Perhaps indolence is their excuse. You call a character the Duke of Smithfield, and thereby save yourself much trouble; you need not explain that he is rich, or how he came to be rich, or why he has no work to do. You have ready-made for you the supposition of a mass of details as to manner and prejudices. If the heroine's father is an earl and the hero a commoner, such as a barrister or a doctor, the mere statement of these facts is useful matter for your story. If the dramatist writes about the kind of earl who belongs to that inner set of the aristocracy, in the existence of which some of us innocently believe, how does he set about his task? Even when the ordinary playwright handles the ruck-and-run of the "nobs," his acquaintance with them can hardly justify him in regarding his studies as founded upon observation. To see people in the stalls and meet them at public "functions," or the large entertainments of a semi-private character which it is easy to penetrate, gives poor opportunity for close scrutiny. Is there amongst the dramatists--and novelists too--something akin to the system of the islanders who earned a living by taking in one another's washing? Is there a vicious circle, in which each and all accept as true what others have written? Do they merely help themselves out of the common fund of ignorance? Possibly this is based upon a delusion. The whole aristocracy may have become so democratic that it is quite easy to study the most exclusive at first hand, if you happen to be a successful dramatist, but very few of the dramatic critics are successful dramatists. The opportunities for the critic are limited except when a peeress happens to have written a play, and even then a candid critic does not get very far. Perhaps, too, if some inner circle exists there is no need to study it; for a knowledge of the titled folk floating in the great three-quarter world that is taking the place of Society may suffice, and to have met a countess at a musical reception, of five hundred or so, given by some millionaire amateur, or to have been on the board of a catchpenny company with a baron, or to have suffered long at a charity ball and obtained introductions from a ducal steward, or to have bought a cup of bad tea at an Albert Hall bazaar from a marchioness whose manners would shock a cook, is a sufficient acquaintance with the customs, thoughts and ideals of all the inhabitants of Debrett, and entitles one to present or to criticize the shyest member of the august House that is now beginning to wonder what is going to happen next. His Duty and Difficulties