TIMOTHEUS TIMOTHEUS OR The Future of the Theatre BONAMY DOBREE _Author of “Restoration Comedy 1660–1720,” “Histriophone,” “Essays in Biography”_ [Illustration] “_Even the powerful mind of Dr. Johnson seemed foiled by futurity._”――_Boswell._ NEW YORK E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 681 FIFTH AVENUE Copyright, 1925 By E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY _All Rights Reserved_ PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA _To RICHARDSON KING WOOD_ PREFATORY NOTICE This booklet is Chapter Twenty-three of a work already largely in being, but of which very little will be published in the reader’s lifetime; for though the author has none of that false respect for the wishes of the dead and the privacies of contemporaries which still causes so much avoidable inconvenience in social life, that feeling of delicacy towards posterity, now so active an influence as sometimes to shrink from exposing its members even to existence, hinders his speaking fully. Being obnoxious to the sufferings of others, he had, in 1915, the good fortune to acquire Mr H. G. Wells’ Time Machine. Choosing a remote corner of our island, and building due safeguards against possible bumps in time――I will not forestall the account given in Chapter Two of his work――he arrived at the year 2,100 (O.S.[1]) with no further damage than a slight bruise on his knee caused by the shovel of an archaeologist in search of human remains thought to be of the same period as the Cro-Magnon man. [1] Our Style.