t, even though the
failure may be due to any one of many causes other than incompetence on the
part of the dramatist. A very good play may fail because of bad acting or
crude production, or merely because it has been brought out at the wrong
time of the year or has opened in the wrong sort of city. Sheridan's
_Rivals_, as everybody knows, failed when it was first presented. But when
once a play has failed at the present day, it is almost impossible for the
dramatist to persuade any manager to undertake a second presentation of it.
Whether good or bad, the play is killed, and the unfortunate dramatist is
silenced until his next play is granted a hearing.

II

DRAMATIC ART AND THE THEATRE BUSINESS

Art makes things which need to be distributed; business distributes things
which have been made: and each of the arts is therefore necessarily
accompanied by a business, whose special purpose is to distribute the
products of that art. Thus, a very necessary relation exists between the
painter and the picture-dealer, or between the writer and the publisher of
books. In either case, the business man earns his living by exploiting the
products of the artist, and the artist earns his living by bringing his
goods to the market which has been opened by the industry of the business
man. The relation between the two is one of mutual assistance; yet the
spheres of their labors are quite distinct, and each must work in
accordance with a set of laws which have no immediate bearing upon the
activities of the other. The artist must obey the laws of his art, as they
are revealed by his own impulses and interpreted by constructive criticism;
but of these laws the business man may, without prejudice to his
efficiency, be largely ignorant. On the other hand, the business man must
do his work in accordance with the laws of economics,--a science of which
artists ordinarily know very little. Business is, of necessity, controlled
by the great economic law of supply and demand. Of the practical workings
of this law the business man is in a position to know much more than the
artist; and the latter must always be greatly influenced by the former in
deciding as to what he shall make and how he shall make it. This influence
of the publisher, the dealer, the business manager, is nearly always
beneficial, because it helps the artist to avoid a waste of work and to
conserve and concentrate his energies; yet frequently the mind of the maker
des