I calculated that the play
as it stood would not occupy more than five hours in performance. I
therefore departed from the original scheme so far as to provide the
Turkish Knight with three attendant monsters, severally named the
Good, the Beyootiful, and the Ter-rew, and representing in themselves
the current forms of Religion, Art, and Science. These three Snt
George successively challenges, tackles, and flattens out--the first
as lunacy, the second as harlotry, the third as witchcraft. But even
so the play would not be long enough had I not padded a good deal of
buffoonery into the scene where the five corpses are brought back to
life.
The restorative Physician symbolises that irresistible force of human
stupidity by which the rottenest and basest institutions are enabled
to thrive in the teeth of the logic that has demolished them. Thus,
for the author, the close of the play is essentially tragic. But what
is death to him is fun to you, and my buffooneries wont offend any of
you. Bah!
FOND HEARTS ASKEW
_By_
M**R*CE H*WL*TT
TO WILLIAM ROBERTSON NICOLL SAGE AND REVEREND AND A TRUE KNIGHT THIS
ROMAUNT OF DAYS EDVARDIAN
PROLOGUE.
_Too strong a wine, belike, for some stomachs, for there's honey in
it, and a dibbet of gore, with other condiments.
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