re consciously or unconsciously observed
more faithfully than any other poet these principles of art; and, as is
characteristic of the present day, nowhere do we find these principles so
grossly violated as in the representation of his plays. I had painful proof
of this some few nights after my arrival in London. I had never seen
Shakespeare acted, and I went to the Lyceum and there I saw that exquisite
love song--for _Romeo and Juliet_ is no more than a love song in
dialogue--tricked out in silks and carpets and illuminated building, a
vulgar bawd suited to the gross passion of an ignorant public. I hated all
that with the hatred of a passionate heart, and I longed for a simple
stage, a few simple indications, and the simple recitation of that story of
the sacrifice of the two white souls for the reconciliation of two great
families. My hatred did not reach to the age of the man who played the
boy-lover, but to the offensiveness with which he thrust his individuality
upon me, longing to realize the poet's divine imagination: and the woman,
too, I wished with my whole soul away, subtle and strange though she was,
and I yearned for her part to be played by a youth as in old time: a youth
cunningly disguised, would be a symbol; and my mind would be free to
imagine the divine Juliet of the poet, whereas I could but dream of the
bright eyes and delicate mien and motion of the woman who had thrust
herself between me and it.

But not with symbol and subtle suggestion has the villa to do, but with
such stolid, intellectual fare as corresponds to its material wants. The
villa has not time to think, the villa is the working bee. The tavern is
the drone. It has no boys to put to school, no neighbours to study, and is
therefore a little more refined, or, should I say? depraved, in its taste.
The villa in one form or other has always existed, and always will exist so
long as our present social system holds together. It is the basis of life,
and more important than the tavern. Agreed: but that does not say that the
tavern was not an excellent corrective influence to the villa, and that its
disappearance has not had a vulgarising effect on artistic work of all
kinds, and the club has been proved impotent to replace it, the club being
no more than the correlative of the villa. Let the reader trace villa
through each modern feature. I will pass on at once to the circulating
library, at once the symbol and glory of villaism.

The subjec