uniformly lavish in their homage to the artists who have created on
the boards the parts which they themselves have created on paper.

I must add, as an additional reason for valuing the theatre, that
while there is only one Shakespeare, and while there are comparatively
few dramatists who are sufficiently classic to be read with close
attention, there is a great deal of average dramatic work excellently
suited for representation. From this the public derive pleasure. From
this they receive--as from fiction in literature--a great deal of
instruction and mental stimulus. Some may be worldly, some social,
some cynical, some merely humorous and witty, but a great deal of it,
though its literary merit is secondary, is well qualified to bring
out all that is most fruitful of good in common sympathies. Now, it
is plain that if, because Shakespeare is good reading, people were to
give the cold shoulder to the theatre, the world would lose all the
vast advantage which comes to it through the dramatic faculty in forms
not rising to essentially literary excellence. As respects the other
feeling which used to stand more than it does now in the way of the
theatre--the fear of moral contamination--it is due to the theatre of
our day, on the one hand, and to the prejudices of our grandfathers on
the other, to confess that the theatre of fifty years ago or less did
need reforming in the audience part of the house. All who have read
the old controversy as to the morality of going to the theatre are
familiar with the objection to which I refer. But the theatre of fifty
years ago or less was reformed. If there are any, therefore, as I fear
there are a few, who still talk on this point in the old vein, let
them rub their eyes a bit, and do us the justice to consider not what
used to be, but what is. But may there be moral contamination from
what is performed on the stage? Well, there may be. But so there is
from books. So there may be at lawn tennis clubs. So there may be at