Back through the ages of barbarism and civilization, in all tongues, we find this instinctive pleasure in the imitative action that is the very essence of all drama.

What then is tragedy? In the Elizabethan period it was assumed that a play ending in death was a tragedy, but in recent years we have come to understand that to live on is sometimes far more tragic than death.

Rare is the human being, immature or mature, who has never felt an impulse to pretend he is some one or something else.

In the best farce today we start with some absurd premise as to character or situation, but if the premises be once granted we move logically enough to the ending.

Sensitive, responsive, eagerly welcomed everywhere, the drama, holding the mirror up to nature, by laughter and by tears reveals to mankind the world of men.

Acted drama requires surrender of one's self, sympathetic absorption in the play as it develops.

Out of the past come the standards for judging the present; standards in turn to be shaped by the practice of present-day dramatists into broader standards for the next generation.