have, or
ought to have, a drama based upon true observation of life? Every one of
us, every day of his existence, is the hero of a drama based upon the
true observation of life, and a very tiresome drama too, as a rule, and
we all want to see dramas in the theatre that take us out of ourselves.
You seem to think that we can and ought to have a drama like the novels
of Meredith, which I believe nobody ever reads, or the pictures of
Whistler, that are simply ridiculous, or the ugly music of Strauss--I
don't mean the one who writes waltzes.

"Even assuming that there are people who like such novels, or pictures,
or music, your case is none the better, for ordinary people don't get
trapped into being bored by them, and such works can live without
general support, whilst drama has to appeal to the bulk of us, and you
cannot stick over the proscenium-arch some phrase such as 'Philistines
will be irritated.'

"Of course there are people who think drama ought to be educational,
and preach moral lessons, and so on. Well, the popular drama is pretty
moral, except, perhaps, musical comedy, which does seem a little
topsy-turvy in its lessons; and the Censor prevents politics being
introduced or religion being attacked. Every attempt to teach what you
would call moral lessons must fall because we know that after all the
play is not real. I confess that the romantic and the sentimental rather
bore me; but you cannot expect a fifty-year-old stockbroker to be
sentimental or romantic. My wife and daughters enjoy that sort of thing,
and they simply worship Mr Lewis Waller, of whom I get a bit jealous at
times.

"I like the exciting pieces and the funny farces, and all the pretty
dresses and pretty undresses and the pretty girls and pretty music of
the musical comedies.

"You appear to imagine that the business of the theatre is to make the
audience think; perhaps that would be all right if it appealed merely to
idle people, but ninety-nine folk out of a hundred who go to a theatre
in the evening have already done a day's work; even those who don't earn
their living are pretty tired after dinner. So it is clear that there
are not people enough to support a drama which it is difficult to
understand. Moreover, you forget that when we have to read, as sometimes
happens, the high-class books, we can skip the dull parts; indeed, I get
to know all that I need about the important books by reading the reviews
that tear the guts out of them a