In the "great scene" of _The Thunderbolt_, on the other
hand--the scene of Thaddeus's false confession of having destroyed his
brother's will--though there is, in fact, a great peripety, it is not
that which attracts and absorbs our interest. All the greedy Mortimore
family fall from the height of jubilant confidence in their new-found
wealth to the depth of disappointment and exasperation. But this is not
the aspect of the scene which grips and moves us. Our attention is
centred on Thaddeus's struggle to take his wife's misdeed upon himself;
and his failure cannot be described as a peripety, seeing that it sinks
him only one degree lower in the slough of despair. Like the scene in
Mrs. Dane's Defence, this is practically a piece of judicial drama--a
hard-fought cross-examination. But as there is no reversal of fortune
for the character in whom we are chiefly interested, it scarcely ranks
as a scene of peripety.[5]
Before leaving this subject, we may note that a favourite effect of
romantic drama is an upward reversal of fortune through the
recognition--the _anagnorisis_--of some great personage in disguise.
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