Page:The great Galeoto; Folly or saintliness; two plays done from the verse of José Echegaray into English prose by Hannah Lynch (IA greatgaleotofoll00echerich).djvu/24

 praise, and applause. Here your treatment of a great social problem had the good fortune to run on lines that in all eyes seemed elevated and humane. What a splendid and legitimate satisfaction for those among us who had hesitated to share the general opinion!'

The Epoca wrote next day:—'Don José Echegaray has obtained an indisputable, an unanimous triumph. He has treated a great social question in a masterly manner. The great Galeoto felt the rod of shame upon its cheek, but it applauded without a single exception. The social vice exists, we know, and that vice was whipped with all the vigorous energy of a Greek tragedy. Everybody recognised the truth of the picture, though none cared to accept it as personal: but the social moral avenged by the creative genius of Señor Echegaray owes him a reward and satisfaction, and that reward and that satisfaction will be the union of all classes, those who may have once in a way formed part of the great Galeoto, and those who habitually protest against the facile habit of slander—to show their gratitude to the poet, the one for vengeance, and the other for the lesson received.

'A subscription not to exceed twenty reals (four shillings), which will be devoted to some work of art, will recall to Señor Echegaray while he lives that he may obtain triumphs as great as last night's, seeking his inspiration in the true sentiment of art.'

To the extraordinary and self-conscious prelude of The Great Galeoto which lifts a play quite out of the region of diversion, and, as the sensible Don Julian remarks, plunges xx