“Regarding the question I had come to the theatre to decide, my mind was fully made up, as surely as on the question of the merits of my lady acquaintance’s novel when she read me the scene between the loose-haired maiden in the white dress and the hero with two white dogs and a hat with a feather á la Guillaume Tell.

From an author who could compose such spurious scenes outraging all aesthetic feeling, as those which I had witnessed, there was nothing to be hoped; it may safely be decided that all that such an author can write will be bad because he evidently does not know what a true work of art is. I wished to leave, but the friends I was with asked me to remain, deciding that one could not form opinion by that one act, and that the second would be better. So I stayed for the second act.”