eater, and in killing his father considered he was doing
a heroic act. He could, by the same rule, have been inspired to a
noble act of self-sacrifice.

After all, the main question is, does a sensational play exercise a
beneficial or a pernicious influence over the audience? If the reader
will consider the matter impartially he should not have any difficulty
in coming to a right conclusion.

Theatrical performances should afford amusement and excite mirth, as
well as give instruction. People who visit theaters desire to be
entertained and to pass the time pleasantly. Anything which excites
mirth and laughter is always welcomed by an audience. But a serious
piece from which humor has been excluded, is calculated, even when
played with sympathetic feeling and skill, to create a sense of gravity
among the spectators, which, to say the least, can hardly be restful to
jaded nerves. Yet when composing his plays the playwright should never
lose sight of the moral. Of course he has to pay attention to the
arrangement of the different parts of the plot and the characters
represented, but while it is important that each act and every scene
should be harmoniously and properly set, and that the characters should
be adapted to the piece as a whole, it is none the less important that
a moral should be enforced by it. The practical lesson to be learned
from the play should never be lost sight of. In Chinese plays the
moral is always prominent. The villain is punished, virtue is
rewarded, while the majority of the plays are historical. All
healthy-minded people will desire to see a play end with virtue
rewarded, and vice vanquished. Those who want it otherwise are
unnatural and possess short views of life. Either in this life or in
some other, each receives according to his deserts, and this lesson
should always be taught by the play. Yet from all the clever dramas
which have been written and acted on the Western stage from time to
time what a very small percentage of moral lessons can be drawn, while
too many of them have unfortunately been of an objectionable nature.
Nearly everyone reads novels, especially the younger folk; to many of
these a visit to a theater is like reading a novel, excepting that the
performance makes everything more realistic. A piece with a good moral
cannot therefore fail to make an excellent impression on the audience
while at the same time affording them amusement.

I am somewhat surprise