ffaw.

Spirit or demon, coarse or rude,
(Sometimes I think you must be stewed)
Brute that you are, I love your powers,
But,--drop in after office hours!

Yes, Common Sense, be mine, I ask,
But still respect my critic's task;
Molest me not when I'm employed
With psychics, sex, vers libre, or Freud.

=ii=

The matter of playwrights is much more difficult than that of poets! A
play cannot, as a rule, be satisfactorily quoted from. In the case of a
play which is to be staged there are terrible objections (on the part of
the producer) to any excerpts at all appearing in advance. The publication
of the text of a play is hedged about by all manner of difficulties,
copyrights, warnings and solemn notifications. As I write, it is expected
that A. H. Woods, the producer of plays, will stage at the Times Square
Theatre, New York, probably in September, 1922, the new play by W.
Somerset Maugham, _East of Suez_. Pauline Frederick is expected to assume
the principal role. Mr. Maugham's play will be published when it has been
produced, or, if the theatre plans suffer one of those changes to which
all theatres are subject, will be published anyhow! Shall we say that the
setting is Chinese, and that the characters are Europeans, and that Mr.
Maugham has again shown his peculiar skill in the delineation of the white
man in contact with an alien civilisation? We shall say so. And--never
mind! A sure production of the play for the Fireside Theatre is hereby
guaranteed. The Fireside Theatre, blessed institution, has certain merits.
The actors are always ideal and the performance always begins on time, as
a letter to the New York Times has pointed out.

Arnold Bennett has written a lot of plays; _The Love Match_ is merely the
latest of them. If I cannot very well quote a scene from _The Love
Match_,--on the grounds of length and possible unintelligibility apart
from the rest of the drama--I can give you, I think, an idea of the wit of
the dialogue:

RUSS (_with calm and disdainful resentment_). You're angry with me now.

NINA (_hurt_). Indeed I'm not. Why should I be angry? Do you suppose I
mind who sends you flowers?

RUSS. No, I don't. That's not the reason. You're angry with me because you
came in here tonight, after saying positively you wouldn't come, and I
didn't happen to be waiting for you.

NINA. Hugh, you're ridiculous.

RUSS. Of course I am. That's not the reason. You took me against my will
to that