nventional and supposed
inevitable demand an apparently unpopular personal conviction. He
found, as men who dare commonly do, that the assumed personal view was
the general view which no one had had the courage before to express.

In the same way, M. Maeterlinck, another idealist of the day, wrote _The
Blue Bird_. It is safe to say that those in a position to be wise in
matters dramatic would never have predicted the enormous success of this
simple child play in various countries. But the writer dared to vent his
ideas and feelings with regard to childhood and concerning the spiritual
aspirations of all mankind; in other words, he chose a theme for some
other reason than because it was good, tried theater material; and the
world knows the result. It may be said without hesitation that more
plays fail in the attempt to modify view in favor of the supposed view
of others--the audience, the manager or somebody else--than fail because
the dramatist has sturdily stuck to his point of view and honestly set
down in his story his own private reaction to the wonderful thing called
life; a general possession and yet not one thing, but having as many
sides as there are persons in the world to live it.

Consider, for example, the number of dramas that, instead of carrying
through the theme consistently to the end, are deflected from their
proper course through the playwright's desire (more often it is an
unwilling concession to others' desire) to furnish that
tradition-condiment, a "pleasant ending." Now everybody normal would
rather have a play end well than not; he who courts misery for its own
sake is a fool. But, if not a fool, he does not wish the pleasantness at
the expense of truth, because then the pleasantness is no longer
pleasant to the educated taste, and so defeats its own end. And it is an
observed fact that some stories, whether fiction or drama, "begin to end
well," as Stevenson expressed it; while others, just as truly, begin to
end ill. Hence, when such themes are manhandled by the cheap, dishonest
wresting of events or characters or both, so as presumably to send the
audience home "happy," we get a wretched malversion of art,--and without
at all attaining the object in view. For even the average, or
garden-variety, of audience is uneasy at the insult offered its
intelligence in such a nefarious transaction. It has been asked to
witness a piece of real life, for, testimony to the contrary
notwithstanding, that is