The details of how the author was greeted, conducted, honoured, and spied upon are not here to be told――much is left to the reader to infer; _verb. sap._, as we say. But there are two points the latter must bear in mind: the first that there are things the author has bound himself not to divulge, and which will never be known until they occur; the second, that he has had to rely on his memory alone. A little thought will make the reason plain: although he took copious notes, and these are in existence, they are so only in future time, and will not become available until the year 2,100. This last statement, I fear, bristles with issues, and opens up deep scientific and philosophical questions, involving on the one hand relativity and on the other vitalism, which I have neither the space nor the ability to dispose of. But very vivid in the author’s mind is the remembrance of his emotion on first seeing the writing fade backwards out of his notebooks, and becoming bitterly aware that time was a reversible flux. He returned to 1920, a study of history having informed him, as far as he could unravel the evidence, that his feelings would be less lacerated in that year than seemed likely in 1915. He then settled down to write his great work, which he will give to the world piecemeal as discretion permits: (the reader has only to glance at our law reports to see that were futurity displayed, the enjoyment of life and that nice adjustment of personal desires to social duties which our time has perfected, could not exist), and I have persuaded him to allow me to make known this chapter on the theatre, which can break no bones, or even abrade the most delicate skin. I have, indeed, taken the liberty of making some omissions in order to brevity, and, I freely admit, for decency’s sake; for I do not hold with the modern fashion of protesting that nothing is withheld, and forthwith teasing the reader with a series of dots or stars. Why the book is called ‘Timotheus’ will be evident to those who bear in mind the name of the ‘Mighty Master,’ the Wagner of Alexander the Great’s day, who “Cou’d swell the Soul to Rage, or kindle soft Desire.” CONTENTS PAGE PREFATORY NOTICE vii I. THE NATIONAL THEATRE 1 II. THE DRAMATIC ACADEMY 21 III. OTHER THEATRES 45 TIMOTHEUS I THE NATIONAL THEATRE