and Harry whether or no he ought to get married. Note that, in such a case, a comic author is always careful to personify the two opposing decisions. For, if there is no spectator, there must at all events be actors to hold the strings.
All that is serious in life comes from our freedom. The feelings we have matured, the passions we have brooded over, the actions we have weighed, decided upon, and carried through, in short, all that comes from us and is our very own, these are the things that give life its ofttimes dramatic and generally grave aspect. What, then, is requisite to transform all this into a comedy? Merely to fancy that our seeming freedom conceals the strings of a dancing-jack, and that we are, as the poet says,
… humble marionettes
The wires of which are pulled by Fate.[1]
So there is not a real, a serious, or even a dramatic scene that fancy cannot render comic by simply calling forth this image. Nor is there a game for which a wider field lies open.
- ↑ … d'humbles marionnettes
Dont le fil est aux mains de la Nécessité.
Sully-Prudhomme.
