A classical
example of this principle is (once more) the _Oedipus Rex_, in which
several of the initial postulates are wildly improbable: for instance,
that Oedipus should never have inquired into the circumstances of the
death of Laius, and that, having been warned by an oracle that he was
doomed to marry his mother, he should not have been careful, before
marrying any woman, to ascertain that she was younger than himself.
There is at least so much justification for Sarcey's favourite
principle, that we are less apt to scrutinize things merely narrated to
us than events which take place before our eyes. It is simply a special
instance of the well-worn
"Segnius irritant animos demissa per aurem
Quam quae sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus."
But the principle is of very limited artistic validity. No one would
nowadays think of justifying a gross improbability in the antecedents of
a play by Ibsen or Sir Arthur Pinero, by Mr. Galsworthy or Mr. Granville
Barker, on the plea that it occurred outside the frame of the picture.
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