'Somebody has it that when the heart flies out before the understanding,
it saves the judgment a world of pains,' came from a voice in that
quarter.

'I, for my part, like something merry,' said an elderly woman, whose face
was bisected by the edge of a shadow, which toned her forehead and
eyelids to a livid neutral tint, and left her cheeks and mouth like metal
at a white heat in the uninterrupted light. 'I think the liveliness of
those ballads as great a recommendation as any. After all, enough misery
is known to us by our experiences and those of our friends, and what we
see in the newspapers, for all purposes of chastening, without having
gratuitous grief inflicted upon us.'

'But you would not have wished that "Romeo and Juliet" should have ended
happily, or that Othello should have discovered the perfidy of his
Ancient in time to prevent all fatal consequences?'

'I am not afraid to go so far as that,' said the old lady. 'Shakespeare
is not everybody, and I am sure that thousands of people who have seen
those plays would have driven home more cheerfully afterwards if by some
contrivance the characters could all have been joined together
respectively. I uphold our anonymous author on the general ground of her
levity.'

'Well, it is an old and worn argument--that about the inexpedience of
tragedy--and much may be said on both sides. It is not to be denied that
the anonymous Sappho's verses--for it seems that she is really a
woman--are clever.'