ss to be
even so much of a character as that, and the other people are mere
"humours," quite amusing in their cleverly contrasted ways. When these
people talk, they talk with an effort to be natural and another effort
to be witty; they are never sincere and without self-consciousness; they
never say inevitable things, only things that are effective to say. And
they talk in poor English. Mr. Pinero has no sense of style, of the
beauty or expressiveness of words. His joking is forced and without
ideas; his serious writing is common. In "The Gay Lord Quex" he is
continually trying to impress upon his audience that he is very
audacious and distinctly improper. The improprieties are childish in the
innocence of their vulgarity, and the audacities are no more than
trifling lapses of taste. He shows you the interior of a Duchess's
bedroom, and he shows you the Duchess's garter, in a box of other
curiosities. He sets his gentlemen and ladies talking in the allusive
style which you may overhear whenever you happen to be passing a group
of London cabmen. The Duchess has written in her diary, "Warm
afternoon." That means that she has spent an hour with her lover. Many
people in the audience laugh. All the cabmen would have laughed.

Now look for a moment at the play by the amateur and the woman. It is
not a satisfactory play as a whole, it is not very interesting in all
its developments, some of the best opportunities are shirked, some of
the characters (all the characters who are men) are poor. But, in the
first place, it is well written. Those people speak a language which is
nearer to the language of real life than that used by Mr. Pinero, and
when they make jokes there is generally some humour in the joke and some
intelligence in the humour. They have ideas and they have feelings. The
ideas and the feelings are not always combined with faultless logic into
a perfectly clear and coherent presentment of character, it is true. But
from time to time we get some of the illusion of life. From time to time
something is said or done which we know to be profoundly true. A woman
has put into words some delicate instinct of a woman's soul. Here and
there is a cry of the flesh, here and there a cry of the mind, which is
genuine, which is a part of life. Miss Syrett has much to learn if she
is to become a successful dramatist, and she has not as yet shown that
she knows men as well as women; but at least she has begun at the right
end. She