Inherent Principles of Order in Richard Feverel

Extract

A father who is deserted by his wife and who sets out to rear his son according to a “scientific System” unconsciously founded on his distrust of women and his own wounded pride should be an ideal subject for comedy. The system, running, as it must, counter to common sense and human nature, is bound to fail. And its collapse, with the consequent exposure of the father's false pride and the reassertion of the collective wisdom of society, would provide the comic deflation and denouement. The laughter provoked by the discomfort of the father, underscored by a reaffirmation of the adequacy of common sense, would produce an appropriate comic catharsis. This same situation, of course, has its serious possibilities. The father may ruin his son's life. But not in comedy. Comedy says that the probabilities are that the son, common sense, and nature will overcome the false system of the father. And the comic artist, knowing well that the whole truth will spoil his comedy, is careful not to tell the whole truth—only the comic (probable) side of it. The dark spirit of tragedy always hovers just outside the bright circle drawn by comedy, but it must not be allowed to cross the line. In comedy, as in all art, what is ruled out is as important as what is included.