Note 126 — NOTE ON SYMBOLS (continued 2)

I here use ‘scene’ in the sense of a continuous section of action in an unchanged locality, and do not follow either the usage of the playwrights, which tends to be based upon the neo-classical principle that the entrance or exit of a speaker of importance constitutes a fresh scene, or the divisions of the editors, who often assume a change of locality where none has taken place; cf. ch. xxii. I do not regard a scene as broken by a momentary clearance of the stage, or by the opening of a recess in the background while speakers remain on the stage, or by the transference of action from one point to another of the background if this transference merely represents a journey over a foreshortened distance between neighbouring houses.