even the most enthusiastic
believer in the natural goodness and ultimate perfectibility of human
nature must admit that men and women are frail. But drunkenness and
infidelity are happily not characteristic of our English homes. Then why,
we ask, should a dramatist select such a theme, and by every artifice of
dialogue force into prominence all that is mean and painful in an
unfortunate woman's life? Always the same relentless method; the cold,
passionless curiosity of the vivisector; the scalpel is placed under the
nerve, and we are called upon to watch the quivering flesh. Never the kind
word, the tears, the effusion, which is man's highest prerogative, and
which separates him from the brute and signifies the immortal end for which
he was created. We hold that it is a pity to see so much talent wasted, and
it was indeed a melancholy sight to see so many capable actors and
actresses labouring to----'

'This is even worse than usual,' said Hubert; and glancing through half a
column of hysterical commonplace, he came upon the following:--

'But if this woman had succeeded in reclaiming from vice the man who
unjustly divorced her, and who in his misery goes back to ask her
forgiveness for pity's sake, what a lesson we should have had! And, with
lightened and not with heavier hearts, we should have left the theatre
comforted, better and happier men and women. But turning his back on the
goodness, truth, and love whither he had induced us to believe he was
leading us, the author flagrantly makes the woman contradict her whole
nature in the last act; and, because her husband falls again, she, instead
of raising him with all the tender mercies and humanities of wifehood,
declares that her life has been one long mistake, and that she accepts the
divorce which the Court had unjustly granted. The moral, if such a word may
be applied to such a piece is this: "The law may be bad, but human nature
is worse."'

The other morning papers took the same view,--a great deal of talent wasted
on a subject that could please no one. Hubert threw the papers aside, lay
back, and in the lucid idleness of the bed his thoughts grew darker. It was
hardly possible that the piece could survive such notices; and if it did
not? Well, he would have to go. But until the piece was taken out of the
bills it would be a weakness to harbour the ugly thought.

There were, however, the evening papers to look forward to, and soon after
midday Annie was sent