The sphere of the drama has widened most marvellously in all directions, and only ends where human limitations begin. Together with this, a marked deepening of the inner world has taken place. Still there are those who have much to say about the vulgarity contained in the modern drama, and how its inaugurators and following present the ugly and untruthful. Untrue and ugly, indeed, for those who are buried under a mass of inherited views and prejudices. The growth of the scope of the drama has increased the number of the participants therein. Formerly it was assumed that the fate of the ordinary man, the man of the masses, was altogether too obscure, too indifferent to serve as material for anything tragic; since those who had never dwelt in the heights of material splendor could not go down to the darkest and lowest abyss. Because of that assumption, the low and humble never gained access to the center of the stage; they were only utilized to represent mobs. Those that were of importance were persons of high position and standing, persons who represented wealth and power with superiority and dignity, yet with shallow and superficial airs. The ensemble was but a mechanism and not an organism; and each participant was stiff and lifeless; each movement was forced and strained. The old fate and hero drama did not spring from within Man and the things about him; it was merely manufactured. Most remarkable incidents, unheard of situations had to be invented, if only to produce, externally, an appearance of coinciding cause and effect; and not a single plot could be without secret doors and vaults, terrible oaths and perjury. If Ibsen, Gorky, Hauptmann, Gabrielle D'Annunzio and others had brought us nothing else but liberation from such grotesque ballast, from such impossibilities as destroy every illusion as to the life import of a play, they would still be entitled to our gratitude and the gratitude of posterity. But they have done more. Out of the confusion of trap doors, secret passages, folding screens, they have led us into the light of day, of undisguised events, with their simple distinct outlines. In this light, the man of the heap gains in life force, importance and depth. The stage no longer offers a place for impossible deeds and the endless monologues of the hero, the important feature is harmonious concert of action. The hero, on a stage that conscientiously stands for real art and aims to produce life, is about as superfluous as the clown who amused the audience between the acts. After all the spectacle of one star display, one cannot help but hail the refreshing contrast, shown in the "Man of Destiny," by the clever Bernard Shaw, where he presents the legend-hero, Napoleon, as a petty intriguer, with all the inner fear and uneasiness of a plotter. In these days of concerted energy, of the co-operation of numerous hands and brains; in the days when the most far-reaching effect