the conditions—the theater-question generally—in this country (England) are horrific and unspeakable. Utter, and as far as I can see, irreclaimable barbarism reigns. The anomalous fact is that the theater, so called, can flourish in barbarism, but that any drama worth speaking of can develop but in the air of civilization. That assertion implies a belief that England was less civilized in the opening years of the twentieth century than it had been in the opening years of the seventeenth. Many things may be said against the present age, but hardly that it is less civilized than that of James I. We may dismiss these two opinions as the petulances of a man of delicate sensibilities abraded to exacerbation by gross contacts with the vulgar herd. None the less are contacts with the herd inherent in the playwright’s trade. He cannot retire into any ivory tower; he must come down to the market place; only at his peril can he shrink from meeting his fellow man. He is disqualified for the drama which appeals, has always appealed and always will appeal, to the mass, to the common herd, if he holds himself aloof, if his sympathy is not sufficient to make him for the moment one of the throng, to feel as the mass feels, even if he feels more acutely, to think as the plain people think, even if he thinks more wisely. At bottom the drama must be fundamentally democratic, since it depends upon the majority. The great dramatists did not succeed by writing down to the mob, but by writing broad to humanity. They did not have to deliberate and to quest about for the things to which the many-headed public would respond; they knew, for they themselves thrilled with the same passions, the same desires and the same ideals. They had an assured solidarity with their fellow-citizens, whom they faced on the plane of equality and whom they did not look down on from any altitude of conscious superiority. They never condescended; they were never even tempted to condescension. They gave to the throng, made up of all manner of men, literate and illiterate, the best they had in them, the very best. Nor did they feel that in so doing they were making any sacrifice. They were stout of heart and strong of stomach, with no drooping tendrils of exquisite delicacy.