Had Sheridan fallen into Mrs.
Oliphant's mistake, the little shock of surprise which the first-night
audience would have felt when the screen was thrown down would have been
no compensation at all for the comparative tameness and pointlessness of
the preceding passages. Thus we see that the greater part of our
pleasure arises precisely from the fact that we know what Sir Peter and
Charles do not know, or, in other words, that we have a clear vision of
all the circumstances, relations, and implications of a certain
conjuncture of affairs, in which two, at least, of the persons concerned
are ignorantly and blindly moving towards issues of which they do not
dream. We are, in fact, in the position of superior intelligences
contemplating, with miraculous clairvoyance, the stumblings and
tumblings of poor blind mortals straying through the labyrinth of life.
Our seat in the theatre is like a throne on the Epicurean Olympus,
whence we can view with perfect intelligence, but without participation
or responsibility, the intricate reactions of human destiny.
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