Page:The thirty-six dramatic situations (1921).djvu/125

Rh his degree of consciousness or unconsciousness, of frankness or dissimulation, and of Will proper) the perseverance which he brings to his undertaking; if he be unconscious, the discovery which he may make of his own unconsciousness; if he be a deceiver, the discoveries which others may make of his dissimulation ("others" here meaning perhaps a single character, perhaps the spectator). These remarks also apply to the "Instrumental" role; and not alone these remarks, but those also which concern the "Object," are applicable to the Role-Lien.

I have already observed that this last rôle, and the triple hypostasis of the Third Actor, may be reproduced in numerous exemplars within one play. On the other hand, two, three, or all four of them may be fused in a single figure, (Lien- Instrumental. Object-Instigator. Instrument-Lien-Object, etc.), combinations which present themselves, like the combinations of the Situations, already considered, in varied array. Sometimes the hero who unites in himself these divers roles plays them simultaneously—perhaps all of them toward an individual or group, perhaps one or several of them toward an individual or group, and another role wherein these roles mingle, toward some other individual or group; sometimes these various roles will be successively played toward the same individual or group, or toward several; sometimes, finally, the hero plays these roles now simultaneously, and again successively.

But it is not possible to detail in these pages, even if I so desired, the second pari of the An of Combination; thai which we in Prance call by the Bomewhal feeble term as Goethe remarked) "composition." All that I have here undertaken to show is, first, thai:i single study must create, al the same time, the episodes or actions of the characters, and the charactei themselves: for upon the stage, what the latter are may be known only by what tney do; next, how invention and composition, those two modes of the Ait ot Combination not Imagination, empty word! will,