n and to appreciate what is worthy. The fact of an
established reputation affords evidence that the author who enjoys it has
already achieved the appreciation of the public and no longer stands in
need of the intermediary service of the critic. But every new author
advances as an applicant for admission into the ranks of the recognised;
and the critic must, whenever possible, assist the public to determine
whether the newcomer seems destined by inherent right to enter among the
good and faithful servants, or whether he is essentially an outsider
seeking to creep or intrude or climb into the fold.

Since everybody knows already who Sir Arthur Wing Pinero is and what may be
expected of him, the only question for the critic, in considering a new
play from his practiced pen, is whether or not the author has succeeded in
advancing or maintaining the standard of his earlier and remembered
efforts. If, as in _The Wife Without a Smile_, he falls far below that
standard, the critic may condemn the play, and let the matter go at that.
Although the new piece may be discredited, the author's reputation will
suffer no abiding injury from the deep damnation of its taking off; for the
public will continue to remember the third act of _The Gay Lord Quex_, and
will remain assured that Sir Arthur Pinero is worth while. But when a play
by a new author comes up for consideration, the public needs to be told not
only whether the work itself has been well or badly done, but also whether
or not the unknown author seems to be inherently a person of importance,
from whom more worthy works may be expected in the future. The critic must
not only make clear the playwright's present actual accomplishment, but
must also estimate his promise. An author's first or second play is
important mainly--to use Whitman's phrase--as "an encloser of things to
be." The question is not so much what the author has already done as what
he is likely to do if he is given further hearings. It is in this sense
that the work of an unknown playwright requires and deserves more serious
consideration than the work of an acknowledged master. Accomplishment is
comparatively easy to appraise, but to appreciate promise requires
forward-looking and far-seeing eyes.

In the real sense, it matters very little whether an author's early plays
succeed or fail. The one point that does matter is whether, in either case,
the merits and defects are of such a nature as to indicate that th