The growing drama has outgrown such toys

Of simulated stature, face, and speech:

It also peradventure may outgrow

The simulation of the painted scene,

Boards, actors, prompters, gaslight, and costume,

And take for a worthier stage the soul itself,

Its shifting fancies and celestial lights,

With all its grand orchestral silences

To keep the pauses of its rhythmic sounds.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1809-1861): Aurora Leigh. Book v.

Westward the course of empire takes its way;

The four first acts already past,

A fifth shall close the drama with the day:

Time's noblest offspring is the last.

Bishop Berkeley (1684-1753): On the Prospect of Planting Arts and Learning in America.