t as
suddenly as it came. What is the use of posing as a prophet with such
a record of the past? Anyone else is at liberty to do so. I would
as soon act as harlequin. Was there any wise man in England who,
twenty-four hours before that momentous event in April, 1564, could
predict that a baby named William Shakespeare would be born the next
day? To say that an American dramatist is to appear this year or in a
thousand years who will make an epoch is simply ridiculous.

That Ibsen exercised and will exercise great influence on American
dramatists there can be little doubt. His skill was no mere accident.
He was the most finished development of the French school of the
nineteenth century, as well as the most highly artificial individual
dramatist of that school. I call it the strictly logical school
of dramatic construction. I use the word 'artificial' in its more
artistic sense, as opposed to the so-called natural school. His
subjects of course were national, and not French. Whether his
pessimism was national or personal, I have not been able to discover.
It seemed to me that he was a pessimistic man dealing with a nation
inclined to pessimism, but that had nothing to do with the technical
qualities of the man any more than the national peculiarities of
Denmark had to do with Thorvaldsen as a follower of Greek sculpture.

As to the policy of our theatre managers, I confess that they do
follow each other; but it is simply because they think the leader they
happen to be following has discovered a current of temporary popular
taste. The authors have the same interest as the managers, and you
will always find them watching the public taste in the same manner.

Occasionally an individual dramatist, and not always the best from a
technical point of view, will develop such a strong personal bias as
to write on subjects suggested by his own tastes, without any regard
to the current of popular wishes. If he is a strong enough man he will
become a leader of the public in his dramatic tastes. Sometimes in
rare instances he will influence the public so decidedly that he
compels the contemporary school of writers to follow him. This has
been the case in all periods. I need not mention Shakespeare, as
everything said about him is a matter of course.

Take the vile dramatic era of Charles II. Wycherley led the brutes,
but Congreve came up and combatted with his brilliant comedies the
vileness of the Restoration school, and Hallam s