"DEAR SIR,--I have read a great deal about the theatres in _The Westminster Gazette_, signed by 'E.F.S.' I take in the paper because I disagree with its views on all topics--particularly the drama--and I like to hear the other side. Why have you not got a sense of humour? Why do you not cease flogging that dead horse, the British Drama? Do you think you can flog it into life? Do you believe that British Drama, as you understand it, ever did live, or ever will? I don't. There is too much common sense in London. "Why do you persist in girding at Mr Tree because he gives beautiful scenery instead of what you think fine plays? Lots of people enjoy his entertainments. I don't myself, for I agree with you that Shakespeare and Phillips are tiresome. I notice, by the way, that you even begin to gibe at the scenery and suggest that it is not beautiful because it is too pretty, which is a mere paradox, and of course absurd. Why do you keep howling against melodrama and musical comedy? "Above all, what grounds have you for supposing that we can have, or ought to have, a drama based upon true observation of life? Every one of us, every day of his existence, is the hero of a drama based upon the true observation of life, and a very tiresome drama too, as a rule, and we all want to see dramas in the theatre that take us out of ourselves. You seem to think that we can and ought to have a drama like the novels of Meredith, which I believe nobody ever reads, or the pictures of Whistler, that are simply ridiculous, or the ugly music of Strauss--I don't mean the one who writes waltzes. "Even assuming that there are people who like such novels, or pictures, or music, your case is none the better, for ordinary people don't get trapped into being bored by them, and such works can live without general support, whilst drama has to appeal to the bulk of us, and you cannot stick over the proscenium-arch some phrase such as 'Philistines will be irritated.' "Of course there are people who think drama ought to be educational, and preach moral lessons, and so on. Well, the popular drama is pretty moral, except, perhaps, musical comedy, which does seem a little topsy-turvy in its lessons; and the Censor prevents politics being introduced or religion being attacked. Every attempt to teach what you would call moral lessons must fall because we know that after all the play is not real. I confess that the romantic and the sentimental rather bore me; but you cannot expect a fifty-year-old stockbroker to be sentimental or romantic. My wife and daughters enjoy that sort of thing, and they simply worship Mr Lewis Waller, of whom I get a bit jealous at times. "I like the exciting pieces and the funny farces, and all the pretty dresses and pretty undresses and the pretty girls and pretty music of the musical comedies.