A play by Mr. Haddon Chambers, _The Awakening_, turned on a sudden
conversion--the "awakening," in fact, referred to in the title. A
professional lady-killer, a noted Don Juan, has been idly making love to
a country maiden, whose heart is full of innocent idealisms. She
discovers his true character, or, at any rate, his reputation, and is
horror-stricken, while practically at the same moment, he "awakens" to
the error of his ways, and is seized with a passion for her as single
minded and idealistic as hers for him. But how are the heroine and the
audience to be assured of the fact? That is just the difficulty; and the
author takes no effectual measures to overcome it. The heroine, of
course, is ultimately convinced; but the audience remains sceptical, to
the detriment of the desired effect. "Sceptical," perhaps, is not quite
the right word. The state of mind of a fictitious character is not a
subject for actual belief or disbelief. We are bound to accept
theoretically what the author tells us; but in this case he has failed
to make us intimately feel and know that it is true.
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