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    not go on . He was touching the hilt of Candiano ' s sword , and the exquisite victory of making lie metal relief tell wholly chained his tongue . " Here is Walter ' s true rule of life , " cried Julie , as Margaret stepped up to listen ; . " make her speak . " . V Yseult had laced her arm round Margaret ' waist , as if to draw her into our circle , and neutralize Julie ' s impertinence , while Margaret responded by laying one hand on Walter ' s shoulder , and passing the other arm round Yseult . She did not now wait for urging . " You

    cannot have it , Edward , " she said , taking up Walter's answer ; " you cannot get out of mechanical activity , like that of the weaver , or even the rower , that sharpness and perfect line which " springs from striking with a will j you cannot get that keenness of eye which comes from watching for life and death . Why , you cannot get music itself , neither the -writing nor the voice if you have none but tutored ideas and school-girl . passions . What Semiramidevraa ever bred in an establishment for young ladies ; or " " One , I think , " said Edwardes , smiling .

    " Or what life is there which will not indicate its force against resistance —against contumely , death , reason , everything P " " Margaret !" " Yseult , darling ! why do you look surprised ? I am sure you don't think that we can say to life exactly how far it shall go , and live by rule , and yet live . " " Then you , Margaret , " said Conway , " would not live by rule , would have no rule— -anarchy ?" " What tremendous revolutionists these women are , " cried Edwardes . " Don't answer her , " said Markham . " I will tell you what , Edwardes , when , a woman like Margaret speaks , we ought not to fall into the idle school habit of picking up their words and trying to refute what they say . Women are not trained to dialectics ; they do not even think with exactness ; but they come closer and straignter to the truth . If you stop Margaret ' s mouth with repartees you Will break the bargain which I made . "

    . I believe we were all astonished at the genuine passion of the great grocer as she spoke ; and not less so when Julie put her mouth to his cheek , and gave him tin gros baiser , and then hid her eyes on his shoulder . " Pfeel I am an ass , " said Edwardes , " as I always am ! Goon , Margaret . " " Look you here ! " said Stanhope , who was at last drawn off his work , " the whole story is this . If you want to have a type of man , take thatwell , not that , if you smile at my conceit ; but that and that . Well , there you have legs ; but you can't have such legs by preaching . Look here-

    see how beautiful that is , how the outline waves like music visible , and comes melting into the knee and then to the foot ; see hoAv sharp that inner outline of the knee is , yet how gentle ; how easy that leg sways , yet how ready to start—yes , as quick as thought . Well , you cannot have that without those"legs * are trained in act as quick as thought—often . Look at these dark eyes of Titian ' s : you cannot have eyes like those without a fiery intellect and a fiery heart behind—a heart to be roused . You cannot have that ample , sharp knit chest , which looks at once so full and so compact , without there are quick lungs beneatk—quick blood ; you know that . Well , if you have fiery heart , it will be roused ; if quick blood , it will take fire ; if arm like that , it will strike : and then there will be

    contest and death . " " There is some force in what you say ; but still I don't see in all that a rule . " ¦" A rule , Edwardes ! What rule do you want ? A man should be seven heads and a half high ; and if men of only fire heads high abound , there is something wrong . If most eyes look dull , with nothing particular behind them , there is death in that society , not more life , as you philanthropists desire . " " Granted— -atill that is no rale . Suppose I desire to be , or to make my pupil a Borgia , with tremendous eyes , or a Castor , with horrible armwhat is the rule to get at these results ?"

    " Evidently , " said Conway , " there is the rule of art , wliicli Stanhope means all the while . If society be true to art , it will relish those things which are the raw material of art—picturesque costume , picturesque customs , sports smacking of real contention , frequent occasions for honourable conflict , free growth of the nobler passions , and so forth . " " Yes , that is it , " said Stanhope . " But , " continued Conway , " the Haw in the rule is this , that although it is very good for art , it is not good for society . If we permit the nobler passions , we open a door for the ignoble . If wo indulge the angrier passions , we sot aside the policeman ; and our streeta and street-doors would be less comfortably safe . " " That ia the very tiling I say , " cried Stanhope ; "you sacrifice life to

    comfort . JNTow , reduce society to a rule , to save life , and you Htifie life . It is a case of overlaying . " " Besides , " cried Margaret , " Edward begs the whole question , thai , the ignoble is more suppresse-d now , and that sacred things are kept more sacred . I . deny that . I do not believe the policeman is an efliment guard of generous feeling . I do not believe that commercial principles test the happinoas of men and women ; 1 do not believe that meanness is put down by acts of parliament ; or that patriotism is created by statutes against bribery . I do believe that trusting to hucIi things breeds generations who tolerate

    the sale of the country ' s right for a soup-ticket , who permit baseness if the policeman cannot arrest it , and sap the very essence of life . It i » an oflejmuato toleration that comes out of all . this Mihomlism . ' Truth in more absolute , if we imitate nature , we should not rofuHe to dry out against what is vile , to battlcwith what in bad , to deal destruction on what in mortal to life . It in part of GoU'h work to swoop awuy corruption , and living ibm > grown strong in that victory . The only use oi' the base is to be material for the victory of the noble . If a thing in vile , and you must b « ar it , endure without complaint ; but if you can , efltiue it . It i » by slaying dragons that Ht . Georges arc trained . " i

