"Ah! you've got Sarah," said Mrs. Duncan, "you don't want anyone else."

"I think Racine's boring," said Mrs. Lockton, "he's so artificial."

"Oh! don't say that," said Giles, "Racine is the most exquisite of
poets, so sensitive, so acute, and so harmonious."

"I like Rostand better," said Mrs. Lockton.

"Rostand!" exclaimed Miss Tring, in disgust, "he writes such bad
verses--du caoutchouc--he's so vulgar."

"It is true," said Willmott, "he's an amateur. He has never written
professionally for his bread but only for his pleasure."

"But in that sense," said Giles, "God is an amateur."

"I confess," said Peebles, "that I cannot appreciate French poetry.
I can read Rousseau with pleasure, and Bossuet; but I cannot admire
Corneille and Racine."

"Everybody writes plays now," said Faubourg, with a sigh.

"I have never written a play," said Lord Pantry.

"Nor I," said Lockton.

"But nearly everyone at this table has," said Faubourg. "Mrs. Baldwin
has written 'Matilda,' Mr. Giles has written a tragedy called 'Queen
Swaflod,' I wrote a play in my youth, my 'Le Menetrier de Parme';