vices hold up their heads in spite of the
stage, and a thousand virtues make no impression on cold-hearted
spectators. Thus, probably, Moliere's Harpagon never altered a
usurer's heart, nor did the suicide in Beverley save any one from the
gaming-table. Nor, again, is it likely that the high roads will be safer
through Karl Moor's untimely end. But, admitting this, and more than
this, still how great is the influence of the stage! It has shown us the
vices and virtues of men with whom we have to live. We are not surprised
at their weaknesses, we are prepared for them. The stage points them out
to us, and their remedy. It drags off the mask from the hypocrite, and
betrays the meshes of intrigue. Duplicity and cunning have been forced
by it to show their hideous features in the light of day. Perhaps the
dying Sarah may not deter a single debauchee, nor all the pictures of
avenged seduction stop the evil; yet unguarded innocence has been shown
the snares of the corrupter, and taught to distrust his oaths.

The stage also teaches men to bear the strokes of fortune. Chance and
design have equal sway over life. We have to bow to the former, but we
control the latter. It is a great advantage if inexorable facts do not
find us unprepared and unexercised, and if our breast has been steeled to
bear adversity. Much human woe is placed before us on the stage. It
gives us momentary pain in the tears we shed for strangers' troubles, but
as a compensation it fills us with a grand new stock of courage and
endurance. We are led by it, with the abandoned Ariadne, through the
Isle of Naxos, and we descend the Tower of Starvation in Ugolino; we
ascend the terrible scaffold, and we are present at the awful moment of
execution. Things remotely present in thought become palpable realities
now. We see the deceived favorite abandoned by the queen. When about to
die, the perfidious Moor is abandoned by his own sophistry. Eternity
reveals the secrets of the unknown through the dead, and the hateful
wretch loses all screen of guilt when the tomb opens to condemn him.

Then the stage teaches us to be more considerate to the unfortunate, and
to judge gently. We can only pronounce on a man when we know his whole
being and circumstances. Theft is a base crime, but tears mingle with
our condemnation, when we read what obliged Edward Ruhberg to do the
horrid deed. Suicide is shocking; but the condemnation of an enraged
father, her love, and the fear of