Book contents
6 - Shades of goodness
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
Summary
aubrey: … Oh, of course! To you, Cayley, all women who have been roughly treated, and who dare to survive by borrowing a little of our philosophy, are alike. You see in the crowd of the Ill-used only one pattern; you can't detect the shades of goodness, intelligence, even nobility there. Well, well, how should you? The crowd is dimly lighted! And, besides, yours is the way of the world.
drummle: My dear Aubrey, I live in the world.
aubrey: The name we give our little parish of St James's.
Arthur Wing Pinero, The Second Mrs Tanqueray (1893)The failure of Michael and his Lost Angel in 1896 brought Jones a commiserating letter from his friend, Arthur Pinero, and it too acknowledged the public's nervous reaction to intelligent drama: ‘You will have accepted the matter philosophically, I feel sure – recognising that the theatres are in for a silly period.’ Pinero had written in the same vein to Archer, some days before, ruefully accepting the fact that the success of Wilson Barrett's religious melodrama, The Sign of the Cross, gave cheer to the old guard: ‘It comes to them as a sign that the good old crusted “British Drama” is still “going strong” … We are in, if I mistake not, for a silly period – but it will pass. There is no finality, thank God, in any theatrical fashion.’
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- The Making of Victorian Drama , pp. 162 - 195Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1991