Passage 3—Humanities ‘This passage is excerpted from “The Parisian Stage,” an essay written for a London newspaper late in the nine- teenth century by the American author Henry James. It is impossible to spend many weeks in Paris with ‘out observing that the theater plays very important part ‘in French civilization; and it is impossible to go much to the theater without finding it a copious source of instruc- 5 tion as to French ideas, manners, and philosophy. 1 ‘supposed that I had a certain acquaintance with these complex phenomena, but during the last: Thave occupied a great many orchestra chairs, merciless glare ofthe footighs Lhave read a 10 of my old convictions with a new distinctness. ee te et ee for, surely, among the pleasures ds socks and jaye foe eee sciousness so totally as 15 Francais. It was the poet Gray. 1 his idea of heaven was to lie