text:  What I complain of is that whenever the passions of the hero himself rise to a certain pitch; or whenever the necessities of the plot require him to do one thing whilst both his reason and his feelings would plainly lead him to do another--he is immediately thrown into a state of half frenzy has a "vague consciousness" of something or other makes a complete nightmare of the business; is cast in short into a state of _coma_ in which the author can carry him hither and thither and communicate to him whatever impulse he pleases