Good acting may not always obtain due recognition; but then how often bad acting and accidental deficiencies remain undetected! "We were all terribly out, but the audience did not see it," actors will often candidly admit.

Although we in front sometimes see and hear things we should not, some peculiarity of our position blinds and deafens us too much.

Our eyes are beguiled into accepting age for youth, shabbiness for finery, tinsel for splendour.
Garrick frankly owned that he had once appeared upon the stage so inebriated as to be scarcely able to articulate, but "his friends endeavoured to stifle or cover this trespass with loud applause," and the majority of the audience did not perceive that anything extraordinary was the matter.

What happened to Garrick on that occasion has happened to others of his profession.

And our ears do not catch much of what is uttered on the stage.