and after. Sitting in the theatre,
we taste, for a moment, the glory of omniscience. With vision unsealed,
we watch the gropings of purblind mortals after happiness, and smile at
their stumblings, their blunders, their futile quests, their misplaced
exultations, their groundless panics. To keep a secret from us is to
reduce us to their level, and deprive us of our clairvoyant aloofness.
There may be a pleasure in that too; we may join with zest in the game
of blind-man's-buff; but the theatre is in its essence a place where we
are privileged to take off the bandage we wear in daily life, and to
contemplate, with laughter or with tears, the blindfold gambols of our
neighbours."]

[Footnote 8: Here an acute critic writes: "On the whole I agree; but I
do think there is dramatic interest to be had out of curiosity, through
the identification, so to speak, of the audience with the discovering
persons on the stage. It is an interest of sympathy, not to be despised,
rather than an interest of actual curiosity."]

_CHAPTER X_

FORESHADOWING, NOT FORESTALLING

We return now to the point at which the foregoing disquisition--it is
not a digression--became necessary. We had arrived at the general
principle that the playwright's chief aim in his first act ought to be
to arouse and carry forward the interest of the audience. This may seem
a tolerably obvious statement; but it is worth while to examine a little
more closely into its implications.

As to arousing the interest of the audience, it is clear that very
little specific advice can be given. One can only say, "Find an
interesting theme, state its preliminaries clearly and crisply, and let
issue be joined without too much delay." There can be no rules for
finding an interesting theme, any more than for catching the Blue Bird.
At a later stage we may perhaps attempt a summary enumeration of themes
which are not interesting, which have exhausted any interest they ever
possessed, and "repay careful avoidance." But such an enumeration would
be out of place here, where we are studying principles of form apart
from details of matter.

The arousing of interest, however, is one thing, the carrying-forward of
interest is another; and on the latter point there are one or two things
that may profitably be said. Each act, as we have seen, should consist
of, or at all events contain, a subordinate crisis, contributory to the
main crisis of the play: and the art of act-constr