meet the brilliant super-puppets invented by the archventriloquist of the contemporary theatre.

The dialogue of Mr. Williams is nearly as witty as the dialogue of Mr. Shaw; and it is much more humorous and human. To use once more the definite phraseology that has been bequeathed to us by the French,the Irish satirist is more inclined to mots d'esprit and the American is more inclined to mots de caractère. There is an undercurrent of emotion and of friendly sympathy for human nature in this comedy by Mr. Williams that is lacking in all but the very foremost plays of Mr. Shaw.

The career of La Dame aux Camélias is, in many ways, unique in the annals of the theatre. In the opinion of the best French critics [and the French are very careful in their criticism] this play has never been regarded as a masterpiece, nor was it rated very highly by the author himself; yet, though over sixty years have now elapsed since the date when it was first produced in Paris, La Dame aux Camélias is still popular throughout the theatre of the world, and bids fair to be applauded a century from now, when the later and greater plays of the same writer have been relegated to the library.

Alexandre Dumas fils was born in 1824; and he was scarcely more than twenty-one when he wrote his first successful novel and called it The Lady of the Camellias. The material was drawn directly from his own immediate experience of that "demi-monde" of Paris to which he had been introduced by his prodigal and reckless father. As he said in later years, this youthful narrative was "the echo, or rather, the re-action, of a personal emotion." The book was immature, and sentimental, and immoral; but, in the turbulent days which anteceded the Revolution of 1848, it made a momentous impression on the reading public. The

project of dramatization was suggested to the author; and he asked the advice of his famous father, who was perhaps the ablest playwright of the period. The elder Dumas reported to his son, regretfully, that it was impossible to turn the novel into a practicable play; and Alexandre Dumas père nearly always had the right idea in regard to questions of success or failure in the theatre.

Nevertheless, the youthful writer decided to waste a week or two in an attempt to dramatize his novel. He retired to the country, and wrote the play in eight successive days. Since the piece is in four acts, it will be noted that he allowed himself precisely two days for the composition of each act. It may be doubted if any other play which has held the stage for more than half a century has ever been written so quickly and so easily; but of course we must remember that the author was already familiar with his plot and with his characters before he sat down to write the dialogue of his play.

Yet, after the play had been completed, there was a doubt for many months that it would ever be produced. Although it had been dramatized from a successful novel, and although it was signed by the son of one of the most famous novelists and dramatists of France, it was rejected by nearly every theatre in Paris. After three years of hopeless wandering, the manuscript was ultimately accepted at the Vaudeville, only to be interdicted by the censorship. After new delays occasioned by political contentions, La Dame aux Camélias was finally produced in Paris, at the Vaudeville, on Febru

ary 2, 1852. The author was, at that time, less than twenty-eight years old. The piece achieved an instantaneous success in France, and has since been added to the repertory of every other nation in the theatregoing world. It may be doubted if any other play composed since the initiation of the modern drama in 1830 has been so continuously popular in every country of the habitable globe.

In the opinion of those disinterested critics whose judgment is not conditioned by the verdict of the boxoffice, La Dame aux Camélias has always been regarded as inferior to many of its author's later plays, and especially to his admitted masterpiece, Le Demi-Monde. According to the judgment of the present commentor, Alexandre Dumas fils wrote, first and last, no less than half a dozen dramas which are more important, from the point of view of art, than this youthful effort that was struck off at white heat. The faults of La Dame aux Camélias are many and apparent. The view of life expressed is sentimental, immature, and in the main untrue. The thesis is immoral, because we are asked to sympathize with an erring woman by reason of the unrelated fact that she happens to be afflicted with tuberculosis. In the famous "big scene" between the heroine and the elder Duval, the old man is absolutely right; yet the sympathy of every spectator is immorally seduced against him, as if his justified position were preposterous and cruel. The pattern of the play is faulty, because it rises too quickly to its climax or turning-point at the end of the second act, and thereafter leads the public down a descending

ladder to a lame and impotent conclusion. In the last act, the coughing heroine-like Charles II- is an unconscionable time a-dying. The writing of the dialogue is artificial and rhetorical. Indeed, this noted play exhibits many, many faults.

Why, then, has it held the stage for more than half a century? And why, if it is not a great drama, does La Dame aux Camélias still seem destined to enjoy a long life in the theatre? The obvious answer to this question leads us to explore an interesting by-path in the politics of the theatre. This celebrated piece is continually set before the public because every actress who seeks a reputation for the rendition of emotional rôles desires, at some stage of her career, to play the part of Marguerite Gautier or, as the heroine is called more commonly in this country, Camille. This part is popular with actresses for the same reason that the part of Hamlet is popular with actors. Both rôles are utterly actor-proof; and anybody who appears in the title-part of either piece is almost certain to record a notable accretion to a growing reputation. No man has ever absolutely failed as Hamlet; and no woman has ever absolutely failed as Camille. On the other hand, an adequate performance of either of these celebrated parts offers a quick and easy means for adding one's name to a long and honorable list, and being ranked by future commentators among a great and famous company of predecessors.

Here, then, we have a drama which is kept alive because of the almost accidental fact that it contains a very easy and exceptionally celebrated part that