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Mademoiselle Gretry, if you please, and for the love of God remember your crossings. Sh! sh!" he cried, waving his arms at the others. "A little silence if you please. Now, Marion." Isabel Gretry, holding her play-book at her side, one finger marking the place, essayed an entrance with the words: "'Ah, the old home once more. See the clambering roses have "

I saw you lying asleep here looking so innocent that it went to my heart, and I heard you mutter in your sleep 'Love is strong as death, but that's only a bit of some play-book, and don't you trust to it, for I never saw love that was stronger than a spider's web." "Oh, hush, Mrs. Loveday. It is in the Bible!" "You don't say so, ma'am," the woman said awestruck.

Thenceforth the interest declined by little and little. The fable, as set forth in the play-book, proved to be not worthy of the scenes and characters: what fable would not? Such passages as: "Scene 6. The Hermitage. Night set scene. Indeed, as literature, these dramas did not much appeal to me. I forget the very outline of the plots.

Marion climbs over the rustic breakfast and practicable over the rustic bench and practicable table, ha, ha, to make the entrance." Still holding the play-book, he clapped hands with elaborate sarcasm. "Ah, yes, good business that. That will bring down the house." Meanwhile the Gretry girl turned again from left-centre. "'Ah, the old home again. See " "Stop!" thundered Monsieur Gerardy.

And so our inimitable humorist has made delightful fun of the solid books, which no gentleman's library should be without, the Humes, Gibbons, Adam Smiths, which, he says, are not books at all, and prefers some "kindhearted play-book," or at times the Town and County Magazine. Poor Lamb has not a little to answer for, in the revived relish for garbage unearthed from old theatrical dungheaps.

On a modest tap from the flute-player, admittance was afforded him and his companions by a footman, who conducted them through a variety of stone passages, to a very handsome summer parlour, where a lady, or something resembling one, dressed in a style of extra elegance, was trifling with a play-book while she finished her chocolate.

The same degrading appreciation attached both to the actor in plays and to their author. The contemptuous appellation of "play-book," served as readily to degrade the mighty volume which contained Lear and Hamlet, as that of "play-actor," or "player-man," has always served with the illiberal or the fanatical to dishonor the persons of Roscius or of Garrick, of Talma or of Siddons.

She told me she had read a play-book giving a description of our Society in the character of one of its members, and ever since she had had a particular desire to see one of us, and that she could not but admire with thankfulness that she had been gratified in having one to reside under her roof.

And anyway, since it ought to be felt, known, understood, and practically admitted that an actor is something more than a telegraph wire, that his personal faculty and testimony enter into the matter of embodiment and expression, Jefferson's rare excellence and great success as Acres should teach a valuable lesson, correcting that pernicious habit of the critical mind which measures an actor by the printed text of a play-book and by the hide-bound traditions of custom on the stage.

See like that," he cried, straightening up. "Now then. We try that entrance again. Don't come on too quick after the curtain. Attention. I clap my hands for the curtain, and count three." He backed away and, tucking the play-book under his arm, struck his palms together. "Now, one two three." But this time Isabel Gretry, in remembering her "business," confused her stage directions once more.