Black Oxen by Gertrude Atherton

"Talk. Talk. Talk. Good lines and no action. said all. not even promising first act. eighth failure and season more than half over. rather be a playwright and fail than a critic compelled to listen to has-beens and would-bes trying to put over bad plays. Oh, for just one more great first-night. if there's a spirit world why don't the ghosts of dead artists get together and inhibit bad playwrights from tormenting first-nighters? . Astral board of Immortals sitting in Unconscious tweaking strings until gobbets and sclerotics become gibbering idiots every time they put pen to paper? . Fewer first-nights but more joy. also joy of sending producers back to cigar stands. Thank God, no longer a critic. don't need to come to first-nights unless I want. can't keep away. habit too strong. poor devil of a colyumist must forage. why did I become a columnist? More money. Money! And I once a rubescent socialist. best parlor type. Lord! I wish some one would die and leave me a million!"

Clavering opened his weary eyes and glanced over the darkened auditorium, visualizing a mass of bored resentful disks: a few hopeful, perhaps, the greater number too educated in the theatre not to have recognized the heavy note of incompetence that had boomed like a muffled fog-horn since the rise of the curtain.