getting an infallible laugh at ourselves.  The commonplace wit arranges incidents to make someone he dislikes ridiculous; his attitude is the attitude of the superior person.  He is nearly always—­often unintentionally—­offensive; he repels the public sometimes in irritation, sometimes in amusement, for they often see point in his joke, but see a greater joke in him, and they are often laughing, not at his joke, but at himself.  Let us for our salvation avoid the attitude of the superior person.  Don’t make sport of others—­make it of yourself.  Ridicule of your neighbour must be largely speculation; of the comedy in yourself there can be no doubt.  When you get the essential humour out of yourself, you get the infallible touch, and you arrest and attract everyone.  You are not the superior person.  In effect, you slap your neighbour on the back and say, “We’re all in the same boat; let us enjoy the joke”; and you find he will come to you with glistening eye.  He may feel a little foolish at first—­you are poking his ribs; but you cannot help it—­having given him the way to poke your own.  By your merry honesty he knows you for a safe comrade, and he comes with relief and confidence—­we like to talk about ourselves.  He will be equally frank with yourself; you will tell one another secrets; you will reach the heart of man.  That is what we need.  We must get the heart-beat into literature.  Then will it quiver and dance and weep and sing.  Then we are in the line of greatness.

VI

It is because we need the truth that we object to the propagandist playwright.  Only in a rare case does he avoid being partial; and when he is impartial he is cold and unconvincing.  He gives us argument instead of emotion; but emotion is the language of the heart.  He does not touch the heart; he tries to touch the mind:  he is a pamphleteer and out of place.  He fails, and his failure has damaged his cause, for it leaves us to feel that the cause is as cold as his play; but when the Cause is a great one it is always vital, warm and passionate.  It is for the sake of the Cause we ask that a play be made by a sincere man-of-letters, who will give us not propagandist literature nor art-for-art’s-sake, but the throbbing heart of man.  The great dramatist will have the great qualities needed, sensibility, sympathy, insight, imagination, and courage.  The special pleader and the poseur lack all these things, and they make themselves and their work foolish.  Let us stand for the truth, not pruning it for the occasion.  The man who is afraid to face life is not competent to lead anyone, to speak for anyone, or to interpret anything:  he inspires no confidence.  The one to rouse us must be passionate, and his passion will win us heart and soul.  When from some terribly intense moment, he turns with a merry laugh, only the fool will take him as laughing at his cause; the general instinct will see him detecting an attitude, tripping it up, and making us all merry and natural again.  In that moment we shall spring up astonished, enthusiastic, exultant—­here is one inspired; we shall enter a passionate brotherhood, no cold disputes now—­the smouldering fire along the land shall quicken to a blaze, history shall be again in the making.  We shall be caught in the living flame.