714 THE DKAMA 



companions swarm round these great men! Look down the long li.-t 

 of them Regnard, Marivaux, Beaumarchais, Dumas, Alfred de 

 Musset, Casimir Delavigne, Dumas fits, Augier, Labiche, not to men- 

 tion half a dozen living writers who are yearly throwing out powerful 

 dramas, dealing faithfully, sincerely, and searchingly with the vital 

 characters, scenes, and issues of our modern social life. Take the long 

 list of French writers of the first rank, and you will scarcely find one 

 who has not been more or less successful on the stage. 



The French Theatre has not been merely in constant touch with 

 French Literature; the French Theatre and French Literature have 

 been wedded to each other for the last 200 years, bone of one bone and 

 flesh of one flesh. Every play by a leading French playwright is not 

 only eagerly discussed and judged in the theatre ; it is immediately 

 published and eagerly discussed and judged as literature. .A year 

 or two ago I remember taking up at a little wayside French book- 

 stall a copy of the two hundred and eightieth thousand of " Cyrano 

 de Bergerac." 



Further, during those two centuries, there has been a constant 

 method of training actors and actresses. Acting is known to be a 

 great art in France. The all-round performance of a strong emo- 

 tional play in Paris is immeasurably above the all-round performance 

 of a strong emotional play in London; while the exhibition of quite 

 amateur performers in leading parts, such as is not rarely seen on 

 the London stage, would be a thing disgraceful or impossible in any 

 leading city of France, to say nothing of Paris. Again, in France the 

 Drama is reckoned as a fine art, and is judged on that level ; that is, 

 as a means of providing amusement by the representation and inter- 

 pretation of life. The French are a nation of cultivated playgoers 

 alert to seize the finest shades of the actor's and the author's mean- 

 ing. In England the great mass of playgoers have lost all sense that 

 the Drama is the art of representing life, and go to the theatre mainly 

 to be awed by scenery, or to be tickled by funny antics and songs and 

 dances that have no relation to life, and merely provide a means of 

 wasting the evening in entertainments not far removed from idiocy. 



If the English Drama for 200 years makes a beggarly show when 

 looked at by itself, how abject and meagre and utterly despicable does 

 it appear when compared with the Drama of France in the same 

 period. Once more we are brought around to the question, "What 

 are the causes of the present pitiable condition of the Anglo-American 

 Drama to-day?" Again I claim that the Anglo-American race is 

 naturally and instinctively a dramatic race; a race of action; a race 

 fitted for great exploits on the outer and larger stage of the world's 

 history, and also for great exploits on the inner and smaller stage of 

 the theatre. We have proved our mettle on both stages. We hold 

 the world's price for Drama. Why, then, are we so far to seek ? Why 



