er; and both are capable of literature when they are
excited. But they are not dramatists. We still await Mr. Henniker Heaton's
tragic fourth act about the failure of the negotiations for a penny post
with France. Brieux is too violent a reformer ever to be a serious
dramatist. Violent reformers are unprincipled, and the reformer in Brieux
forces the dramatist in him to prostitution. The dramatist in him is not
strong enough to resist the odious demands of the reformer: which fact
alone shows how far he is from being a first-rate dramatist. As a
dramatist Brieux is no stronger, no more sincere, no less unscrupulous, no
less viciously sentimental, than the fashionable authors of the boulevard,
such as Capus, Donnay, and the ineffable Bernstein, so adored in London.
And it is as a dramatist that he must be judged. Of course, if you wish to
judge him as a reformer, you must get some expert opinion about his
subjects of reform. I fancy that you will end by discovering that as a
reformer he must be considered just a little crude.

* * * * *

I have seen most of Brieux's plays, and I have seen them produced under
his own direction, so that I can judge fairly well what he is after on the
stage. And I am bound to say that, with the exception of "Les Trois Filles
de Monsieur Dupont" (which pleased me pretty well so far as I comprehended
its dramatic intention), I have not seen one which I could refrain from
despising. Brieux's plays always begin so brilliantly, and they always end
so feebly, in such a wishwash of sentimentalism. Take his last play--no,
his last play was "La Foi," produced by Mr. Tree, and I have not yet met
even an ardent disciple of the craze who has had sufficient effrontery to
argue that it is a good play. Take his last play but one, "Suzette"--or
"Suzanne," or whatever its girl's name was--produced at the Paris
Vaudeville last autumn. The first act is very taking indeed. You can see
the situation of the ostracized wife coming along beautifully. The
preparation is charming, in the best boulevard manner. But when the
situation arrives and has to be dealt with--what a mess, what falseness,
what wrenching, what sickly smoothing, what ranting, and what terrific
tediousness! It is so easy to begin. It is so easy to think of a fine
idea. The next man you meet in an hotel bar will tell you a fine idea
after two whiskys--I mean a really fine idea. Only in art an idea doesn't
exist till