The common history of a people is best
available for this purpose--nay, it ought dramatically never to be
treated otherwise. The treatment must necessarily be simple and the
emotions predominant; it should be accompanied with music, and the
development should progress in clear groups....
"The old as well as the new historic folk literature will, with its
corresponding comic element, as I think, be a great gain to the
stage, and will preserve its connection with the people where this
has not already been lost--so that it be no longer a mere
institution for amusement, and that only to a single class. Unless
we take this view of our stage, it will lose its right to be
regarded as a national affair, and the best part of its purpose, to
unite while it lifts and makes us free, will be gradually assumed
by some other agency. Nor shall we ever get actors fit for anything
but trifles, unless we abandon our foreign French tendency as a
_leading_ one and substitute the national needs of our own people
in its place.
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