They are a world of themselves almost as much as
fairy-land. Take one of their characters, male or female (with few
exceptions they are alike), and place it in a modern play, and my
virtuous indignation shall rise against the profligate wretch as warmly
as the Catos of the pit could desire; because in a modern play I am
to judge of the right and the wrong. The standard of police is the
measure of political justice. The atmosphere will blight it; it cannot
live here. It has got into a moral world, where it has no business,
from which it must needs fall headlong; as dizzy, and incapable of
making a stand, as a Sweden-borgian bad spirit that has wandered
unawares into the sphere of one of his Good Men, or Angels. But in its
own world do we feel the creature is so very bad?--The Fainalls and
the Mirabels, the Dorimants and the Lady Touchwoods, in their own
sphere, do not offend my moral sense; in fact, they do not appeal to
it at all. They seem engaged in their proper element. They break through
no laws or conscientious restraints. They know of none.
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