X. The relation of the story and incidents to the sympathies of the
audience as a collection of human beings.

XI. The relation of the story and incidents to the sympathies of
the particular audience for which the play is written; to its
knowledge and ignorance; its views of life; its social customs; and
to its political institutions, so far as they may modify its social
views, as in the case of a democracy or an aristocracy.

Minor matters--such as the use of comic relief, the relation of
dialog to action, the proper use of superfluous characters to
prevent an appearance of artificiality in the treatment, and a
thousand other details belonging to the constructive side of a
play--must also be within the critic's view; but a list of them
here would be too long for the space available. When the young
critic has made a careful study of the standard English drama, with
a special view to the proper considerations above indicated, his
opinion on the "construction" of a play will be of more or less
value to American dramatic literature.

There is, of course, no overt novelty in the theory advanced by Bronson
Howard in his address. The same theory was held by Francisque Sarcey,
who declared that all the principles of playmaking might be deduced from
the fact that a piece is always intended for performance before an
audience. And Marmontel, dramatist as well as dramatic theorist,
asserted that the first rule the play-wright must obey is "to move the
spectators, and the second is to move them only in so far as they are
willing to be moved.... This depends on the disposition and the manners
of the people to whom appeal is made and on the degree of sensibility