bermaids. We would
all be playing lead in the centre of the stage, with the lime-light
exclusively devoted to ourselves. Would it not be so?

What grand acting parts they are, these characters we write for
ourselves alone in our dressing-rooms. We are always brave and
noble--wicked sometimes, but if so, in a great, high-minded way; never
in a mean or little way. What wondrous deeds we do, while the house
looks on and marvels. Now we are soldiers, leading armies to victory.
What if we die: it is in the hour of triumph, and a nation is left to
mourn. Not in some forgotten skirmish do we ever fall; not for some
"affair of outposts" do we give our blood, our very name unmentioned in
the dispatches home. Now we are passionate lovers, well losing a
world for love--a very different thing to being a laughter-provoking
co-respondent in a sordid divorce case.

And the house is always crowded when we play. Our fine speeches always
fall on sympathetic ears, our brave deeds are noted and applauded. It
is so different in the real performance. So often we play our parts to
empty benches, or if a thin house be present, they misunderstand, and
laugh at the pathetic passages. And when our finest opportunity comes,
the royal box, in which HE or SHE should be present to watch us, is
vacant.

Poor little dolls, how seriously we take ourselves, not knowing the
springs that stir our bosoms are but clockwork, not seeing the wires
to which we dance. Poor little marionettes, shall we talk together, I
wonder, when the lights of the booth are out?

We are little wax dollies with hearts. We are little tin soldiers with
souls. Oh, King of many toys, are you merely playing with us? IS it only
clockwork within us, this thing that throbs and aches? Have you wound us
up but to let us run down? Will you wind us again to-morrow, or leave us
here to rust? IS it only clockwork to which we respond and quiver? Now
we laugh, now we cry, now we dance; our little arms go out to clasp
one another, our little lips kiss, then say good-bye. We strive, and we
strain, and we struggle. We reach now for gold, now for laurel. We call
it desire and ambition: are they only wires that you play? Will you
throw the clockwork aside, or use it again, O Master?

The lights of the booth grow dim. The springs are broken that kept our
eyes awake. The wire that held us erect is snapped, and helpless we fall
in a heap on the stage. Oh, brother and sister dollies we played beside