how many professional novelists have become
professional playwrights. Does this mean that
the drama has really awakened at last, re-
freshed by a sound sleep of three hundred
years? Does it mean that the dying prophecies
of William Sharp and Bronson Howard are to
become fact, and the next generation is to ex-
press itself mainly in dramatic dialogue, as in
the days of Elizabeth? Or is all this play-mak-
ing simply one more florescence from the root
of all evil? Has the same quick-return fever
that has shaken the souls from so many bodies in
business smitten the vast army of literary specu-
lators with drama delirium?

No accurate answers can yet be given to these
questions; but to those professional students,
critics and teachers of literature who are as
eagerly interested in contemporary production
as are teachers of science and economics, the lit-
erary movements of the next twenty years are
going to be well worth watching. Meanwhile
the present proud height of the novel's popular-
ity and influence makes an excellent platform for
the observer; he cannot only look about him; he

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