However, one might never have troubled about Sir JAMES'S logic if he had not declared his moral purpose in set terms. I suppose he had to explain his title, which was sufficiently obscure. It comes, as Mr. SOTHERN kindly informed us, from the lines:—
"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves."
IN AND OUT OF THE WOOD.
Mr. Purdie MR. SAM SOTHERN.
Mr. Coade MR. NORMAN FORBES.
Mr. Dearth MR. GERALD DU MAURIER.
Brutus, in fact, is the famous general to whom certain things were caviare. He is the typical man in the audience, to whom Sir JAMES says: "You, too, Brutus; I'm talking at you."
Happily (for my taste, anyhow) the humour of the play dominates its sentiment. And where the sentiment of the child Margaret threatens to overstrain itself we had always the healthy antidote of Mr. DU MAURIER'S practical methods to correct its tendency to cloy. He was extraordinarily good both as himself and, for a rare change, as somebody quite different. Miss FAITH CELLI as his daughter—a sort of Peter Pan girl who does grow up, far too tall—was delightful in the true BARRIE manner. It was a pity—but that was not her fault—that she had to end her long and difficult scene on rather a false note. I am almost certain that no child (outside a BARRIE play), who is left alone in a Magic Wood, scared out of her life, would cry aloud, "Daddy, daddy, I don't want to be a Might-have-been." The sentiment of the words was, of course, part of the scheme, but it was not for her to say them.