A.B. WALKLEY


MY DEAR A.B.W.

The short papers which follow have been reprinted, with a few
alterations, from _The Speaker_. Possibly you knew this without
my telling you. Possibly, too, you have sat in a theatre before
now and seen the curtain rise on two characters exchanging
information which must have been their common property for years.
So this dedication is partly designed to save me the trouble of
writing a formal preface.

As I remember then, Adam, it was upon this fashion bequeathed us
by destiny to write side by side in _The Speaker_ every week, you
about Plays and I about Books. Three years ago you found time to
arrange a few of your writings in a notable volume of _Playhouse
Impressions_. Some months ago I searched the files of the paper
with a similar design, and read my way through an astonishing
amount of my own composition. Noble edifice of toil! It stretched
away in imposing proportions and vanishing perspective--week upon
week--two columns to the week! The mischief was, it did not
appear to lead to anything: and for the first mile or two even
the casual graces of the colonnade were hopelessly marred through
that besetting fault of the young journalist, who finds no
satisfaction in his business of making bricks without straw
unless he can go straightway and heave them at somebody.

Still (to drop metaphor), I have chosen some papers which I hope
may be worth a second reading. They are fragmentary, by force of