Nearly everything that is greatest as English prose was written in a generation or two after the first beautiful use of prose in England: and Mistral has made the poems of modern Provençe, as well as reviving and all but inventing the language: for genius is more often of the spring than of the middle green of the year. We cannot settle times and seasons, flowering-time and harvest-time are not in our hands, but we are to blame if genius comes and we do not gather in the fruit or the blossom. Very often we can do no more for the man of genius than to distract him as little as may be with the common business of the day. His own work is more laborious than any other, for not only is thought harder than action, as Goethe said, but he must brood over his work so long and so unbrokenly that he find there all his patriotism, all his passion, his religion even—it is not only those that sweep a floor that are obedient to heaven—until at last he can cry with Paracelsus, ‘In this crust of bread I have found all the stars and all the heavens.’ The following new plays were produced by the National Theatre Society during the last twelve months:—_The Shadow of the Glen_ and _Riders to the Sea_, by Mr. J. M. Synge; _Broken Soil_, by Mr. Colm; _The Townland of Tamney_, by Mr. Seumas MacManus; _The Shadowy Waters_ and _The King’s Threshold_, by myself. The following plays were revived:—_Deirdre_, by A.E.; _Twenty-five_, by Lady Gregory; _Cathleen ni Houlihan_, _The Pot of Broth_, and _The Hour-Glass_, by myself. We could have given more plays, but difficulties about the place of performance, the shifting of scenery from where we rehearsed to where we acted, and so on, always brought a great deal of labour upon the Society. The Society went to London in March and gave two performances at The Royalty to full houses. They played there Mr. Synge’s two plays, Mr. Colm’s play, and my _King’s Threshold_ and _Pot of Broth_. We were commended by the critics with generous sympathy, and had an enthusiastic and distinguished audience.