To enter upon that broad problem would take me too far afield, too far, that is, from the theater itself, within the walls of which this inquiry must be confined. Are there any conditions in the American theater which make against the sincere and searching portrayal of life? I must confess that I think there is at least one such condition, the possible consequences of which are disquieting. This is the change in the composition of the audiences in our American theaters from what they were half-a-century ago—which is as far back as my own memories as a playgoer extend. I think that the average age of the spectators is now considerably less than it was when I was a play-struck boy; and I think also that the proportion of women is distinctly larger than it was in those distant days. If I am right in believing that this change has taken place, and also in anticipating that it is likely to be even more evident in the years that are to come, then there will probably be brought about a slow but certain modification of those implicit desires and of those explicit prejudices of his expected audience, which the playwright has always taken into account even if he is often more or less unconscious that he is so doing. Water cannot rise higher than its source; and the dramatist cannot soar too loftily above the level of the audience he has to allure. It is always the duty of the dramatist to find the common denominator of the throng. He need not write down to his public, but he must write broad; or otherwise he will fail to arouse and retain the interest of the spectators. If he shrinks from the toil of so presenting his vision of our common humanity that it shall be immediately attractive to his audiences then he is no dramatist, whatever else he may be; and he had better turn at once to sonneteering and to storywriting, arts wherein he can appeal to a chosen few. The theater is for the many-headed multitude; and the theater-poet cannot but accept the condition that confronts him.