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 PASTICHE 
 PREJUDICE ». 
 
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 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE
 
 PASTICHE 
 
 AND 
 
 PREJUDICE 
 
 BY 
 
 A. B. WALKLEY 
 
 NEW YORK 
 ALFRED A. KNOPF MCMXXI
 
 Reprinted, by ilie courtesy of Ihe Propriciors. 
 /rem Tim Times. 
 
 Printed iw Oreat Britain.
 
 Pfp LIBRARY 
 
 • '^ UNIVEPvPITV OF ^ ALIFORNIA 
 
 ioOHo SANTA BMIBARA 
 
 P3 
 
 PASTICHE 
 
 Writing of Lamennais, Renan says : " II crca 
 avec des reminiscences de la Bible et du langagc 
 ecclesiastique cette manierc harmonicuse et grandiose 
 qui realise le phenomcnc unique dans I'histoire 
 litterairc d'un pastiche de genie." Rcnan was 
 nothing if not fastidious, and " unique " is a hard 
 word, for which I should like to substitute the 
 milder " rare." Pastiches " of genius " arc rare 
 because genius is rare in any kind, and more than 
 ever rare in that kind wherein the writer deliberately 
 forgoes his own natural, instinctive form of expression 
 for an alien form. But even fairly plausible pastiches 
 are rare, for the simple reason that though, with taste 
 and application, and above all an anxious care for 
 style, you may succeed in mimicking the literary 
 form of another author or another age, it is impossible 
 for you to reproduce their spirit — since no two human 
 beings in this world arc identical. Perhaps the 
 easiest of all kinds is the theatrical " imitation," 
 because all that is to be imitated is voice, tone, 
 gesture — an actor's words not being his own — yet 1 
 have never seen one that got beyond parody. The 
 sense of an audience is not line enough to appreciate 
 exact imitation ; it demands exaggeration, caricature.
 
 PASTICHE AND PllEJUDICE 
 
 Parody, indeed, is tiic pitfall of all pastiche. 
 Even Mr. Max Bccrbohm, extraordinarily sus- 
 ceptible and responsive to style as he is, did not 
 escape it in that delightful little book of his wherein, 
 some years ago, he imitated many of our contempo- 
 rary authors. I can think of but a single instance 
 whieh faithfully reproduces not only the language 
 but almost the spirit of the authors imitated — 
 M. Marcel Proust's volume of '' Pastiches et Me- 
 langes." The only stricture one can pass on it, if 
 stricture it be, is that M. Proust's Balzac and 
 St. Simon and the rest are a little " more Royalist 
 than the King," a little more like Balzac and St. 
 Simon than the originals themselves ; I mean, a 
 little too intensely, too concentratedly, Balzac and 
 St. Simon. But Marcel Proust is one of my preju- 
 dices. To say that his first two books, " Swann " 
 and " Les Jeunes Filles," have given me more 
 exquisite pleasure than anything in modern French 
 literature would not be enough — I should have to 
 say, in all modern literature. Mrs. Wharton, I see 
 from the " Letters," sent Henry James a copy of 
 " Swann " when it first came out (191.3) : I wish we 
 could have had his views of it. It offers another 
 kind of psychology from Henry James's, and he 
 would probably have said, as he was fond of saying, 
 that it had more " saturation " than " form."' But 
 I am wandering from my subject of pasticJie. 
 
