Excerpt from Mice and Men: A Romantic Comedy in Four Acts And who does not foresee the end - the middle-aged doctrinaire, cloaked and hatted, faltering slowly down the garden path, opening the wicket, and turning, ere he utterly effaces himself, an almost happy smile towards the house - the house that was to have been his and hers - from which are wafted the strains of "My love is like a red, red rose," sung as a duet by the two young people? This is a story that must have been exploited in a score of sentimental books and sentimental plays. In real life, of course it would be impossible. But these objections to "Mice and Men" are made by me merely in cold blood: I had no glimmer of them during the play's procedure. I surrendered whole-heartedly, taking the play for all it was worth, smiling and sighing and brushing away tears with the best of them. The reason why I was able to enjoy the sentiment and sentimentality of this play is simply that Mrs. Ryley has a genuine talent for sentimental comedy. Sense of humour has not been denied to Mrs Ryley. It prevents her from ever becoming maudlin. Her sentiment is always airy and wholesome. Moreover, she can write. What a relief, after that illiterate slush to which we have so long been accustomed to find dialogue that is really like human speech, yet terser and more distinguished than human speech! Even by mere reason of its literary style, "Mice and Men" is delightful, and rare among plays. But the chief ingredient of its delightful rarity is that it is a fairy story conceived in a sincere spirit - a fairy story in which I can believe. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.