In any case, we ought to be able now, if ever, to put it to the “acid test.” The leading nations of the world have just fought the biggest of all their wars. Has the promised sequel followed? Is there any sign at home or abroad of a fresh outburst of dramatic energy? In Germany they seem to be merely “carrying on,” or tending to be a little more pornographic than usual. In Vienna they are still translating Mr. Shaw. No new dramatic masterpiece is reported from Italy, D’Annunzio being “otherwise engaged,” Mr. Boffin. Paris is still producing its favourite little “spicinesses” or, for the high brows, translating Strindberg. (Outside the theatre the effect of the war on Paris seems not merely negative but stupefying. They have achieved Dadaism and, so I read in a recent _Literary Supplement_, a distaste for the works of M. Anatole France!) In America the drama is in no better case than before the war. And what about London? An absolutely unprecedented dearth of not merely good but of actable plays. People will give you other causes, mainly economic, for the theatrical “slump.” They will tell you, truly enough, that playgoers have less money to spend, and that the cheaper “cinema” is diverting more and more money from the theatre. And yet, whenever the managers produce anything really worth seeing there is no lack of people to see it. There is nothing, then, to discourage the aspiring dramatist. Only he won’t aspire! Or his aspiration is not backed by talent! It seems as though the war, instead of stimulating dramatic energy, had repressed and chilled it. What on earth (if I may use a colloquialism condemned by Dr. Johnson) would poor M. Brunetière have said if he had lived to see his pet theory thus falsified? Probably he would have invented a new one. He would have said that wars mustn’t be _too_ big to fit into a law devised only for usual sizes. Also he might have said, wait and see. The war is only just over; give your young dramatists a little breathing time. Shakespeare’s plays didn’t immediately follow the Armada. The French Romantic Drama didn’t begin till a good dozen years after Waterloo.