Of course, no one could take Sardanapalus seriously, any more than if he were a marionette pulled by strings instead of the sort of live marionette he really is.

But where the acting and the situations are so perfect, as you say, as to cause real emotion, the unreality of the whole business is more flagrantly conspicuous than ever.

The emotions pourtrayed are not real, and nobody pretends they are.

The art, therefore, of making them appear real, and even communicating them to the audience, must of necessity involve greater artificiality than where the acting is bad and the situations ridiculous.

There's a person I know, near where I live--you never heard of him, of course, but he's called Jock MacTavish--and he told me he once went to see a really very great actress do some part or other in which she had to die a most pathetic death.