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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Familiar Studies of Men and Books by Robert Louis Stevenson: purposes; this, that we have to indicate in the drama, is an
affair of method. We have heard a story, indeed, of a
painter in France who, when he wanted to paint a sea-beach,
carried realism from his ends to his means, and plastered
real sand upon his canvas; and that is precisely what is done
in the drama. The dramatic author has to paint his beaches
with real sand: real live men and women move about the stage;
we hear real voices; what is feigned merely puts a sense upon
what is; we do actually see a woman go behind a screen as
Lady Teazle, and, after a certain interval, we do actually
see her very shamefully produced again. Now all these
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