all in the same boat; let us enjoy the joke"; and you find he will come
to you with glistening eye. He may feel a little foolish at first--you
are poking his ribs; but you cannot help it--having given him the way to
poke your own. By your merry honesty he knows you for a safe comrade,
and he comes with relief and confidence--we like to talk about
ourselves. He will be equally frank with yourself; you will tell one
another secrets; you will reach the heart of man. That is what we need.
We must get the heart-beat into literature. Then will it quiver and
dance and weep and sing. Then we are in the line of greatness.


VI


It is because we need the truth that we object to the propagandist
playwright. Only in a rare case does he avoid being partial; and when he
is impartial he is cold and unconvincing. He gives us argument instead
of emotion; but emotion is the language of the heart. He does not touch
the heart; he tries to touch the mind: he is a pamphleteer and out of
place. He fails, and his failure has damaged his cause, for it leaves us
to feel that the cause is as cold as his play; but when the Cause is a
great one it is always vital, warm and passionate. It is for the sake of
the Cause we ask that a play be made by a sincere man-of-letters, who
will give us not propagandist literature nor art-for-art's-sake, but
the throbbing heart of man. The great dramatist will have the great
qualities needed, sensibility, sympathy, insight, imagination, and
courage. The special pleader and the _poseur_ lack all these things, and
they make themselves and their work foolish. Let us stand for the truth,
not pruning it for the occasion. The man who is afraid to face life is
not competent to lead anyone, to speak for anyone, or to interpret