And yet such a fundamental
opposition exists. In the drama the action is developed in
great measure by means of things that remain outside of the
art; by means of real things, that is, and not artistic
conventions for things. This is a sort of realism that is
not to be confounded with that realism in painting of which
we hear so much. The realism in painting is a thing of
purposes; this, that we have to indicate in the drama, is an
affair of method. We have heard a story, indeed, of a
painter in France who, when he wanted to paint a sea-beach,
carried realism from his ends to his means, and plastered
real sand upon his canvas; and that is precisely what is done
in the drama. The dramatic author has to paint his beaches
with real sand: real live men and women move about the stage;
we hear real voices; what is feigned merely puts a sense upon
what is; we do actually see a woman go behind a screen as
Lady Teazle, and, after a certain interval, we do actually
see her very shamefully produced again. Now all these
things, that remain as they were in life, and are not
transmuted into any artistic convention, are terribly
stubborn and difficult to deal with; and hence there are for
the dramatist many resultant limitations in time and space.
These limitations in some sort approximate towards those of
painting: the dramatic author is tied down, not indeed to a
moment, but to the duration of each scene or act; he is
confined to the stage, almost as the painter is confined
within his frame.
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