I can afford on this matter to be wholly frank and ingenuous, and admit that I am gratified by the ability of my first disciples. Any writer might be proud of having convinced men of original minds like Mr. Arnold Bennett, Mr. Richard Middleton, and Mr. Bernard Shaw of the truth of a theory so contrary to tradition as mine is and so contemptuous of authority: Shakespeare himself would have been proud of such admirers. And if Mr. Bernard Shaw has done his best to share in the honour of the discovery, one must attribute his excess of zeal to the intensity of his admiration, and to the fact that he was perhaps even a little quicker than the others to appreciate the new view, or perhaps a little vainer even than most able men. In any case, Mr. Shaw’s method of dealing with a new master must be contrasted with that of the professor who also annexed as much as he could of my early articles, and coolly asserted that he had had my ideas ten years before, leaving it to be inferred that he had concealed them carefully. After all, the chief thing is, here is my play, and Mr. Shaw’s will shortly make its appearance, and in time a true deliverance and judgment on the respective merits of them will be forthcoming. A few words about this play of mine may be allowed me. It suffers from an extraordinary, and perhaps extravagant, piety: I did not set out to write a great play on the subject. I wanted to give a dramatic picture of Shakespeare and his time; but above all a true picture. It seemed to me that no one had the right to treat the life-story, the soul-tragedy of a Shakespeare as the mere stuff of a play. Within the limits of the truth, however, I did my best. The play, therefore, as a play is full of faults: it is as loosely put together as one of Shakespeare’s own history plays, and the worst fault of it is not poverty of plot and weakness of construction; it is also academic and literary in tone. Much of this is due to my love of the master. I have hardly put a word in Shakespeare’s mouth which I could not justify out of his plays or sonnets. My excessive love of the man has been a hindrance to me as a playwright. I daresay—in fact, I am sure—that it would be possible to write a great play on the subject, and tell even more of the truth than I have here told; but that could only be done if one knew that the play would be played and had leisure and encouragement to do one’s best. The evil of our present civilisation, from the artist’s point of view, is that he is compelled by the conditions to give of his second best, and be thankful if even this is lucky enough to earn him a living wage. My book on Shakespeare was many years in type before it found a publisher; my Shakespeare play was printed six years ago and has not yet been acted. FRANK HARRIS. _London, 15th November, 1910._ ------------------------------------------------------------------------