"THE BLUE BIRD."

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1735, 28 April 1913, Page 6

"THE BLUE BIRD."

Sir,—Your intimation that a certain number of days will see the end of "Tho Blue Bird" for here, reminds mo that an under-current of faint praise is damning its chance for many who would appreciate it the most. Of the legion of illnatured criticism, perhaps the worst is "I did not like it." At. the outset I challenge the right of anyone to say they do not like it. What! Not have tho right to liko or dislike that which they have paid for? No. In all deliberation, no!. One can purchase power, but no one can purchase right—it comes naturally, or not at all. Anyone has tho power to say they do not like it, but their only right is to say tliey.lunderstand or do not understand it. lam not writing at random. 1 have had living conversations with people, and tho result has always been the same— my opponents have invariably given inthat "The Blue Bird" was too deep forf them. I have no brief for the managors. I don't .know them, and they don't know me. But "Tho Blue Bird" is not going to die, and I, for one, should be sorry to see our community classed with those ito whom it came knocking, and left without making a friendship.- Of course, thero are hundreds who have seen it, and some who have appreciated it, but there are hundreds being unjustly kept away. Those who would see fair Melrose aright, must view it dimly by the pale moonlight, and. those who would see "Tho Blue Bird" aright must go, forgetting themselves and their surroundings, forgetting that it is in tho form of a play; lost in the absorption of what is present, and leaping at nothing of the future. So they will return benefited and satisfied. "The Blue Bird" signifies happiness, and yet not so much happiness as the best use .of our span of life in our measure of eternity, and tho whole play betokens life; not the span from birth to death alone, but what has been before, and that which is to be.—l am, etc.,

. HENRY BODLEY. April 26, 1913.