a Boadicea, or a Jeanne d'Arc, had such
plays been popular in your time. Perhaps they, had they played in your
day, might have had to be content with such a part as yours. They could
not have played the meek heroine, and what else would there have been
for them in modern drama? Catherine of Russia! had she been a waiter's
daughter in the days of the Second Empire, should we have called
her Great? The Magdalene! had her lodging in those days been in some
bye-street of Rome instead of in Jerusalem, should we mention her name
in our churches?

You were necessary, you see, Dolly, to the piece. We cannot all play
heroes and heroines. There must be wicked people in the play, or it
would not interest. Think of it, Dolly, a play where all the women were
virtuous, all the men honest! We might close the booth; the world would
be as dull as an oyster-bed. Without you wicked folk there would be no
good. How should we have known and honoured the heroine's worth, but
by contrast with your worthlessness? Where would have been her fine
speeches, but for you to listen to them? Where lay the hero's strength,
but in resisting temptation of you? Had not you and the Wicked Baronet
between you robbed him of his estates, falsely accused him of crime, he
would have lived to the end of the play an idle, unheroic, incomplete
existence. You brought him down to poverty; you made him earn his own
bread--a most excellent thing for him; gave him the opportunity to play
the man. But for your conduct in the Prologue, of what value would have
been that fine scene at the end of the Third Act, that stirred the house
to tears and laughter? You and your accomplice, the Wicked Baronet,
made the play possible. How would Pit and Gallery have known they were
virtuous, but for the indignation that came to them, watching your
misdeeds? Pity, sympathy, excitement, all that goes to the making of
a play, you were necessary for. It was ungrateful of the house to hiss
you.

And you, Mr. Merryman, the painted grin worn from your pale lips, you
too were dissatisfied, if I remember rightly, with your part. You wanted
to make the people cry, not laugh. Was it a higher ambition? The poor
tired people! so much happens in their life to make them weep, is it not
good sport to make them merry for awhile? Do you remember that old soul
in the front row of the Pit? How she laughed when you sat down on the
pie! I thought she would have to be carried out. I heard her talking to
h