inking of the awful tragedy of full-grown men
and women being compelled by the pressure of hunger to dress up and
paint themselves, and then come out in public and dance, stamp, leap
about, wring their hands, make faces, and otherwise be "lively."

The costumes were of two sorts: one fantastic, supposed to represent
the East, and the other a kind of reductio ad absurdum of fashionable
garb. The leading man wore a "natty" outing-suit, and strutted with a
little cane; his stock-in-trade was a jaunty air, a kind of perpetual
flourish, and a wink that suggested the cunning of a satyr. The leading
lady changed her costume several times in each act; but it invariably
contained the elements of bare arms and bosom and back, and a skirt
which did not reach her knees, and bright-coloured silk stockings, and
slippers with heels two inches high. Upon the least provocation she
would execute a little pirouette, which would reveal the rest of her
legs, surrounded by a mass of lace ruffles. It is the nature of the
human mind to seek the end of things; if this woman had worn a suit of
tights and nothing else, she would have been as uninteresting as an
underwear advertisement in a magazine; but this incessant
not-quite-revealing of herself exerted a subtle fascination. At
frequent intervals the orchestra would start up a jerky little tune,
and the two "stars" would begin to sing in nasal voices some words
expressive of passion; then the man would take the woman about the
waist and dance and swing her about and bend her backward and gaze into
her eyes--actions all vaguely suggestive of the relationship of sex. At
the end of the verse a chorus would come gliding on, clad in any sort
of costume which admitted of colour and the display of legs; the
painted women of this chorus were never still for an instant--if they
were not actually dancing, they were wriggling their legs, and jerking
their bodies from side to side, and nodding their heads, and in all
other possible ways being "lively."

But it was not the physical indecency of this show that struck Montague
so much as its intellectual content. The dialogue of the piece was what
is called "smart"; that is, it was full of a kind of innuendo which
implied a secret understanding of evil between the actor and his
audience--a sort of countersign which passed between them. After all,
it would have been an error to say that there were no ideas in the
play--there was one idea upon which all the i