heatres would be!
However fond the play-goer may be of tragedy, if you offer him nothing
but horrors, he may well ask--"Where's the entertainment for the man
who wants an evening's amusement?" The humor of a farce may not seem
over-refined to a particular class of intelligence; but there are
thousands of people who take an honest pleasure in it. And who, after
seeing my old friend J.L. Toole in some of his famous parts, and
having laughed till their sides ached, have not left the theatre more
buoyant and light-hearted than they came? Well, if the stage has
been thus useful and successful all these centuries, and still is
productive; if the noble fascination of the theatre draws to it, as we
know that it does, an immortal poet such as our Tennyson, whom, I can
testify from my own experience, nothing delights more than the success
of one of the plays which, in the mellow autumn of his genius, he has
contributed to the acting theatre; if a great artist like Tadema is
proud to design scenes for stage plays; if in all departments of stage
production we see great talent, and in nearly every instance great
good taste and sincere sympathy with the best popular ideals of
goodness; then, I say, the stage is entitled to be let alone--that
is, it is entitled to make its own bargain with the public without the
censorious intervention of well-intentioned busybodies. These do not
know what to ban or to bless. If they had their way, as of course
they cannot, they would license, with many flourishes and much
self-laudation, a number of pieces which would be hopelessly
condemned on the first hearing, and they would lay an embargo for very
insufficient reasons on many plays well entitled to success. It is not
in this direction that we must look for any improvement that is needed
in the purveying of material for the stage. Believe me, the right
direction is public criticism and public discrimination. I say so
because, beyond question, the public will have what they want. So far,
that managers in their discretion, or at their pleasure, can force on
the public either very good or very bad dramatic material is an utter
delusion. They have no such power. If they had the will they could
only force any particular sort of entertainment just as long as they
had capital to expend without any return. But they really have not the
will. They follow the public taste with the greatest keenness. If the
people want Shakespeare--as I am happy to say they do