AN APPRECIATION



  He was very dogged. I had only one quarrel with
him, but it lasted all the sixteen years I knew him. He
wanted me to be a playwright and I wanted to be a
novelist. All those years I fought him on that. He
always won, but not because of his doggedness; only
because he was so lovable that one had to do as he
wanted. He also threatened, if I stopped, to reproduce
the old plays and print my name in large electric letters
over the entrance of the theater.

A VERY distinguished actress under his management
   wanted to produce a play of mine of which he had
no high opinion. He was in despair, as he had something
much better for her. She was obdurate. He came to
me for help, said nothing could move her unless I could.
Would not I tell her what a bad play it was and how
poor her part was and how much better the other parts
were and how absolutely it fell to pieces after the first
act Of course I did as I was bid, and I argued with the
woman for hours, and finally got her round, the while
he sat cross-legged, after his fashion, on a deep chair
and implored me with his eyes to do my worst. It
happened long ago, and I was so obsessed with the desire
to please him that the humor of the situation strikes me
only now.
  For money he did not care al; all; it was to him but
pieces of paper with which he could make practical the
enterprises that teemed in his brain. They were all
enterprises of the theater. Having once seen a theater,
he never afterward saw anything else except sites for
theaters. This passion began when he was a poor boy
staring wistfully at portals out of which he was kept by
the want of a few pence. I think when he first saw a