trio, Bartolommeo’s Madonna della Misericordia, and Joseph Conrad’s “Youth” than in the easy buoyancies of John Philip Sousa, Howard Chandler Christy and Rupert Hughes. The aim of great drama is not to make men happy with themselves as they are, but with themselves as they might, yet alas cannot, be. As Gautier has it, “The aim of art is not exact reproduction of nature, but creation, by means of forms and colours, of a microcosm wherein may be produced dreams, sensations, and ideas inspired by the aspect of the world.” If drama is irrevocably a democratic art and uplift of the great masses of men its noblest end, Mrs. Porter’s “Pollyanna” must endure as a work of dramatic art a thousand times finer than Corneille’s “Polyeucte.” Drama has been strictly defined by the ritualists in a dozen different ways. “Drama,” says one, “must be based on character, and the action proceed from character.” “Drama,” stipulates another, “is not an imitation of men, but of an action and of life: character is subsidiary to action.” “Drama,” promulgates still another, “is the struggle of a will against obstacles.” And so on, so on. Rules, rules and more rules. Pigeon-holes upon pigeon-holes. Good drama is anything that interests an intelligently emotional group of persons assembled together in an illuminated hall. Molière, wise among dramatists, said as much, though in somewhat more, and doubtless too, sweeping words. Throughout the ages of drama there will be always Romanticists of one sort or another, brave and splendid spirits, who will have to free themselves from the definitions and limitations imposed upon them by the neo-Bossus and Boileaus, and the small portion Voltaires, La Harpes and Marmontels. Drama is struggle, a conflict of wills? Then what of “Ghosts”? Drama is action? Then what of “Nachtasyl”? Drama is character? Then what of “The Dream Play”? “A ‘character’ upon the stage,” wrote the author of the last named drama, “has become a creature ready-made--a mere mechanism that drives the man--I do not believe in these theatrical ‘characters.’”