[3] It may be called an accident, in this sense, that
Romeo never got the Friar's message about the potion, and that Juliet
did not awake from her long sleep a minute sooner; an accident that
Edgar arrived at the prison just too late to save Cordelia's life; an
accident that Desdemona dropped her handkerchief at the most fatal of
moments; an accident that the pirate ship attacked Hamlet's ship, so
that he was able to return forthwith to Denmark. Now this operation of
accident is a fact, and a prominent fact, of human life. To exclude it
_wholly_ from tragedy, therefore, would be, we may say, to fail in
truth. And, besides, it is not merely a fact. That men may start a
course of events but can neither calculate nor control it, is a _tragic_
fact. The dramatist may use accident so as to make us feel this; and
there are also other dramatic uses to which it may be put. Shakespeare
accordingly admits it. On the other hand, any _large_ admission of
chance into the tragic sequence[4] would certainly weaken, and might
destroy, the sense of the causal connection of character, deed, and
catastrophe. And Shakespeare really uses it very sparingly. We seldom
find ourselves exclaiming, 'What an unlucky accident!' I believe most
readers would have to search painfully for instances.
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