Some years ago a good woman, who would like to be foster-mother to all struggling heroes, was sitting at midnight in her down-town flat. Suddenly there was a noise at the front door, someone leapt up the staircases two steps at a time, and rushed into her room shouting “I’ve got it! I’ve got it!” She turned around and saw the dark face of a young actor, shining with excitement. He immediately burst into a superb interpretation of a passage from _Hamlet_. He had been working over it for two weeks without being able to satisfy himself, but it had come to him that evening. He could not wait to let his good friend know, had jumped on an elevated train, and after being carried two stations too far in his elation, was there with his prize. No, this is not the beginning of a magazine story, nor is it a passage from the biography of a deceased European celebrity. It is the simple truth about a young American dramatist who is known only to a few;—and he is of New England stock! Later the young Hamlet, having completed his acting apprenticeship, began to write, and went into the real estate business to support himself. Nobody wanted his plays; they were too “highbrow.” So he began to build a theatre of his own. The managers’ trust put every difficulty in his way, and finally, when the building was nearly done and the company was engaged, succeeded in crushing him. The next attempt was a repertory company on the East side, but this wiped out what little was left of his resources before it got fairly started. One play was produced on Broadway;—it ran two weeks. Last year another was rehearsed for nine weeks, but it was withdrawn on the day of the dress rehearsal, because the author refused to make a change insisted on by the manager. Now the writer has retired to his farm in the Connecticut hills, where he and a companion have with their own hands built a little theatre. In this, on Sunday afternoons during the summer, he reads from his fifteen manuscript plays to such few people as can get there to hear him. And as he reads, there is on his face much the same enthusiasm as on the night years ago when he got his passage from _Hamlet_.