Charles Haddon Chambers
Published: 2015-07-02
Total Pages: 172
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Excerpt from The Tyranny of Tears: A Comedy in Four Acts "The Tyranny of Tears," a comedy of the emotions, is most ingeniously constructed on the simplest lines; it is a triumph of the commonplace. Played virtually by five characters, and with but one change of scene, it has that specious appearance of ease which is due to dexterity of craftsmanship. It is refreshing, free from theatrical expedients, and save perhaps for the somewhat accelerated wooing in Act Four, knots which we are accustomed to see snipped by the scissors of an erratic fate are here gently untangled by the fingers of probability. The germ of it, a matter of fortunate selection, is a human foible so universal that if a man is not conscious of it in his own proper person, he has not failed to smile over it among his neighbors: that combination of fondness and egoism out of which tyranny is legitimately born. This is the keynote; it announces itself speedily upon the raising of the curtain, and it is never for a moment after obscured by those modern subtilties calculated to provoke discussion among the elect. The hearer equipped with ordinary experience finds himself listening to it with an acquiescent stream of running comment. He knows this alphabet. It spells familiar words, and they come frequently. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.