The Angel and the Author, and Others

and the

he Problem Play, but accidents will h

y pointing the finger of accusation against him who, whatever his faults may be, was once, at all events, her father. That one fact in his favour she can never forget. Indeed she would not if she could. That one asset, for whatever it may be worth by the time the Day of Judgment a

it is my keen if occasionally somewhat involved, sense of duty that is the cause of almost all our troubles in this play. You will always r

at first sight it would almost appear there was nobody to blame-nobody, except the heroine herself. It all seems to happen just because she is no better than she ought to be: clearly, the father's fault! for ever having had a daughter no better than she ought to b

of him, you let him be a scientist-and then, of course, he is only to blame in a minor degree. If he had not been a scientist-thinking more of his silly old stars or beetles than of his intricate daughter, he

, for once, had Ju

ed in the last act. But for that he was rather a nice young man, full of sentiment and not ashamed of it. From the scaffold he pleaded for leave to embrace his mother just once more before he died. It was a pretty idea. The hangman himself was touched. The necessary leave was granted him. He descended the steps and flung his arms round the sobbing old lady, and-bit off her nose. After that he told her why he had bitten off her nose. It appeared that when he was a boy, he had returned home one evening w

heroine herself, but with the heroine's parents: what is the best way of bringing up a daughter who shows t

dying young-shortly after the heroine's birth. No doubt they argue to themselves this

ather!" cries the heroine: one feels how me

f would seem to favour this suggestion. It has always been her fate, she explains, to bring suffering and misery upon those she loves. At first, according to her own account, she rebelled against this cruel Fate-possibly instigated thereto by the people unfortunate e

ry out indignantly to Fate: "look here, what you have done. Look at this sweet and well-proportioned lady, compelled to travel first-class, accompanied by an amount of luggage that must be a perpetual nightmare to her maid, from one fashionable European resort to another; forced to exist on a well-secured income of, apparently, five thousand a year, most of which has to go in clothes; beloved by only the best people in the play; t

of mislaying

is upon her. Was it that early husband-or rather the gentleman she thought was her husband. As a matter of fact, he was a husband. Only he did not hap

way they dress them all alike nowadays. I suppose it does not really matter. They a

om she has no further use? If she gives him away he is sure to come back, like the clever dog that is sent in a hamper to the other end of the kingdom, and three days afterwards is found gasping on the doorste

e. She seems to be under the impression that because she

elf, "seven years ago at least. According to the laws of Natu

im for one last favour: that he will go away where neither she nor anybody else of any importance will ever see him or hear of him again. That's

t places. She accepts week-end invitations to the houses of his nearest relatives. She has married his first cousi

time he saw her coming he were to duck under the table, somebody would be sure to notice it and make remar

ith a Husband when she

ven occur to him; and the lady herself is t

ing too soon; the remarkable circumstances attending her girlhood; that dear old stupid husband she thought was hers; and all the while the really culpable party has been existing unsuspected under her very nose. She clears away the furniture a bit, and tells Society exactly what she thinks of it-she is always good at that, telling people what she thinks of them. Other peo

rself-have b

. One felt there was something to be said for even them. Ugly thoughts would cross our mind that perhaps the Heroine herself was not altogether irreproachable-that possibly there would have been less Problem, if, thinking a little less about h

the best solution of the Problem: it is Societ