I insist that happiness is the end--virtue the means--and anything that wipes a tear from the face of man is good. Everything that gives laughter to the world--laughter springing from good nature, that is the most wonderful music that has ever enriched the ears of man. And let me say that nothing can be more immoral than to waste your own life, and sour that of others. Is the theatre moral? I suppose you have had an election to-day. They had an election at the Metropolitan Opera House for bishops, and they voted forged tickets; and after the election was over, I suppose they asked the old question in the same solemn tone: "Is the theatre moral?" At last, all the intelligence of the world admits that the theatre is a great, a splendid instrumentality for increasing the well-being of man. But only a few years ago our fathers were poor barbarians. They only wanted the essentials of life, and through nearly all the centuries Genius was a vagabond--Art was a servant. He was the companion of the clown. Writers, poets, actors, either sat "below the salt" or devoured the "remainder biscuit," and drank what drunkenness happened to leave, or lived on crumbs, and they had less than the crumbs of respect. The painter had to have a patron, and then in order to pay the patron, he took the patron's wife for Venus--and the man, he was the Apollo! So the writer had to have a patron, and he endeavored to immortalize him in a preface of obsequious lies. The writer had no courage. The painter, the sculptor--poor wretches--had "patrons." Some of the greatest of the world were treated as servants, and yet they were the real kings of the human race. Now the public is the patron. The public has the intelligence to see what it wants. The stage does not have to flatter any man. The actor now does not enroll himself as the servant of duke or lord. He has the great public, and if he is a great actor, he stands as high in the public estimation as any other man in any other walk of life. And these men of genius, these "vagabonds," these "sturdy vagrants" of the old law--and let me say one thing right here: I do not believe that there ever was a man of genius that had not a little touch of the vagabond in him somewhere--just a little touch of chaos--that is to say, he must have generosity enough now and then absolutely to forget himself--he must be generous to that degree that he starts out without thinking of the shore and without caring for the sea--and that is that touch of chaos. And yet, through all those years the poets and the actors lacked bread. Imagine the number of respectable dolts who felt above them. The men of genius lived on the bounty of the few, grudgingly given.