" This limitation, however, is in reality an advantage,
not merely because it applies to both sides, but for the reason that
no lawyer with any sense of dramatic values would anticipate his
_denouement_. Argument is apt to be chilling unless the decision
sought for can be discerned, however dimly, without it. And how are
the jury to frame their decision before the evidence has been
presented? The jury should be interested in Miss Becky Sharp and
prepared to understand her testimony, but, before they have heard her
story from witnesses who know, they will not be favorably impressed by
urgings that she was wronged or badly treated.
There is usually leniency in regard to the length of the opening,
because it is well recognized that few witnesses can tell a connected
story, or tell it well. From the old French story of the lawyer who
began _avant le creation du monde_, and the judge who asked him to
pass on _au deluge_, down to the usual modern method of nagging the
lawyer into stating only the skeleton of the action, there are various
degrees of eloquence, varying naturally according to the importance of
the case.
A wonderful thing the prologue may be in its restraint and picturesque
vividness, and, not least, in its clarity.
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