It is a wide word--sincerity. "A Midsummer Night's Dream" is no less sincere than "Hamlet," "The Mikado" as faithful to its mood of satiric frolicking as Ibsen's "Ghosts" to its mood of moral horror. Sincerity bars out no themes; it only demands that the dramatist's moods and visions should be intense enough to keep him absorbed; that he should have something to say so engrossing to himself that he has no need to stray here and there and gather purple plums to eke out what was intended to be an apple tart. Here is the heart of the matter: You cannot get sincere drama out of those who do not see and feel with sufficient fervour; and you cannot get good sincere drama out of those who will not hoe their rows to the very end. There is no faking and no scamping to the good in art. You may turn out the machine-made article very natty, but for the real hand-made thing you must have toiled in the sweat of your brow. In Britain it is a little difficult to persuade people that the writing of plays and novels is work. To many it remains one of those inventions of a certain potentate for idle hands to do. To some persons in high life, and addicted to field sports, it is still a species of licensed buffoonery, to be regulated by a sort of circus-master with a whip in one hand and a gingerbread nut in the other. By the truly simple soul it is thus summed up: "Work! Why, 'e sits writin' all day." To some, both green and young, it shines as a vocation entirely glorious and exhilarating. If one may humbly believe the evidence of his own senses, it is not any of these, but a patient calling, glamorous now and then, but with fifty minutes of hard labour and yearning to every ten of satisfaction. Not a pursuit, maybe, which one would change, but then, what man with a profession flies to others that he knows not of? Novelists, it is true, even if they have not been taken too seriously by the people of these islands, have for a long time past respected themselves, but the calling of a dramatist till quite of late has been but an invertebrate and spiritless concern. Pruned and prismed by the censor, exploited by the actor, dragooned and slashed by the manager, ignored by the public, who never even bothered to inquire the names of those who supplied it with digestives--it was a slave's job. Thanks to a little sincerity it is not now a slave's job, and will not again, I think, become one. From time to time in that vehicle of improvisation, that modern fairy tale--our daily paper--we read words such as these: "What has become of the boasted renascence of our stage?" or: "So much for all the trumpeting about the new drama!" When we come across such words, we remember that it is only natural for journals to say to-day the opposite of what they said yesterday. For they have to suit all tastes and preserve a decent equilibrium!