Aspiring, toward the end of my nonage, to the black robes of a
dramatic critic, I took counsel with an ancient whose service
went back to the days of Our American Cousin, asking him what
qualities were chiefly demanded by the craft.  'The main idea,'
he told me frankly, 'is to be interesting, to write a good
story. All else is dross. Of course, I am not against accuracy,
fairness, information, learning. If you want to read Lessing and
Freytag, Hazlitt and Brunetière, go read them: they will do you
no harm. It is also useful to know something about Shakespeare.
But unless you can make people read your criticisms, you may as
well shut up your shop. And the only way to make them read you
is to give them something exciting.'  'You suggest, then,' I
ventured, 'a certain—ferocity?'  'I do,' replied my venerable
friend. 'Read George Henry Lewes, and see how he did
it—sometimes with a bladder on a string, usually with a meat-
axe. Knock somebody in the head every day—if not an actor, then
the author, and if not the au