In "Les Deux Ecoles" the philosophy which could be discerned in "La
Veine," that of taking things as they are and taking them comfortably,
is carried to a still further development. I am prepared to be told that
the whole philosophy is horribly immoral; perhaps it is; but the play,
certainly, is not. It is vastly amusing, its naughtiness is so naive, so
tactfully frank, that even the American daughter might take her mother
to see it, without fear of corrupting the innocence of age. "On peut
tres bien vivre sans etre la plus heureuse des femmes": that is one of
the morals of the piece; and, the more you think over questions of
conduct, the more you realise that you might just as well not have
thought about them at all, might be another. The incidents by which
these excellent morals are driven home are incidents of the same order
as those in "La Veine," and not less entertaining. The mounting, simple
as it was, was admirably planned; the stage-pictures full of explicit
drollery. And, as before, the whole company worked with the effortless
unanimity of a perfect piece of machinery.
A few days after seeing "La Veine" I went to Wyndham's Theatre to see a
revival of Sir Francis Burnand's "Betsy.
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