ngs. But it is to
be noted that this coincidence is not a crucial occurrence in a story,
but only a part of the story-teller's framework or mechanism--a device
for introducing fresh series of adventures. This illustrates the
Sarceyan principle above referred to, which Professor Brander Matthews
has re-stated in what seems to me an entirely acceptable form--namely,
that improbabilities which may be admitted on the outskirts of an
action, must be rigidly excluded when the issue is joined and we are in
the thick of things. Coincidences, in fact, become the more improbable
in the direct ratio of their importance. We have all, in our own
experience, met with amazing coincidences; but how few of us have ever
gained or lost, been made happy or unhappy, by a coincidence, as
distinct from a chance! It is not precisely probable that three
brothers, who have separated in early life, and have not heard of one
another for twenty years, should find themselves seated side by side at
an Italian _table-d'hote_; yet such coincidences have occurred, and are
creditable enough so long as nothing particular comes of them. But if a
dramatist were to make these three brothers meet in Messina on the eve
of the earthquake, in order that they might all be killed, and thus
enable his hero (their cousin) to succeed to a peerage and marry the
heroine, we should say that his use of coincidence was not strictly
artistic. A coincidence, in short, which coincides with a crisis is
thereby raised to the _n_th power, and is wholly inacceptable in serious
art. Mr. Bernard Shaw has based the action of _You Never Can Tell_ on
the amazing coincidence that Mrs. Clandon and her children, coming to
England after eighteen years' absence, should by pure chance run
straight into the arms, or rather into the teeth, of the husband and
father whom the mother, at any rate, only wishes to avoid. This is no
bad starting-point for an extravaganza; but even Mr. Shaw, though a
despiser of niceties of craftsmanship, introduces no coincidences into
serious plays such as _Candida_ or _The Doctor's Dilemma_.

* * * * *

[Footnote 1: The malignant caricature of Cromwell in W.G. Wills'
_Charles_ I did not, indeed, prevent the acceptance of the play by the
mid-Victorian public; but it will certainly shorten the life of the one
play which might have secured for its author a lasting place in dramatic
literature. It is unimaginable that future generatio