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Show FISHERMAN'S LUCK heart of man. They mould character. They control conduct. They are stars of destiny shining in the inner firmament. And if art would truly hold the mirror up to nature, it must reflect these greater and lesser lights that rule the day and the night. How many of the plays that divert and misinform the modern theatre-goer turn on the pivot of a love-affair, not always pure, but generally simple! And how many of those that are imported from France proceed upon the theory that the Seventh is the only Commandment, and that the principal attraction of life lies in the opportunity of breaking it! The matinee-girl is not likely to have a very luminous or truthful idea of existence floating around in her pretty little head. But, after all, the great plays, those that take the deepest hold upon the heart, like Hamlet and King Lear, ~ acbeth and Othello, are not loveplays. And the most charming comedies, like The Winter's Tale, and The Rivals, and Rip Van Winkle, are chiefly memorable for other things than love-scenes. Even in novels, love shows at its best when it does 116 LOVERS AND LANDSCAPE not absorb the whole plot. Lorna Doone is a lovers' story, but there is a blessed minimum of spooning in it, and always enough of working and fighting to keep the air clear and fresh. The Heart of Mi(llothian, and Hypatia, and Romola, and The Cloister and the Hearth, and John lnglesant, and The Three Musketeers, and Notre Dame, and Peace and War, and Quo Vadis,-thcse are great novels because they arc much more than tales of romantic love. As for Henry Esmond, (which seems to me the best of all,) certain! y " love at first sight " does not play the finest role in that book. There are good stories of our own day-pathetic, humourous, entertaining, powerful-in which the clement of romantic love is altogether subordinate, or even imperceptible. The Rise of Silas Lapham does not owe its deep interest to the engagement of the very charming young people who enliven it. Madame Delphine and Ole 'Stracted are perfect stories of their kind. I would not barter The Jungle Books for a hundred of The Brushwood Boy. The truth is that love, considered merely as the 117 |