Page:The Prime Minister by Hall Caine.djvu/19

Rh Prologue." Then I looked up my manuscript and wrote my drama over again, feeling that I had only touched the fringe of a great subject. And quite lately I have again rewritten it, out of that deep sense of the significance of war which none of us can know until we have gone through the pain and throb of it. Why The Prime Minister has not been produced in London before is a long story. It may be sufficient to say that the chief impediment was the difficulty of finding, among our many accomplished actresses, a woman who at once by her personality and training seemed to the author to meet precisely the needs of the trying situation in which he had placed his principal character. That difficulty disappeared when I saw Miss Ethel Irving in Brieux' Three Daughters of M. Dupont, and now I can only hope I have given her material as worthy of her genius. One word more. Looking round the theatres one sees that the class of entertainment most in vogue at present is that which combines bright music, bright faces, and beautiful dresses, with cheerful story and heartsome laughter. That is no doubt just as it should be, while a considerable part of the public to be catered for consists of our young soldiers on leave from the grey life of the trenches. Nothing could be better for them, and perhaps nothing else so good. But there is another part of the public who live at home, and have to face bereavement and the strain of ever-renewed and increasing self-sacrifice if we are to endure to the end of this grim business. Is it too much to assume that this public (a very large one) asks in the theatre, as elsewhere, for the food that