ever said it hadn't, so far as that goes. The public
likes to be amused, and small blame to it. It isn't very particular
about the means, but it has rather a preference for amusements that I
believes to be "improving," other things being equal. I don't think it's
either very intelligent or at all opinionated, the dear old public it
takes humbly enough what is given it and it doesn't cry for the moon. It
has an idea that fine scenery is an appeal to its nobler part, and that
it shows a nice critical sense in preferring it to poor. That's a real
intellectual flight, for the public.

Auberon. Very well, its preference is right, and why isn't that a
perfectly legitimate state of things?

Dorriforth. Why isn't it? It distinctly _is!_ Good scenery and poor
acting are better than poor scenery with the same sauce. Only it becomes
then another matter: we are no longer talking about the drama.

Auberon. Very likely that's the future of the drama, in London--an
immense elaboration of the picture.

Dorriforth. My dear fellow, you take the words out of my mouth.
An immense elaboration of the picture and an immense sacrifice of
everything else: it would take very little more to persuade me that that
will be the only formula for our children. It's all right, when once we
have buried our dead. I have no doubt that the scenic part of the art,
remarkable as some of its achievements already appear to us, is only in
its infancy, and that we are destined to see wonders done that we now
but faintly conceive. The probable extension of the mechanical arts
is infinite. "Built in," forsooth! We shall see castles and cities and
mountains and rivers built in. Everything points that way; especially
the constitution of the contemporary multitude. It is huge and
good-natured and common. It likes big, unmistakable, knock-down effects;
it likes to get its money back in palpable, computable change. It's in
a tremendous hurry, squeezed together, with a sort of generalized gape,
and the last thing it expects of you is that you will spin things fine.
You can't portray a character, alas, or even, vividly, any sort of human
figure, unless, in some degree, you do that. Therefore the theatre,
inevitably accommodating itself, will be at last a landscape without
figures. I mean, of course, without figures that count. There will
be little illustrations of costume stuck about--dressed manikins; but
they'll have nothing to say: they won't even go through the for