However well we may know a play beforehand, we
seldom know it by heart or nearly by heart; so that, though we may
anticipate a development in general outline, we do not clearly foresee
the ordering of its details, which, therefore, may give us almost the
same sort of pleasure that it gave us when the story was new to us. Most
playgoers will, I think, bear me out in saying that we constantly find a
great scene or act to be in reality richer in invention and more
ingenious in arrangement than we remembered it to be.
We come, now, to another point that must not be overlooked. It needs no
subtle introspection to assure us that we, the audience, do our own
little bit of acting, and instinctively place ourselves at the point of
view of a spectator before whose eyes the drama is unrolling itself for
the first time. If the play has any richness of texture, we have many
sensations that he cannot have. We are conscious of ironies and
subtleties which necessarily escape him, or which he can but dimly
divine.
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