I have before spoken of Robertson's fondness for love-scenes. There
are almost as many of them in one of his comedies as in one of Mr.
Anthony Trollope's novels. And they are generally very good. What can
be more delicious than the "spooning" in _Home_, if it is not the
billing and cooing in _Ours_? But what can be more commonplace or more
objectionable than the frequent remarks about love and Cupid scattered
through his plays? Tom Stylus says in _Society_, "Love is an awful
swindler--always drawing upon Hope, who never honors his drafts--a
sort of whining beggar, continually moved on by the maternal police.
But 'tis a weakness to which the wisest of us are subject--a kind of
manly measles which this flesh is heir to, particularly when the flesh
is heir to nothing else. Even I have felt the divine damnation--I mean
emanation. But the lady united herself to another, which was a very
good thing for me, and anything but a misfortune for her." This is
altogether false: no man could ever say such things seriously--at
least no man of sense would, and Tom Stylus is a man of sense.
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