ay. There
never was a time when a good new play was more wanted, or had a better
opening for itself. Fechter is a thorough artist, and what he may
sometimes want in personal force is compensated by the admirable whole
he can make of a play, and his perfect understanding of its
presentation as a picture to the eye and mind.

I leave London on the 8th of November early, and sail from Liverpool on
the 9th.

Ever affectionately yours.

[Sidenote: The same.]

"ALL THE YEAR ROUND" OFFICE,
_Friday, 25th October, 1867._

MY DEAR LYTTON,

I have read the Play[88] with great attention, interest, and admiration;
and I need not say to _you_ that the art of it--the fine
construction--the exquisite nicety of the touches--with which it is
wrought out--have been a study to me in the pursuit of which I have had
extraordinary relish.

Taking the Play as it stands, I have nothing whatever to add to your
notes and memoranda of the points to be touched again, except that I
have a little uneasiness in that burst of anger and inflexibility
consequent on having been deceived, coming out of Hegio. I see the kind
of actor who _must_ play Hegio, and I see that the audience will not
believe in his doing anything so serious. (I suppose it would be
impossible to get this effect out of the mother--or through the
mother's influence, instead of out of the godfather of Hegiopolis?)

Now, as to the classical ground and manners of the Play. I suppose the
objection to the Greek dress to be already--as Defoe would write it,
"gotten over" by your suggestion. I suppose the dress not to be
conventionally associated with stilts and boredom, but to be new to the
public eye and very picturesque. Grant all that;--the names remain. Now,
not only used such names to be inseparable in the public mind from
stately weariness, but of late days they have become inseparable in the
same public mind from silly puns upon the names, and from Burlesque. You
do not know (I hope, at least, for my friend's sake) what the Strand
Theatre is. A Greek name and a break-down nigger dance, have become
inseparable there. I do not mean to say that your genius may not be too
powerful for such associations; but I do most positively mean to say
that you would lose half the play in overcoming them. At the best you
would have to contend against them through the first thre