Mr. Gilbert was a professional player. But since Mrs. Kemble's voice not only pronounced the words describing us all as players, but suggested to that hearer the various significance of the words, how the universality of the truth becomes more and more apparent! In all the great interests of life--religion, politics, business--we have our exits and our entrances, and, in this, unlike Gilbert, we show ourselves to each other not as the men we are, but as players. Here is Sylvanus, for instance, who may stand for us all, most amiable of men if you could happen upon him in some happy undress moment. But they are few. The poor fellow is cast for many parts, and he plays with little intermission. One of his characters is the politician. He depicts a furious partisan, and is so lost in his part that while the man Sylvanus speaks the truth and desires it, yet in his character of politician it is not truth or fair play that he wants, but whatever tends to advance and aggrandize his party. He carefully depreciates those with whom he does not agree. He cultivates distrust of every word spoken and every deed done by the other party. Personally he likes many of his opponents. His personal relations show that he does not really think them the rascals and impostors and traitors that in his part of politician he declares them to be. It seems often to a dispassionate observer that when he accuses them as politicians of lying, cheating, and stealing, he estimates them by his knowledge of himself as a politician. He supposes that they would not hesitate to do what, without compunction, he does himself. They are all players together, and this is a kind of stage rant designed to impress the groundlings, who, after all, compose the larger part of the audience. Sylvanus also plays the part of a religious sectary. As a private person he enjoys greatly the wit and intelligence and stored experience of life which distinguish his neighbor Eugenius. The purity and elevation of his neighbor brighten the days on which they meet, and he is always a better and a wiser man when they part. But these are his off hours, his moments of vacation. He appears on the stage as a sectary, and plays his part with resolute energy. This part again is that of a man not pursuing truth, but so occupied with maintaining his own conception of truth that he has no time to test it. It is a comedy of great humor, because Sylvanus, as a sectary, stands against all comers to protect a spring of deep and clear water, and is so engrossed in guarding the sacred wave from the least pollution that he does not find time to remark that it is not a spring at all, but a dry sand-pit.