    " But your rule , Margaret , my dear girl , " exclaimed Edwardes . "You challenged me to apply ; now you must do so . " j [** Unluckily , Margaret , " observed Conway , "in our artificial arrangements , there is no room to carry put your law . "; ^ " Make room , then ; better break a window than be stifled for want of air . ¦ . . r ; ¦ . ; ' ¦ ' ¦ ' ' - - . ' ., , ¦ . '¦ " But you would have to break away people . In the overcrowded state of society— - —" "Oh ! never mind * consequences , '" cried Edwardes . " If a rule is a sound one , the consequences are sure to be right ; only , I want to know what is the rule . "

    Margaret paused ; and Conway answered for her . " The rule appears to me to be this . As we are born with certain faculties , the possession of those faculties indicates the action of life . If we have , as the phrenologists would say , the faculty of acquisition , we must acquire ; if we have the faculty of reason , we must ratiocinate ; if of destruction , we must destroy ; and so on . But the faculties are most powerful in their most generous and perfect shape ; and the highest development of power tends also to strengthen the higher faculties . The ordinary precept is " to counteract those faculties which are the . lowest , " or the least desirable ; but if you do that , as society tries to do , by a direct process , you only appear to abate the faculties of the type , and to that extent diminish the force of life . By the opposite process of developing all the powers , you overbear those of inferior grade , and perfect the type of life by completing it in all its parts . I take that to be the rule . " " But still , " said Edwardes , " you do not give us the application . That was extorted from me . "

    " Xet us apply it , " said Julie , " by getting out of this workshop , as we intended to do , or my life will be abated very disastrously . " And she ran out of the room into the garden .

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    THE DISCARDED SON , ( and some small gossip ) . On Monday night the Adelphi produced an adaptation of the Mis de Famille , by " the Actor , Manager , and Author too , " Benjamin Webster . What a cruel thing it is to hear so continually of the " decline of the Drama , " when there never was a time in which " first-rate talent" was so abundant among actors , —if we are to take them at their own valuation , — ¦ w hen even failures , or such as appear failures to a simple-minded public , are " triumphant successes ! " " immense attractions ! and draw " overflowing audiences nightly ! " and when our managers , —besides being managers , which one would think was enough for any head of moderate capacity , — -are actors also , good actors for the most part , and if not always authors into the bargain , like Buckstone , Webster , Mathews , and Wigan ,

    at any rate are " pits of erudition" and libraries of learning !—men who read Xinhilin at breakfast , Sennacherib at lunch , and turn lightly over the playful pages of Strabo before closing their eyes in slumber ! This is , however , probably a digression . Well , this Fils de Famille , or Discarded Son , that I was telling you about , is a veiy pleasant , stirring , comic drama , which has been one of the great dramatic successes in Paris during the hast year , and which promises to have a fair ran at the Adelphi , although not a run so long as the original , partly from the English mind having less of a military cast than the French , and consequently the English audience will feel less interested by a play so thoroughly military in its spirit and

    allusions as this Discarded Son ,- but mainly because a comedy of real life in a great measure depends for its success on the reality of its representation . To make a drawing-room scene , such as that of the second act , properly interesting to an audience , it should be represented with great attention to verisimilitude . When you have strong situation and strong language , —such as melodrama delights in—very little attention to verisimilitude is necessary ; the audience , moved by the feeling , attends only to the feeling . But when you have the quieter expression and the less strongly marked position , such as every day ' s experience furnishes , — and such as comed y especially avails itself of—then the interest of the

    , scene lies in its reality , in its direct appeal to that daily experience . When two melodramatic rivals scowl and stamp , and express their respective opinions of each other in language more emphatic than polite , m sonorous than accurate , the spectator never once asks himself whether that is the way that lovers in real life express themselves . But when , a « in this Discarded Son , a quarrel is represented between two rivals who are gentlemen , and who quarrel in the presence of ladies , unless the q uarrel is conducted with something of the manner of gentlemen ' s quarrels , the spectator justly complains . Now the whole drawing-room scone , on Monday night , wanted verisimilitude . I except Leigh Murray , whose manner littio

    was quiet , gentlemanly , and effective . But all the details , all the nothings which give an air of finish and reality to such a scene , w wanting . Selby , as the exasperated Colonel , was " stagey , " and took uj » the insults in a most unreal manner . Miss Woolgar , who is getting more and more into the habit of speaking her part ; in private and conn ' dontK " communications to herself , under the mistaken notion , I believe , of being natural , —had not , apparently , possessed herself of the moaning oi tlio , situation , and thus , a very fine part becainoas ineffective as it could be m the hands of one so great a favourite , so deservedly a favourite . ' # I am touching , here upon the main points which seem to me lively t <> prevent the piece having ho groat and universal a success , as its oriff ««« had in Pnrin . In justice let me Hay , however , that its success on M f > "J « iy with the Auia . i'iu audience , was' unequivocal . And the reasons oi «" success were , first , the ingenuity and movement of the story ; secondly ,

    and mainly as regards actmg , the excellent performance of Jjoigh mwu * J ' whoso gaiety was unforced , whose manner was easy and genticn 1 **!^* ^* whose seriousness was exquisitely real : the soricaisness of a manly nfl * | ' never exaggerated , while the expression of physical agony controlled py

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• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 15, 1853, page 1004, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2008/page/20/