that these unpretending volumes, unlike the most of their competitors in
public favor, contained the vital spark which alone bestows enduring
life. He failed wholly to guess that these books had in them the
elements of the universal and the permanent--just as he was unable to
perceive that the more obviously literary, rhetorical, academic works he
was ready enough to commend highly, lacked these elements and therefore
were doomed soon to sink into deserved oblivion.

This is precisely the attitude of many a critic of our own time. He is
looking for a literary drama which shall be different in kind from the
popular play; and as he fails to find this to-day--as he would have
failed to find it in every period of the theater's most splendid
achievement--he asserts that the literary drama is nowadays nonexistent.
He does not care to inquire into the genuine qualities of the plays that
happen to be able to attain "the standard of material prosperity." He is
quick to perceive the attempt to be literary in the plays of Mr.
Stephen Phillips, because this promising dramatic poet has so far tended
rather to construct his decoration than to decorate his construction:
and, therefore, the literary merit in Mr. Phillips's acted pieces seems
sometimes to be somewhat external, so to speak, or at least more
ostentatiously paraded. He is forced to credit 'Quality Street' with a
certain literary merit, because Mr. Barrie has published novels which
have an undeniable literary flavor.

Considering literary merit as something applied on the outside, too
obvious to be mistaken, the critic of this type disdains to give to
certain of the plays of Mr. Pinero the discussion they deserve. In the
'Benefit of the Doubt,' in the 'Second Mrs. Tanqueray,' in 'Iris,' Mr.
Pinero has used all his mastery of stage-craft, not for its own sake,
but as the instrument of his searching analysis of life as he sees it.