y, a living thing, breathing
the breath of life and tripping along lightly on her own little feet.
Marrying a reserved yet deeply-devoted husband because her sister bid
her; taking into her home that sister, who had sacrificed her own love
for the husband; seeing this sister straighten the household which she
in her heedless seeking for idle amusement had not governed, then
beginning to feel herself in danger and aware of a growing jealousy,
senseless though it be, of the sister who has so innocently supplanted
her by her hearth, and even with her child; making one effort to regain
her place, and failing, as was inevitable,--poor Froufrou takes the
fatal plunge which will for ever and at once separate her from what was
hers before. What a fine scene is that at the end of the third act, in
which Froufrou has worked herself almost to a frenzy, and, hopeless in
her jealousy, gives up all to her sister and rushes from the house to
the lover she scarcely cares for! And how admirably does all that has
gone before lead up to it! These first three acts are a wonder of
constructive art. Of the rest of the play it is hard to speak so highly.
The change is rather sudden from the study of character in the first
part to the demand in the last that if you have tears you must prepare
to shed them now. The brightness is quenched in gloom and despair. Of a
verity, frivolity may be fatal, and death may follow a liking for
private theatricals and the other empty amusements of fashion; but is it
worth while to break a butterfly on the wheel and to put a humming-bird
to the question? To say what fate shall be meted out to the woman taken
in adultery is always a hard task for the dramatist. Here the erring and
erratic heroine comes home to be forgiven and to die, and so after the
fresh and unforced painting of modern Parisian life we have a finish
full of conventional pathos. Well, death redeems all, and, as Pascal
says, "the last act is always tragedy, whatever fine comedy there may
have been in the rest of life. We must all die alone."

J. BRANDER MATTHEWS.

THE KING'S GIFTS.

Cyrus the king in royal mood
Portioned his gifts as seemed him good:
To Artabasus, proud to hold
The priceless boon, a cup of gold--
A rare-wrought thing: its jewelled brim
Haloed a nectar sweet to him.
No flavor fine it seemed to miss;
But when the king stooped down, a kiss
To leave upon Chrysantas' lips,
The jewels paled in dull e