ought to write as he did, not only without any
religious, but even without any moral, significance, then all writers of
dramas in imitation of him began to compose such empty pieces as are
those of Goethe, Schiller, Hugo, and, in Russia, of Pushkin, or the
chronicles of Ostrovski, Alexis Tolstoy, and an innumerable number of
other more or less celebrated dramatic productions which fill all the
theaters, and can be prepared wholesale by any one who happens to have
the idea or desire to write a play. It is only thanks to such a low,
trivial understanding of the significance of the drama that there
appears among us that infinite quantity of dramatic works describing
men's actions, positions, characters, and frames of mind, not only void
of any spiritual substance, but often of any human sense.

Let not the reader think that I exclude from this estimate of
contemporary drama the theatrical pieces I have myself incidentally
written. I recognize them, as well as all the rest, as not having that
religious character which must form the foundation of the drama of the
future.

The drama, then, the most important branch of art, has, in our time,
become the trivial and immoral amusement of a trivial and immoral crowd.
The worst of it is, moreover, that to dramatic art, fallen as low as it
is possible to fall, is still attributed an elevated significance no
longer appropriate to it. Dramatists, actors, theatrical managers, and
the press--this last publishing in the most serious tone reports of
theaters and operas--and the rest, are all perfectly certain that they
are doing something very worthy and important.

The drama in our time is a great man fallen, who has reached the last
degree of his degradation, and at the same time continues to pride
himself on his past of which nothing now remains. The public of our time
is like those who mercilessly amuse themselves over this man once so
great and now in the lowest stage of his fall.

Such is one of the mischievous effects of the epidemic suggestion about
the greatness of Shakespeare. Another deplorable result of this worship
is the presentation to men of a false model for imitation. If people
wrote of Shakespeare that for his time he was a good writer, that he had
a fairly good turn for verse, was an intelligent actor and good stage
manager--even were this appreciation incorrect and somewhat
exaggerated--if only it were moderately true, people of the rising
generation might remain