Such a plea might, indeed, secure a mitigation of sentence, but never a
verdict of acquittal. Sarcey, on the other hand, brought up in the
school of the "well-made" play, would rather have held it a feather in
the playwright's cap that he should have known just where, and just how,
he might safely outrage probability [2]. The inference is that we now
take the dramatist's art more seriously than did the generation of the
Second Empire in France.
This brings us, however, to an important fact, which must by no means be
overlooked. There is a large class of plays--or rather, there are
several classes of plays, some of them not at all to be despised--the
charm of which resides, not in probability, but in ingenious and
delightful improbability. I am, of course, not thinking of sheer
fantasies, like _A Midsummer Night's Dream_, or _Peter Pan_, or _The
Blue Bird_. They may, indeed, possess plausibility of the third order,
but plausibility of the second order has no application to them.
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