would be no absolute impossibility in the feat, but it
would be a rather gross improbability of the second order. On the third
plane we come to psychological plausibility, the plausibility of events
dependent mainly or entirely on character. For example--to cite a much
disputed instance--is it plausible that Nora, in _A Doll's House_,
should suddenly develop the mastery of dialectics with which she crushes
Helmer in the final scene, and should desert her husband and children,
slamming the door behind her?

It need scarcely be said that plausibility on the third plane is vastly
the most important. A very austere criticism might even call it the one
thing worth consideration. But, as a matter of fact, when we speak of
plausibility, it is almost always the second plane--the plane of
uncharacteristic circumstance--that we have in mind. To plausibility of
the third order we give a more imposing name--we call it truth. We say
that Nora's action is true--or untrue--to nature. We speak of the truth
with which the madness of Lear, the malignity of Iago, the race hatred
of Shylock, is portrayed. Truth, in fact, is the term which we use in
cases where the tests to be applied are those of introspection,
intuition, or knowledge sub-consciously garnered from spiritual
experience. Where the tests are external, and matters of common
knowledge or tangible evidence, we speak of plausibility.

It would be a mistake, however, to imagine that because plausibility of
the third degree, or truth, is the noblest attribute of drama, it is
therefore the one thing needful. In some forms of drama it is greatly
impaired, or absolutely nullified, if plausibility of the second degree,
its necessary preliminary, be not carefully secured. In the case above
imagined, for instance, of the young politician who should become Prime
Minister immediately on entering Parliament: it would matter nothing
with what profundity of knowledge or subtlety of skill the character was
drawn: we should none the less decline to believe in him. Some
dramatists, as a matter of fact, find it much easier to attain truth of
character than plausibility of incident. Every one who is in the habit
of reading manuscript plays, must have come across the would-be
playwright who has a good deal of general ability and a considerable
power of characterization, but seems to be congenitally deficient in the
sense of external reality, so that the one thing he (or she) can by no
means do is