See,
too, this bit of dialogue in _Play_:
"AMANDA. You are a good girl, and will be rewarded some day with a
good man's love for this.
"ROSIE. I don't want it. I don't want anything to do with love. Love's
a nasty, naughty, wicked boy, and the sooner he's put in
convict-clothes and refused a ticket-of-leave, the better."
That is false too: the affected smartness of the wit does not suit the
situation; or, rather, as a writer in the _Athenaeum_ has said of a
similar speech, "it suits any occasion."
In this same _Play_, Mrs. Kin peck soliloquizes thus: "I fell into a
most unquiet sleep. I thought I saw Cliqueteaux, the old croupier, who
died of love for me--of that and a complication of other disorders. A
man that was a genius, with a wart on his nose. It was hereditary--the
genius, not the wart," etc. Now this may be "funny," but it is not
dramatic. It reminds one of the most forced passages of Artemas Ward's
generally fresh and unforced humor. But perhaps the worst instance in
all Robertson's play of this pitiful sacrifice of situation and
character to a petty "joke" is found in _Caste_.
Pages:
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379