"After Thirty" is the humorous study of a period which has had relatively small attention from Anglo-American story-tellers. It is neither hay nor grass, youth nor age. The humor and pathos of a later decade have been much played on since the day of that "Princess and the Butterfly," which Bernard Shaw reviewed under the heading "Mr. Pinero on Turning Forty." But the perilous thirties are only now being opened up (with us) as a field for literary comedy. And as a rule it has been the woman of that age who made her appeal to ...
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"After Thirty" is the humorous study of a period which has had relatively small attention from Anglo-American story-tellers. It is neither hay nor grass, youth nor age. The humor and pathos of a later decade have been much played on since the day of that "Princess and the Butterfly," which Bernard Shaw reviewed under the heading "Mr. Pinero on Turning Forty." But the perilous thirties are only now being opened up (with us) as a field for literary comedy. And as a rule it has been the woman of that age who made her appeal to the story-teller. Mr. Street's amiable philanderer, Shelley Wickett, is an amusing and by no means far-fetched type. His amours remain within those bounds of racial continence which seem so quaint or so downright incredible from the European point of view. Shelley is never physically "unfaithful" to his mate; and however he may rove, his heart is true to Poll. As for Poll, or Molly, she understands within reason. Her own eye and ear have ranged, once or twice; and she has learned the secret that "husbands and wives become a little tired, now and then, of always knowing, in advance, exactly what the other is going to do and think and say." Therefore she is patient with the erring one until a certain coarsening of his taste touches her pride too roughly: "A wife has to have something to take pride in," she cries, turning upon the bewildered Shelley. "And if she has to put up with a philandering husband, about all she has left is to take pride in the kind of woman he philanders with." In the end Shelley has to be jolted awake by rude means; but there is a fair outlook for him and his Molly when the curtain falls.
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