Like Lucretia, Portia was a Roman matron of noble lineage, and still nobler powers of mind.

Portia is the King's godchild, too, so it is just as well that she does not see what is for her own advantage.

Portia and Desdemona, Cordelia, Rosalind and Miranda, Lady Macbeth, Queen Katherine and Hermione, Ophelia, Jessica, Hero, and many more are daughters of fathers, but of their mothers we hear nothing.

Portia has always been my favorite heroine, and I saw her last night as sweet and lovely as I had always hoped she might be.

" There was awe undisguised in the look he gave her, and it had crept into his voice when he said: "Portia, are you really a flesh-and-blood woman?" She smiled.

Have we a right to say that these portraits of a possible humanity, this Portia, this Toby Veck, this Tiny Tim, this ideal man and woman, are real men and real women in possibility, if not in the actualities of life?