"I'll tell you why." He gulped his glass of whisky and water at the bar. "For the same reason that no woman has ever written a big play. Did you ever think of it? Lots of women have written first-class novels. One or two have written great poetry. Almost none have written any music worth considering. And fewer still have written even passable plays. And I'll tell you why! Because women are sensitive and emotional and artistic, but they're not strong enough to subdue emotion to the ends of art, d' you see? And the more stiff the laws of your art, the more impossible it is for them to handle it. Music's bad enough! Pure emotion expressed in rules of harmony that are like mathematics! But a play, man! Why a play's the most dd intricate piece of mechanism that was ever put together. And to make it live, you have to be the master of life as well as the slave of it." He laughed abruptly. "That's the truth I'm telling you. I just read it in a newspaper."
"And you think that's the trouble with Gregg?"
"That's the trouble with Gregg, He's as sensitive as a woman, but he lives like a woman, and he'll never write a dd thing! He's too deep in his own emotions." He added: "Lucky beggar! Life's worth while when you can live it as much as he does."
"He's happy, certainly."
"Happy! Of course he's happy. He's too happy to write. And when he's miserable, he'll be too miserable to write."
"Well," Pittsey reflected, "I suppose it'll not hurt him to try."
