Alpha Book

Everything is terribly sudden nowadays, and
alarmingly quick. Lovers make love across Europe by telegraph, and
poetic justice arrives in less than forty-eight hours by the Oriental
Express. Divorce is our weapon of precision, and every pack of cards at
the gaming table can distil a poison more destructive than that of the
Borgia. The unities of time and place are preserved by wire and rail in
a way which would have delighted the hearts of the old French tragics.
Perhaps men seek dramatic situations in their own lives less readily
since they have found out means of making the concluding act more swift,
sudden and inevitable. At all events we all like tragedy less and comedy
more than our fathers did, which, I think, shows that we are sadder and
possibly wiser men than they.
However this may be, Orsino was no more inclined to fancy himself
unhappy than any of his familiar companions, though he was quite willing
to believe that he understood most of life's problems, and especially
the heart of woman.


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