The Dolly Dialogues

Book excerpt: The " Dolly Dialogues " serve much the same purpose that the ballet does in an opera—they are a divertissement pure and simple. The winsome, irresponsible "Dolly" picks her steps amid the conversational pitfalls which the adroit " Mr. Carter" spreads for her, with as much dainty sureness as a premiere danseuse, and we cannot but admire and applaud her grace and vivacity. There is no hidden meaning to the "Dialogues " any more than there is to "Dolly." They but reveal the polished inanity of the modern ball-room, the fashionable frivolity of the five o'clock tea-table, and the harmless flirtations of the lawn-tennis court. As "trifles light as air," Mr. Hope offered them to us; as trifles we accept them, and who but the most nobly serious could refuse to smile over their gracefulness, their immaculate innuendo! As a hand-book on "Polite Conversations; or, The Art of Saying Nothing Gracefully," these " Dolly Dialogues " might almost take rank as a serious classic.