She was in the best of spirits all day long. When the housework was over and they were quiet together, she said,—
‘Now, my dear mother and sister, I want to know how the performance pleased you.’
‘It was as good as it could be,’ replied her mother, ‘but I cannot think why all plays should turn upon lovemaking. I wonder whether the time will ever come when we shall care for a play in which there is no courtship.’
‘What a horrible heresy, mother,’ said Madge.
‘It may be so; it may be that I am growing old, but it seems astonishing to me sometimes that the world does not grow a little weary of endless variations on the same theme.’
‘Never,’ said Madge, ‘as long as it does not weary of the thing itself, and it is not likely to do that. Fancy a young man and a young woman stopping short and exclaiming, “This is just what every son of Adam and daughter of Eve has gone through before; why should we proceed?” Besides, it is the one emotion common to the whole world; we can all comprehend it. Once more, it reveals character. In Hamlet and Othello, for example, what is interesting is not solely the bare love. The natures of Hamlet and Othello are brought to light through it as they would not have been through any other stimulus. I am sure that no ordinary woman ever shows what she really is, except when she is in love. Can you tell what she is from what she calls her religion, or from her friends, or even from her husband?’
‘Would it not be equally just to say women are more alike in love than in anything else? Mind, I do not say alike, but more alike. Is it not the passion which levels us all?’
‘Oh, mother, mother! did one ever hear such dreadful blasphemy? That the loves, for example, of two such cultivated, exquisite creatures as Clara and myself would be nothing different from those of the barmaids next door?’
‘Well, at anyrate, I do not want to see my children in love to understand what they are—to me at least.’
‘Then, if you comprehend us so completely—and let us have no more philosophy—just tell me, should I make a good actress? Oh! to be able to sway a thousand human beings into tears or laughter! It must be divine.’