at the
general question from the point of view of the box-office; they seldom
appreciate the fact that a serious play which logically demands an unhappy
ending will make more money if it is planned in accordance with the
sternest laws of art than if it is given an arbitrary happy ending in which
the audience cannot easily believe. The public wants to be pleased, but it
wants even more to be satisfied. In the early eighteenth century both _King
Lear_ and _Romeo and Juliet_ were played with fabricated happy endings; but
the history of these plays, before and after, proves that the alteration,
considered solely from the business standpoint, was an error. And yet,
after all these centuries of experience, our modern managers still remain
afraid of serious plays which lead logically to unhappy terminations, and,
because of the power of their position, exercise an influence over writers
for the stage which is detrimental to art and even contrary to the demands
of human interest.

IV

THE BOUNDARIES OF APPROBATION

When Hamlet warned the strolling players against making the judicious
grieve, and when he lamented that a certain play had proved caviare to the
general, he fixed for the dramatic critic the lower and the upper bound for
catholicity of approbation. But between these outer boundaries lie many
different precincts of appeal. _The Two Orphans_ of Dennery and _The
Misanthrope_ of Moliere aim to interest two different types of audience. To
say that _The Two Orphans_ is a bad play because its appeal is not so
intellectual as that of _The Misanthrope_ would be no less a solecism than
to say that _The Misanthrope_ is a bad play because its appeal is not so
emotional as that of _The Two Orphans_. The truth is that both stand within
the boundaries of approbation. The one makes a primitive appeal to the
emotions, without, however, grieving the judicious; and the other makes a
refined appeal to the intelligence, without, however, subtly bewildering
the mind of the general spectator.

Since success is to a play the breath of life, it is necessary that the
dramatist should please his public; but in admitting this, we must remember
that in a city so vast and varied as New York there are many different
publics, which are willing to be pleased in many different ways. The
dramatist with a new theme in his head may, before he sets about the task
of building and writing his play, determine imaginatively the degree of
emotio