that point of view. We all realize that a dramatist has no right to trust to our previous knowledge, acquired from outside sources. We know that a play, like every other work of art, ought to be self-sufficient, and even if, at any given moment, we have, as a matter of fact, knowledge which supplements what the playwright has told us, we feel that he ought not to have taken for granted our possession of any such external and fortuitous information. To put it briefly, the dramatist must formally assume ignorance in his audience, though he must not practically rely upon it. Therefore it becomes a point of real importance to determine how long a secret may be kept from an audience, assumed to have no outside knowledge, and at what point it ought to be revealed.
When Lady Windermere's Fan was first produced, no hint was given in the first act of the fact that Mrs. Erlynne was Lady Windermere's mother; so that Lord Windermere's insistence on inviting her to his wife's birthday reception remained wholly unexplained. But after a few nights the author made Lord Windermere exclaim, just as the curtain fell, "My God! What shall I do? I dare not tell her who this woman really is. The shame would kill her." It was, of course, said that this change had been made in deference to newspaper criticism; and Oscar Wilde, in a characteristic letter to the St. James's Gazette, promptly repelled this calumny. At a first-night supper-party, he said--
"All of my friends without exception were of the opinion that the
psychological interest of the second act would be greatly increased
by the disclosure of the actual relationship existing between Lady
Windermere and Mrs. Erlynne--an opinion, I may add, that had
previously been strongly held and urged by Mr. Alexander.... I
determined, consequently, to make a change in the precise moment of
revelation."
It is impossible to say whether Wilde seriously believed that "psychology" entered into the matter at all, or whether he was laughing in his sleeve in putting forward this solemn plea. The truth is, I think, that this example cannot be cited either for or against the keeping of a secret, the essential fact being that the secret was such a bad and inacceptable one--inacceptable, I mean, as an explanation of Lord Windermere's conduct--that it was probably wise to make a clean breast of it as soon as possible, and get it over. It may be said with perfect confidence that it is useless to keep a secret which, when revealed, is certain to disappoint the audience, and to make it feel that it has been trifled with. That is an elementary dictate of prudence. But if the reason for Lord Windermere's conduct had been adequate, ingenious, such as to give us, when revealed, a little shock of pleasant surprise, the author need certainly have been in no hurry to disclose it. It is not improbable (though my memory is not clear on the point) that part of the strong interest we undoubtedly felt on the first night arose from the hope that Lord Windermere's seemingly unaccountable conduct might be satisfactorily accounted for. As this hope was futile, there was no reason, at subsequent performances, to keep up the pretence of preserving a secret which was probably known, as a matter of fact, to most of the audience, and which was worthless when revealed.