The saccharine strength of the sentiment and mush which we could gulp down at that time, and still can and do to this day, is to me beyond belief. And I was one of those who did the gulping; indeed I was one of the worst. Those perfect nights, for instance, when as dramatic critic I strolled into one theater or another, two or three in an evening possibly, and observed (critically, as I thought) the work of those who were leaders in dramatic or humorous composition and that of our leading actors! It may be that the creative spirit has no particular use for intelligence above a mediocre level, or, better yet and far more likely, creative intelligence works through supermen whose visions, by which the mob is eventually entertained and made wise, must content them. Otherwise how explain the vast level of mediocrity, especially in connection with the stage, the people’s playhouse, then, today and forever, I suppose, until time shall be no more? I recall, for instance, that I thought Mr. Drew was really a superior actor, and also that I thought that most of the plays of Henry Arthur Jones, Arthur Wing Pinero, Augustus Thomas, and others (many others), were enduring works of art. I confess it: I thought so, or at least I heard so and let it go at that. How sound I thought their interpretations of life to be! The cruel over-lords of trade in those plays, for instance, how cruel they were and how true! The virtues of the lowly workingman and the betrayed daughter with her sad, downcast expression! The moral splendor of the young minister who denounced heartless wealth and immorality and cruelty in high places and reformed them then and there or made them confess their errors! I can see him yet: slim, simple, perfect, a truly good man. The offhand on-the-spot manner in which splendid reforms were effected in an hour or a night, the wrongs righted instanter—in plays! You can still see them in any movie house in America. To this hour there is no such thing as a reckless unmarried girl in any movie exhibited in America. They are all married. But how those St. Louis audiences applauded! _Right_, here in America at least, was always appropriately rewarded and left triumphant, wrong was quite always properly drummed out. Our better selves invariably got the better of our lower selves, and we went home cured, reformed, saved. And there was little of evil of any description which went before, in acts one and two, which could not be straightened out in the last act.