Theobald didn't lift his little finger to preserve us. At the first
hint that we were tired of waiting, and that we should like the show to
begin, he was off in a huff. 'Great work requires time, contemplation,
privacy, mystery! O ye of little faith!' We answered that we didn't
insist on a great work; that the five-act tragedy might come at his
convenience; that we merely asked for something to keep us from yawning,
some inexpensive little _lever de rideau_. Hereupon the poor man took
his stand as a genius misconceived and persecuted, an _ame meconnue_, and
washed his hands of us from that hour! No, I believe he does me the
honour to consider me the head and front of the conspiracy formed to nip
his glory in the bud--a bud that has taken twenty years to blossom. Ask
him if he knows me, and he will tell you I am a horribly ugly old woman,
who has vowed his destruction because he won't paint her portrait as a
pendant to Titian's Flora. I fancy that since then he has had none but
chance followers, innocent strangers like yourself, who have taken him at
his word.
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