I didn't believe in Sardanapalus for a moment, even before I had the privilege of seeing and hearing him as Mr Buskin in his dressing-room.

The entire business was a sham." "But surely it doesn't pretend to be anything else ?" suggested St Aubyn, surprised.
"Be it so.

I don't like shams, I suppose," returned the boy.
"Still, you shouldn't generalise too widely," urged the other.

"There are plays where one's sensibilities are really touched, where the situations are not forced, where the performers move and speak like living, ordinary human beings, and, in the case of great actors, work upon the feelings of the audience to such an extent----" "And there the artificiality is all the greater!" chipped in Austin, tersely.

"The more perfect the illusion, the hollower the artificiality.