* * * * *

Such considerations point inevitably to the truth that our theory depends essentially not upon action or talk, but upon the quality and rationale of thought.  It is a question of Potentiality, rather than of Dynamics.  It is the process of reasoning which concerns us, not its translation into conduct.  A man may be a devoted supporter of Mrs. Grundy and yet be a Sulphite, if he has, in his own mind, reached an original conclusion that society needs her safeguards.  He may be the wildest-eyed of Anarchists and yet bromidic, if he has accepted another’s reasons and swallowed the propaganda whole.

It will be doubtless through a misconception of this principle that the first schism in the Sulphitic Theory arises.  Already the cult has become so important that a newer heretic sect threatens it.  These protestants cannot believe that there is a definite line to be drawn between Sulphites and Bromides, and hold that one may partake of a dual nature.  All such logic is fatuous, and founded upon a misconception of the Theory.

* * * * *

There is, however, a subtlety which has perhaps had something to do with confusing the neophyte.  It is this:  Sulphitism and Bromidism are, symbolically, the two halves of a circle, and their extremes meet.  One may be so extremely bromidic that one becomes, at a leap, sulphitic, and vice versa.  This may be easily illustrated.

* * * * *

Miss Herford’s inimitable monologues, being each the apotheosis of some typical Bromide—­a shopgirl, a country dressmaker, a bargain-hunter and so on—­become, through her art, intensely sulphitic.  They are excruciatingly funny, just because she represents types so common that we recognize them instantly.  Each expresses the crystallized thought of her particular bromidic group.  Done, then, by a person who is herself a Sulphite par excellence, the result is droll.  “One has,” says Emerson, “but to remove an object from its environment and instantly it becomes comic.”

* * * * *

The same thing is done less artistically every day upon the vaudeville stage.  We love to recognize types; and what Browning said of beauty: 

   We’re made so that we love
   First, when we see them painted,
   Things we have passed
   Perhaps a hundred times nor cared to see

can be easily extended to our sense of humor in caricature.  A recent hit upon the variety stage does still more to illustrate the problem.

The “Cherry Sisters” aroused immense curiosity by an act so bromidic as to be ridiculous.  Were they rank amateurs, doing their simple best, or were they clever artists, simulating the awkward crudeness of country girls?  That was the question.  In a word, were they Sulphites or Bromides?

What such artists have done histrionically, Hillaire Belloc has done exquisitely for literature in his “Story of Manuel Burden.”  This tale, affecting to be a serious encomium upon a middle class British merchant, shows plainly that all satire is, in its essence, a sulphitic juggling with bromidic topics.  It is done unconsciously by many a simple rhymester whose verses are bought by Sulphites and read with glee.