It may be said to the sceptical of such influences who have only sought for them in the theatre of to-day, what woman shrieks and swoons in the theatre now? what man, even, is seized with strong hysterics, as happened once, among the throng who panted, sweated, and quivered to leap on the stage, rush to the rescue, or be in at the death? We live in a hypercritical and cynical age, and are proud of the fact. We should never have been touched by Dr. Dodd’s enunciation of “Mesopotamia”—it is to be feared not even by George Whitfield’s breathing forth of “amen,” neither by the sham nor by the reality. Besides, we are misled by visions of our ancestors taking snuff and looking on at executions, and think that they felt very little, and that in the wrong place. Whereas we are the very same men and women, except that we are triply bound by certain refinements and restraints, and are pleased to hug our bonds. Lady Bell had cried with the best, palpitated and quaked over Romeo and Juliet. She had never once felt disturbed by the remembrance, as a modern playgoer would have felt disturbed—nay, would have taken credit for the feeling, that she had been behind the scenes with this Juliet, had helped her to nurse her children, add up her bills, and eat her prosaic meals. Lady Bell was not so carping and invidious. She was more womanly; she was inclined to go to the opposite extreme in her reception of the play and in the effect which it had upon her. “This Juliet was a sweet victim,” Miss Greathead had declared, wiping her eyes when all was over. “But one must confess she had little more than her deserts. How would it be with any girl in our days, who could be as disobedient and deceitful and monstrously rash as Mistress Juliet showed herself?” “Oh, Miss Greathead,” protested Lady Bell, forgetting everything in the eagerness of her argument, “I don’t go in for the disobeying and deceiving her parents—only they were so mad in their feud, that what could she ever hope for from their reason or their duty? They drove her to the climax of her disobedience and deceit, and that after she had consented to be Romeo’s. Why, madam,” Lady Bell paused, clasped her hands expressively, and exclaimed irrestrainably, “I should have done the same.”