write for a coterie, though special and regrettable
circumstances have made him, in England, something of a coterie-poet. In
Scandinavia, in Germany, even in America, he casts his spell over great
audiences, if not through long runs (which are a vice of the merely
commercial theatre), at any rate through frequently-repeated
representations. So far as I know, history records no instance of a
playwright failing to gain the ear of his contemporaries, and then being
recognized and appreciated by posterity. Alfred de Musset might,
perhaps, be cited as a case in point; but he did not write with a view
to the stage, and made no bid for contemporary popularity. As soon as it
occurred to people to produce his plays, they were found to be
delightful. Let no playwright, then, make it his boast that he cannot
disburden his soul within the three hours' limit, and cannot produce
plays intelligible or endurable to any audience but a band of adepts. A
popular audience, however, does not necessarily mean the mere riff-raff
of the theatrical public. There is a large class of playgoers, both in
England and America, which is capable of appreciating work of a high
intellectual order, if only it does not ignore the fundamental
conditions of theatrical presentation. It is an audience of this class
that I have in mind throughout the following pages; and I believe that a
playwright who despises such an audience will do so to the detriment,
not only of his popularity and profits, but of the artistic quality
of his work.

Some people may exclaim: "Why should the dramatist concern himself about
his audience? That may be all very well for the mere journeymen of the
theatre, the hacks who write to an actor-manager's order--not for the
true artist! He has a soul above all such petty considerations. Art, to
him, is simply self-expression. He writes to please himself, and has no
thought of currying favour with an audience, whether intellectual or
idiotic." To this I reply simply that to an artist of this way of
thinking I have nothing to say. He has a perfect right to express
himself in a whole literature of so-called plays, which may possibly be
studied, and even acted, by societies organized to that laudable end.
But the dramatist who declares his end to be mere self-expression
stultifies himself in that very phrase. The painter may paint, the
sculptor model, the lyric poet sing, simply to please himself,[5] but
the drama has no meaning except in rel