of a happy ending. But does he succumb? No. Heroically he tells
himself: "Anyway, I can publish it; and I'm certain that the critics
will agree with me that----" But the critics are too busy to bother
about him. They are busy informing the world that the British Drama is
going to the dogs, and that no promising young dramatist ever gets a
fair chance.

Let me say here that I am airing no personal grievance. I doubt if any
dramatist has less right to feel aggrieved against the critics, the
managers, the public, the world, than I; and whatever right I have I
renounce, in return for the good things which I have received from
them. But I do not renounce the grievance of our craft. I say that, in
the case of all dramatists, it is the business of the dramatic critics
to review their unacted plays when published. Some of them do; most of
them do not. It is ridiculous for those who do not to pretend that
they take any real interest in the British Drama. But I say "review,"
not "praise." Let them damn, by all means, if the plays are unworthy;
and, by damning, do so much of justice to the Managers who refused
them.

We can now pass on safely to the plays in this volume.

We begin with a children's play. The difficulty in the way of writing
a children's play is that Barrie was born too soon. Many people must
have felt the same about Shakespeare. We who came later have no
chance. What fun to have been Adam, and to have had the whole world of
plots and jokes and stories at one's disposal. Possibly, however, one
would never have thought of the things. Of course, there are still
others to come after us, but our works are not immortal, and they will
plagiarise us without protest. Yet I have hopes of _Make-Believe_, for