Vain Fortune

'ave to eat? E

, n

hen, 'av

, n

'ave so

slice of toast.

ady for a happetite. Miss Massey '

back on his pillow, so that he might collect his thoughts. S

iever 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

and glancing through half a column of hyster

etter 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

e, 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;

atic thought. He read paper after paper with avidity; and Annie was sent in a cab to buy one that had not yet found its way so far north as Fitzroy Street. The opinion of this paper was of all importance, and Hubert tore it open with trembling fingers. Although more temperately written than the others, it was clearly favourable, and Hubert sighed a

llow; I have a couple

s with which the table was strewn. There was not an evening paper there

they are terribly down on us-

ening papers-The Tele

ers don't amount to much. Stiggins's article was

hink it will

e public, of course. If the

the b

f the piece did catch on, it would take a lot of working up to undo the mischief of those articles. Of co

is my

only consented to produce your play because-well, because there has been such an outcry

blic taste. Then he would be able to pay every one, and have some time to rest and think. And there seemed every prospect of its catching on. Discussions regarding the morality of the play had arisen in the newspapers, and the eternal question whether men and women are happier married or unmarried had reached its height. Hubert spent the afternoon addressing letters to the papers, striving to fan the flame of controversy. Every evening he

d columns about himself, anecdotes of all kinds,-where he was born, who were his parents, and what first induced him to attempt writing for the stage; his personal appearance, mode of life, the cut of his clothe

confounded with the original. Wearied by the old stereotyped form of drama, the critics had been astonished by a novelty of subject, more apparent than real, and by certain surface qualities in the execution; they had hailed the work as being original both in form and in matter, whereas all that was good in the play had been borrowed from France and Scandinavia. Divorce was the inevitable product of the time. It had been written by Mr. Price, but it might have been written by a dozen other young men-granting intelligence, youth, leisure, a university education, and three or four years of London life-any one of a dozen clever young men who frequent West End drawing-rooms and dabble in literature might have written it. All that could be s

sincere and the insincere, and the Price that suffered and the Price that didn't. Each one brought a different nuance, a thousand infinitesimal variations of the type, but, considered merely in its relation to art, the species may be said to be divided into two distinct categories. In the first category are those who rise almost at the first bound to a certain level, who produce quickly, never reaching again the original standard, dropping a little lower at each successive effort until their work becomes indistinguishable from the ordinary artistic commercialism of the time. The fate of those in the second category is more pathetic; they gradually wither and die away like flowers planted in a thin soil. Among these men many noble souls are to be found, men who have surrendered al

his hands, and he recol

e, I must-I suppose I must get out. Positively, there is no hope,-debts on every side. Fate has willed me to go as went Haydon, Gerard de Nerval, and Maréchal. The first cut his throat, th

told him the truth. He could not hope to make a living out of literature. He had not the strength to write the masterpiece which the perverse cruelty of nature had permitted him only to see, and he was hopelessly unfit for journalism. But in his simple, wholesome mind there was no bent towards suicide; and he s

He scanned every horizon-all were barred. The thought of suicide, and with it the instinctive shrinking from it, came into his mind again. Suppose he took, that very night, an overdose of chloral? He tried to put the thought from him, and returned, a little dazed and helpless, to his chair. Had the critic in The Modern Review told him the truth? Was he incapable of earning a living? It seemed so. Above all, was he incapable of finishing The Gipsy as he intended? No; that

he piece g

tty

in for a few minutes?... So the pi

. I've seen it

u get a

er the se

ter the

he said, plays the part a great deal too seriously. When the piece was first produced, it was played more good-humouredly by indifferent

r. At the end of a l

nything about t

; 'I heard not

ed quite sat

she felt he knew she was not telling the truth. The conversation paused again, an

n account of some unpaid bill. If I c

id to open it

ent after his face told her that fortunate news had come to him. The signs of the tumult within were represented by the passing of the hand acro

it! Re

andly deemed it their duty to inform Mr. Hubert Price of the circumstances under which it had been made, and also of the fact that a few weeks before his death Mr. Burnett had told Mr. John Grandly, who was then staying with Mr. Burnett at Ashwood, that he intended adding a codicil, leaving some two or three hundred a year to Miss Watson. It was unfortunate that Mr. Burnett had not had time to do this; for Miss W

dreamin

h your play, and take a theatre and produce it yourself if you like. I hope you won't forget me. I do want to play that part.

r girl, Emily Watson. It

is

y uncle dis

That would not be a bad notion. But if you do

tched his hand to her; but, irrespective of h

aid; 'had it not been for you, I m

ortune some other way. But it is getting very late. I must say good-night. I hope y

she is!... More so than I am. She is bound to succeed. There is in her just that note of individual passion.... Perh

im suddenly; he could think no more of Rose,