"There is something in what you say," he answered, aroused by her bigness and strength. "Yet in my garret, I do not deal with rootless abstractions. Everything has its foundation in actual observation. I moved long among the play-managers, and found them men of huckster-minds--brainless money-bags, dependent upon every passing wind of criticism. I tell you, when one talked to them or to their office-apes--one felt himself, his inner-self, rushing forth as if to fill something bottomless----" "You do not know Vhruebert----" "Eliminate him. I am not speaking of any particular man. I do not mean all playwrights when I say that I found playwrights as a class, not literary workers--but literary tricksters. I am not speaking of _The Thing_, nor of its author, of whom I have heard excellent word--when I say that plays are not written, but rewritten by elementals, who, through their sheer coarseness, sense the slow vibrations of the mob, and feculate the original lines to suit." "Bah--an idea from one of your nights, when you tried to drown the blue devils! It broods over all your thinking! You forget the great army, that silent army, which is continually lifting itself artistically by writing one after another--impossible plays. You forget the great hearts of the players--men and women who pull together for big results." "I am not speaking of the vast library of manuscript failures, but of a small proportion which get into the sinister glare of Broadway----" "My God, Broadway is not New York!" "For which I am powerfully glad," he answered with energy. "As for warm human hearts--there is warmth and loyalty, genuine tears and decent hopes in every brothel and bar--yet the black trends of their existence course on. This was so hard for me to learn, that I have it very clearly.... I remember the opening night of Martha Boardman as a star--telegrams pouring in, critics besieging her dressing-room. Even her manager didn't know what he had, until the critics told him the play would stay in New York a year--yet his name was on the boards above the star and bigger than the author's. I watched the bleak, painted faces of the women and heard their false voices acclaiming the new star. What they had in their hearts was not praise, but envy. Their words were sham, indecency and lying. Eternally simulating--that's the stage life. Pity the women--poor Maachas, if you will--but their work is damnable, nevertheless. It is from such unhappy creatures evading motherhood that youths get the abominable notion that real manhood lies in the loins." "Poor youths--go on! When you have finished I shall tell you something."