red later by some literary sea-captain.
(As it might be, Conrad.) But how many of us would write masterpieces
if we had to burn them immediately afterwards, or if we were alone
upon the world, the last survivors of a new flood? Could we bear to
write? Could we bear not to write? It is not fair to ask us. But we
can admit this much without reserve; it is the second reward which
tears at us, and, lacking it, we should lose courage.

So when the promising young dramatist has his play refused by the
Managers--after what weeks, months, years of hope and fear,
uncertainty and bitter disappointment--he has this great consolation:
"Anyway, I can always publish it." Perhaps, after a dozen refusals, a
Manager offers to put on his play, on condition that he alters the
obviously right (and unhappy) ending into the obviously foolish, but
happy, ending which will charm the public. Does he, the artist,
succumb? How easy to tell himself that he must get his play before the
public somehow, and that, even if it is not _his_ play now, yet the
first two acts are as he wrote them, and that, if only to feel the
thrill of the audience at that great scene between the Burglar and the
Bishop (his creations!) he must deaden his conscience to the absurdity
of a happy ending. But does he succumb? No. Heroically he tells
himself: "Anyway, I can publish it; and I'm certain that the critics
will agree with me that----" But the critics are too busy to bother
about him. They are busy informing the world that the British Drama is
going to the dogs, and that no promising young dramatist ever gets a
fair chance.

Let me say here that I am airing no personal grievance. I doubt if any
dramatist has less right to feel aggrieved against the critics, the
managers, the public, the world, than I; and whatever right I have I
renounce, in return for the good things which I have received from
them. But I do not renounce the grievance of our craft. I say that, in
the case of all dramatists, it is the business of the dramatic critics
to review their unacted plays when published. Some of them do; most of
them do not. It is ridiculous for those who do not to pretend that
they take any real interest in the British Drama. But I say "review,"
not "praise." Let them damn, by all means, if the plays are unworthy;
and, by damning, do so much of justice to the Managers who refused
them.

We can now pass on safely to the plays in this volume.

We begin with a children's pl