In the second and more important category, I should put, first,
co-ordination of character, that is, a certain variety in harmony of the
personages of a drama, as in the attitudes and coloring of the figures in
a pictorial composition, so that, while mutually relieving and setting
off each other, they shall combine in the total impression; second, that
subordinate truth to Nature which makes each character coherent in
itself; and, third, such propriety of costume and the like as shall
satisfy the superhistoric sense, to which, and to which alone, the higher
drama appeals. All these come within the scope of _imaginative_ truth. To
illustrate my third head by an example. Tieck criticises John Kemble's
dressing for Macbeth in a modern Highland costume, as being ungraceful
without any countervailing merit of historical exactness. I think a
deeper reason for his dissatisfaction might be found in the fact, that
this garb, with its purely modern and British army associations, is out
of place on Fores Heath, and drags the Weird Sisters down with it from
their proper imaginative remoteness in the gloom of the past to the
disenchanting glare of the foot-lights. It is not the antiquarian, but
the poetic conscience, that is wounded.
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