The astonishment of these youths at seeing the boy they had travelled
up with that morning, moving about the stage of Drury Lane Theatre as
though he were quite at home there, was most comical. They gaped
round-eyed, refusing to believe the evidence of their senses.
I believe that the appeal of the theatre is simply due to the fact
that the majority of human beings retain the child's love of
"make-believe" but are too unimaginative to create a dream-world for
themselves. Having lost the child's power of creation, a more
material dream-world has to be elaborately constructed for them, with
every adjunct that can heighten the sense of illusion, an element the
unimaginative are unable to supply for themselves. They require all
their "i's" carefully dotted and their "t's" elaborately crossed; so
they love "real water" on the stage, and "real leaves" falling in a
forest scene, and genuine taxi-cabs rumbling about the stage so
realistically that no strain need be put on their imagination.
At the age of seven or eight I came to the conclusion that one would
go through life shedding illusions as trees shed their leaves in
November. I had an illustrated _History of England_ which contained a
picture of knights tilting; splendid beings all in armour, with plumes
waving from their helmets, seated on armoured horses and brandishing
gigantic lances.
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