A third contention has it that aloofness and detachment are no less valuable to the dramatic critic than honesty and enthusiasm. Unless I am seriously mistaken, also bosh. Dramatic criticism is fundamentally the critic’s art of appraising himself in terms of various forms of drama. Or, as I some time ago put it, the only sound dramatic critic is the one who reports less the impression that this or that play makes upon him than the impression he makes upon this or that play. Of all the forms of criticism, dramatic criticism is essentially, and perhaps correctly, the most personal. Tell me what a dramatic critic eats and drinks, how far north of Ninetieth Street he lives, what he considers a pleasant evening when he is not in the theatre, and what kind of lingerie his wife wears, and I’ll tell you with very few misses what kind of critic he is. I’ll tell you whether he is fit to appreciate Schnitzler, or whether he is fit only for Augustus Thomas. I’ll tell you in advance what he will think about, and how he will react to, Hauptmann, Sacha Guitry or George V. Hobart. I’ll tell you whether he is the sort that makes a great to-do when his eagle eye spots Sir Nigel Waterhouse, M.P., in Act II fingering a copy of the Philadelphia _Public Ledger_ instead of the London _Times_, and whether he is the sort that writes “Mr. John Cort has staged the play in his customary lavish manner” when the rise of the curtain discloses to him a room elaborately decorated in the latest Macy mode. To talk about the value of detachment in a dramatic critic is to talk about the value of detachment in a Swiss mountain guide. The criticism is the man; the man the criticism. Of all forms of criticism, dramatic criticism is the most purely biological. Were the genii to put the mind of Max Beerbohm into the head of Mr. J. Ranken Towse, and vice versa, their criticisms would still remain exactly as they are. But, on the contrary, were the head of Mr. J. Ranken Towse to be placed on the body of Max Beerbohm, and vice versa, their criticisms would take on points of view diametrically opposed to their present. Max would begin admiring the Rev. Dr. Charles Rann Kennedy and Towse would promptly proceed to put on his glasses to get a better view of the girl on the end. Every book of dramatic criticism--every single piece of dramatic criticism--is a searching, illuminating autobiography. The dramatic critic performs a clinic upon himself every time he takes his pen in his hand. He may try, as Walkley puts it, to substitute for the capital I’s “nouns of multitude signifying many,” or some of those well-worn stereotypes--“It is thought,” “one may be pardoned for hinting,” “will any one deny?” etc., etc.--by which criticism keeps up the pretence that it is not a man but a corporation, but he fools no one.