Drama is based on the Mistake. I think someone is my friend when he really is my enemy, that I am free to marry a woman when in fa...ct she is my mother, that this person is a chambermaid when it is a young nobleman in disguise, that this well-dressed young man is rich when he is really a penniless adventurer, or that if I do this such and such a result will follow when in fact it results in something very different. All good drama has two movements, first the making of the mistake, then the discovery that it was a mistake.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
He [Johnson] talked of the heinousness of the crime of adultery, by which the peace of families was destroyed. He said, "Confusion... of progeny constitutes the essence of the crime; and therefore a woman who breaks her marriage vows is much more criminal than a man who does it. A man, to be sure, is criminal in the sight of God: but he does not do his wife a very material injury, if he does not insult her; if, for instance, from mere wantonness of appetite, he steals privately to her chambermaid. Sir, a wife ought not greatly to resent this.... A wife should study to reclaim her husband by more attention to please him."LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »