The Devil's Advocate, Vol. 1

Excerpt from The Devil's Advocate

The form is that of conversation rather than of dialogue; and the writer has sought to present his dramatz's personas not as advocates of particular schools, still less as caricatures of individual teachers, but as real men and women; with dispositions developed by diverse circumstances acting on their several natures, each regarding the topics of their talk from a stand point determined by his or her original temper as affected by different careers and experiences. He has endeavoured to give to each a consistent and distinct individuality, clear enough to introduce the elements of personal interest into' what might otherwise seem monotonous argument; to relieve the dryness of dis cussion by making the debaters not mere lay-figures, but, so to speak, the characters of a novel without a story.