Brieux paints in black colors yet is no fanatic; in fact, he will
be criticised by many as being too tolerant of human weakness.
The conditions of society and the moral standards of France are
so different from those of America that his point of view and his
proposals for reform will not meet with general acceptance, but
it is encouraging to find a dramatist who realizes the importance
of being earnest and who uses his art in defense of virtue
instead of its destruction.


Other comments follow, showing the great interest manifested in
the play and the belief in the highest seriousness of its
purpose:

There is no uncleanness in facts. The uncleanness is in the
glamour, in the secret imagination. It is in hints, half-truths,
and suggestions the threat to life lies.

This play puts the horrible truth in so living a way, with such
clean, artistic force, that the mind is impressed as it could
possibly be impressed in no other manner.

Best of all, it is the physician who dominates the action. There
is no sentimentalizing. There is no weak and morbid handling of
the theme. The doctor appears in his ideal function, as the
modern high-priest of truth. Around him writhe the victims of
ignorance and the criminals of conventional cruelty. Kind,
stern, high-minded, clear-headed, yet human-hearted, he towers
over all, as the master.