hat it is sometimes too
academically or conventionally pretty. And we have not protested against
the importation of plays, but against the importation of rubbish no
better than our rubbish of a similar character. We have not demanded
that all drama should be intellectual, but merely that the intellectual
should be given a fair hearing.

Why he is Disliked

It is to be feared that the dramatic critics are not really popular;
people have even spoken of them as parasites, without displaying a nice
acquaintance with language. On this side of the footlights most people
regard us as mere beefeaters, but taste the fare approved by us
suspiciously. There is a lurking doubt in the general mind as to our
honesty.

The people on the other side know that the "champagne and chicken" idea
is ill-founded: perhaps they even regret this occasionally, but they
love us none the better. Clement Scott used to be very bitter in print
about the ingratitude of players; there was an article by him
complaining that those who loved him on account of half-a-dozen
laudatory notices turned round and reviled him because of an
unflattering phrase in a seventh, and the topic was one upon which he
had a means of knowledge quite unequalled. Services weigh less than
disservices.

Under such circumstances, mindful of the fact that our remarks are read
very closely by people whom they affect deeply, it is most important
that our censure should appear just--to others. We ought to be extremely
careful that those whom we blame cannot point out that upon their face
our remarks are unfair. It is not always easy to remember this,
particularly when one is young, and sometimes it is difficult to
sacrifice the pleasure of a neat phrase because it may do a little
injustice. When looking at such a neat, crushing sentence as "A better
company would have been wasted upon such a play, a better play upon such
a company," one wonders anxiously whether, in order to write it, the
critic may not have been unjust to somebody.

There are dangerous phrases such as this one from a notice upon a play
given a little while ago--it runs as follows:--"Mr X. did everything
that mortal actor could do for this indifferent comedy. Whenever he had
a chance to be funny he was very funny. More than that, he almost made a
live figure of a dummy, and that means that Mr X. did more for his
author than his author had done for him." How on earth could the critic
know whether his suggesti