New-York tribune., 1876-11-21
CLARA MORRIS AS MISS MUTTON.

An eagerly interested company filled the
Union Square Theate last night In spite OF tho tempest
and gave enthusiastic welcome to Miss Clara MOfrs
in the new play OF " Miss Milton" This Is a tvc-act
piece from the French. in which Is depicted condition
of acute and protracted suffering and through which an
appeal is made to sympathy with maternal love afflicted
very grievously by the consequences OF reinediess
sim Miss Mutton, the principal parsonage Is
woman who has left her husband and two children
taken ard left paramour repented Of her criminal con
duct procured the position Of In the house o
her former husband and entered the most dreadful
OF all ordeas the living OF life OF deception, in
ence Of the person she has wronged and the domestic
happiness she has sacrificed. The piece which por-
t.avs her conduct and anguish, In this dread
full predicament Is rather series OF pic
lures than play 1t does not attempt eithcr
action or STYLE It's language stops short at being useful
II contains however both character and situation, and
II 10 heavily fraught with misery and pathos. 1t selects
certain supreme moments OF conflict and PAIN IN the ie
ofrhis wretched woman and presents her as the victim
OF agonlcs neither to be escaped, cured, or even
assnaged II 1t be true. as Shakespeare says, that
IL IA sad for a man TO look ut happiness through
orother mans eyes-and nobody doubts it
,ve may likewise assume that IL Ia painful for woman
IN look nj happiness through the eyes OF another woman
This il the strait into which Miss Muton Ia seen To Dc
cast She has interviews with an old tutor VINO KNOWS
her. with her own children, with the new we whom her
abandoned husband thinking her to be dead, has mar
ways of the children "wOund her with siier
whose balsam never grew" The wife, exnltant IN hcr
pride Of place and command OF the husDahds hehr'
maddens her with a Of hopeless loss Her hea't
strings thus almost snapped asnder by trials arising
love. jealousy. and the constant necessity oi r
preston. Once she turns upon the domestic paradise
discloses herself TO the Eve, and in Wild ana
whirling deium, claims her old rights as wife anu
mother. This, may be surmised is moment OF
great passion and Of corresponding dramatic power.
II viii also be surnsed that nferenally the drif, of
the piece is to extcn-by exaltation OF feeling
above law-toward obsourng moral principles Upon
the moral aspect OF the subject though, shall not
here reflect No thinking being 1t may be assumed goes
70 such source for moral doctrine. Sin Is sn and the
consequences of IL are inevitable and often terrible
There can be no good accomplished by trying TO perplcx
This point Plays OF the old Stranger breed are morally
aegether sterile People do not reason themselves into
ain nor do they reason themselves out OF temptations
and pieces OF this kndat least on our stageare gwen
not for the sake of their teaching but Tor thc sake OF
their emotional effect This new one Is Drm iui OF tnis-
as interpreted by Clara Morris and ber coadutors-nnd
II will promote achryma flow for the impressibie pun
lic IA often 1t is repeated Miss motifs acted in "
with sympathetlc emotion and affecting force her
appearance woeful by osimpie garments phid