It is true that crispness of handling may
easily degenerate into the pursuit of mere picture-poster situation; but
that is no reason why the artist should not seek to achieve crispness
within the bounds prescribed by nature and common sense. There is a
drama--I have myself seen it--in which the heroine, fleeing from the
villain, is stopped by a yawning chasm. The pursuer is at her heels, and
it seems as though she has no resource but to hurl herself into the
abyss. But she is accompanied by three Indian servants, who happen, by
the mercy of Providence, to be accomplished acrobats. The second climbs
on the shoulders of the first, the third on the shoulders of the second;
and then the whole trio falls forward across the chasm, the top one
grasping some bush or creeper on the other side; so that a living bridge
is formed, on which the heroine (herself, it would seem, something of an
acrobat) can cross the dizzy gulf and bid defiance to the baffled
villain. This is clearly a dramatic crisis within our definition; but,
no less clearly, it is not a piece of rational or commendable drama.
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