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Austen, Jane, 1775-1817

"Mansfield Park"


"There would not be time, and other difficulties
would arise. We must rather adopt Mr. Crawford's views,
and make the _performance_, not the _theatre_, our object.
Many parts of our best plays are independent of scenery."
"Nay," said Edmund, who began to listen with alarm.
"Let us do nothing by halves. If we are to act, let it be in
a theatre completely fitted up with pit, boxes, and gallery,
and let us have a play entire from beginning to end; so as it
be a German play, no matter what, with a good tricking,
shifting afterpiece, and a figure-dance, and a hornpipe,
and a song between the acts. If we do not outdo Ecclesford,
we do nothing."
"Now, Edmund, do not be disagreeable," said Julia.
"Nobody loves a play better than you do, or can have gone
much farther to see one."
"True, to see real acting, good hardened real acting;
but I would hardly walk from this room to the next to
look at the raw efforts of those who have not been
bred to the trade: a set of gentlemen and ladies,
who have all the disadvantages of education and decorum
to struggle through.


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