One more platitude.  It is not unfashionable to pit one form of drama against another—­holding up the naturalistic to the disadvantage of the epic; the epic to the belittlement of the fantastic; the fantastic to the detriment of the naturalistic.  Little purpose is thus served.  The essential meaning, truth, beauty, and irony of things may be revealed under all these forms.  Vision over life and human nature can be as keen and just, the revelation as true, inspiring, delight-giving, and thought-provoking, whatever fashion be employed—­it is simply a question of doing it well enough to uncover the kernel of the nut.  Whether the violet come from Russia, from Parma, or from England, matters little.  Close by the Greek temples at Paestum there are violets that seem redder, and sweeter, than any ever seen—­as though they have sprung up out of the footprints of some old pagan goddess; but under the April sun, in a Devonshire lane, the little blue scentless violets capture every bit as much of the spring.  And so it is with drama—­no matter what its form it need only be the “real thing,” need only have caught some of the precious fluids, revelation, or delight, and imprisoned them within a chalice to which we may put our lips and continually drink.

And yet, starting from this last platitude, one may perhaps be suffered to speculate as to the particular forms that our renascent drama is likely to assume.  For our drama is renascent, and nothing will stop its growth.  It is not renascent because this or that man is writing, but because of a new spirit.  A spirit that is no doubt in part the gradual outcome of the impact on our home-grown art, of Russian, French, and Scandinavian influences, but which in the main rises from an awakened humanity in the conscience of our time.

What, then, are to be the main channels down which the renascent English drama will float in the coming years?  It is more than possible that these main channels will come to be two in number and situate far apart.

The one will be the broad and clear-cut channel of naturalism, down which will course a drama poignantly shaped, and inspired with high intention, but faithful to the seething and multiple life around us, drama such as some are inclined to term photographic, deceived by a seeming simplicity into forgetfulness of the old proverb, “Ars est celare artem,” and oblivious of the fact that, to be vital, to grip, such drama is in every respect as dependent on imagination, construction, selection, and elimination—­the main laws of artistry—­as ever was the romantic or rhapsodic play:  The question of naturalistic technique will bear, indeed, much more study than has yet been given to it.  The aim of the dramatist employing it is obviously to create such an illusion of actual life passing on the stage as to compel the spectator to pass through an experience of his own, to think, and talk, and move with the people he sees thinking, talking, and moving in front of him.