Barnabas. As a matter of fact, _The Victim of Virtue_ was up to a very
great deal, but its points were so delicate that one must have been
educated rather broadly to grasp them, which is again, perhaps, a
foolish contrariety of terms. At all events, they carried no appeal to
the theatre-goers from the sailing ships in the river or the regiments
in the fort, who turned as one man that night to Jimmy Finnigan.
Stephen was aware, in the abstract, of what he might expect. He savoured
the enterprises of the London theatres weekly in the _Saturday Review_;
he had cast a remotely observing eye upon the productions of this
particular playwright through that medium for a long time. They formed a
manifestation of the outer world fit enough to draw a glance of
speculation from the inner; their author was an acrobat of ideas.
Doubtless we are all clowns in the eyes of the angels, yet we have the
habit of supposing that they sometimes look down upon us. It was thus,
if the parallel is not exaggerated, that Arnold regarded the author of
_The Victim of Virtue_. His attitude was quite taken before the
orchestra ceased playing; it was made of negation rather than criticism,
on the basis that he had no concern with, and no knowledge of, such
things.
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