e pleasure to hear those wonderful lines spoken even by phonographs.
But Shakespeare is greatest and best when grandly put upon the
stage. There you know the connection, the relation, the circumstances,
and these bring out the appropriateness and the perfect meaning of
the text. Nobody in this country now thinks of Hamlet without
thinking of Booth. For this generation at least, Booth is Hamlet.
It is impossible for me to read the words of Sir Toby without seeing
the face of W. F. Owen. Brutus is Davenport, Cassius is Lawrence
Barrett, and Lear will be associated always in my mind with Edwin
Forrest. Lady Macbeth is to me Adelaide Ristori, the greatest
actress I ever saw. If I understood music perfectly, I would much
rather hear Seidl's orchestra play "Tristan," or hear Remenyi's
matchless rendition of Schubert's "Ave Maria," than to read the
notes.

Most people love the theatre. Everything about it from stage to
gallery attracts and fascinates. The mysterious realm, behind the
scenes, from which emerge kings and clowns, villains and fools,
heroes and lovers, and in which they disappear, is still a fairyland.
As long as man is man he will enjoy the love and laughter, the
tears and rapture of the mimic world.

_Question_. Is it because we lack men of genius or because our
life is too material that no truly great American plays have been
written?

_Answer_. No great play has been written since Shakespeare; that
is, no play has been written equal to his. But there is the same
reason for that in all other countries, including England, that
there is in this country, and that reason is that Shakespeare has
had no equal.

America has not failed because life in the Republic is too material.
Germany and France, and, in fact, all other nations, have failed
in the same way. In the sense in which I am speaking, Germany has
produced no great play.

In the dramatic world Shakespeare stands alone. Compared with him,
even the classic is childish.

There is plenty of material for plays. The Republic has lived a
great play--a great poem--a most marvelous drama. Here, on our
soil, have happened some of the greatest events in the history of
the world.

All human passions have been and are in full play here, and here
as elsewhere, can be found the tragic, the comic, the beautiful,
the poetic, the tears, the smiles, the lamentations and the laughter
that are the necessary warp and woof with which to weave the living