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.

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.

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

In all the great periods of the drama perfect freedom of choice and subject, perfect freedom of individual treatment, and an audience eager to give itself to sympathetic listening, even if instruction be involved, have brought the great results.

But what is drama? Broadly speaking, it is whatever by imitative action rouses interest or gives pleasure.

We do not kill the drama, we do not really limit its appeal by failing to encourage the best in it; but we do thereby foster the weakest and poorest elements.

Drama read to oneself is never drama at its best, and is not even drama as it should be.