A strange thing was this theatrical business—the business of selling emotions! One had really to feel the emotions, in order to portray them with force; yet one had at the same time to appraise them with the eye of the business-man—one must not feel emotions that would not pay. Also, one boomed and boosted his own particular emotions, celebrating their merits in the language of the circus-poster. If you had taken up a certain play, you considered it the greatest play that had ever made its bow to Broadway; and you actually persuaded yourself to believe it—at least those who made the real successes were men who possessed that hypnotic power.
There was, for instance, Mr. Rosenberg, the press-agent and advertising-man. He was certain that “The Genius” was a play of genius, and its author a m
