ned to love; and he, of all men, is most happy who loveth best all
things both great and small. For happiness is the feeling of harmony
between a man and his surroundings, the sense of being at home in the
universe and brotherly toward all worthy things that are. The pursuit of
happiness is simply a continual endeavor to discover new things that are
worthy, to the end that they may waken love within us and thereby lure us
loftier toward an ultimate absolute awareness of truth and beauty. It is in
this simple, sane pursuit that people go to the theatre. The important
thing about the public is that it has a large and longing heart. That heart
demands that sympathy be awakened in it, and will not be satisfied with
merely intellectual discussion of unsympathetic things. It is therefore the
duty, as well as the privilege, of the dramatist to set before the public
incidents which may awaken sympathy and characters which may be loved. He
is the most important artist in the theatre who gives the public most to
care about. This is the reason why Joseph Jefferson's _Rip Van Winkle_ must
be rated as the greatest creation of the American stage. The play was
shabby as a work of art, and there was nothing even in the character to
think about; but every performance of the part left thousands happier,
because their lives had been enriched with a new memory that made their
hearts grow warm with sympathy and large with love.

XIII

THEMES IN THE THEATRE

As the final curtain falls upon the majority of the plays that somehow get
themselves presented in the theatres of New York, the critical observer
feels tempted to ask the playwright that simple question of young Peterkin
in Robert Southey's ballad, _After Blenheim_,--"Now tell us what 't was all
about"; and he suffers an uncomfortable feeling that the playwright will be
obliged to answer in the words of old Kaspar, "Why, that I cannot tell."
The critic has viewed a semblance of a dramatic struggle between puppets on
the stage; but what they fought each other for he cannot well make out. And
it is evident, in the majority of cases, that the playwright could not tell
him if he would, for the reason that the playwright does not know. Not even
the author can know what a play is all about when the play isn't about
anything. And this, it must be admitted, is precisely what is wrong with
the majority of the plays that are shown in our theatres, especially with
plays written by America