 I was present one afternoon at a curious experi- 
 ment in theatrical pastiche. This was a rehearsal 
 
 2
 
 P A S T I C H E 
 
 of a rehearsal of the screen scene from 2'hc School for 
 Scandal, which was sujiposed to be directed by 
 Sheridan himself. Rather a comphcated affair, 
 because Miss LiHan Braithwaite was supposed to be 
 playing not Lady Teazle but Mrs. Abington playing 
 Lady Teazle,- Mr. Gilbert Hare had to play Mr. 
 Parsons playing Sir Peter, and so forth — histrionics, 
 so to speak, raised to the second power. To tell the 
 truth, I think the middle term tended to fall out. 
 It was easy enough for the players to make them- 
 selves up after the originals in the Garriek Club 
 picture of the screen scene, but how these originals 
 spoke or what their personal peculiarities were, on 
 or off the stage, who shall now say ? There you have 
 the difference between fact and fiction. Lady 
 Teazle and Sir Peter, having no existence save in the 
 book of the play, are producible from it at any time, 
 as " real " as they ever were, but Mrs. Abington 
 and Mr. Parsons are not fixed in a book, and their 
 reality died with them. Naturally enough the actual 
 scene written by Sheridan " went " with very much 
 greater force than the setting of conversations, 
 interruptions, etc., in which it was embedded, for 
 the simple reason that the one part had had the luck 
 to be imagined by Sheridan and the other had not. 
 But as a pasiiclic this new part, written round the 
 old, seemed to me on the whole very well done ; 
 there was hardly a word that Sheridan and his 
 friends migld not have said. Just one, however, 
 there noticeably was. Mr. Gerald du Maurier (as 
 
 3 u 2
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 Sheridan) was made to tell Mr. Leon Quartcrmaine 
 (as Charles) that, in his laughter at the discovery of 
 Lady Teazle, he was not to expcet the " sympathy 
 of the audienee." That, I feel sure, was an ana- 
 ehronism, a bit of quite modern theatrical lingo. 
 I should guess that it eamc to us from the French, 
 who are fond of talking of a role sympathique. Mr. 
 du Muurier, if any one, must remember his father's 
 delightful sketch of English people shopping in 
 Normandy, when the artful shopwoman is cajoling 
 a foolish-faced Englishman with " le visage dc 
 monsieur m'est si sympathique." The Italian 
 s'nnpaiico is, of course, even more hard- worked. I 
 felt sure, then, as I say, about the anachronism ; but 
 I am quite aware that it is never safe to trust to 
 one's instinct in these matters. It is by no means 
 impossible that some one may triumphantly produce 
 against me a newspaper or book of 1775 which speaks 
 of " the sympathy of the audience." The unex- 
 pected in these cases docs occasionally happen. 
 
 And certainly any one who has tried his hand at 
 a jmsiiche of a dead and gone author will have 
 frequently been astonished, not at the antiquity but 
 at tiie modernity of the style. Language changes 
 less rapidly than we are apt to suppose. The bad 
 ^^Titcrs seem to get old-fashioned earliest — because, 
 I suppose, they yield most easily to ephemeral tricks 
 of speech. For example, Fanny Burney, who, I 
 cannot but think, wrote a bad style, and in her later 
 books (as Macaulay pointed out) a kind of debased 
 
 4
 
 PASTICHE 
 
 Johnsonese, is now decidedly old-fashioned. But 
 Jane Austen, whose style, though scarcely brilliant, 
 was never bad, is not. A modern Mr. Collins would 
 not talk of " elegant females " — but even then he 
 was put forward as ridiculous for doing so. Jane 
 was fond of " the chief of the day " and " the harp 
 was bringing." These phrases are passees, but I 
 doubt if you will find many others. 
 
 Our sense of the past, in fact, may illude us. 
 And that reminds me of Henry James's solitary 
 pasfiche, his posthumous (and fragmentary) " Sense 
 of the Past." The " past " he deals with is, roughly, 
 the Jane Austen period, and I think his language 
 would very much have astonished .Jane Austen. 
 For one thing, they didn't colloquially emphasize 
 in her day as Henry James makes them do. I take 
 a page at random : — " He mustn't be ton terribly 
 clever for us, certainly ! We enjoy inuuensdy your 
 being so extraordinary : but I'm sure you'll take it 
 in good jiart if I remind you that there is a limit." 
 Fs this our ultra-modern Mrs. Brookenham speaking ? 
 No, it is Mrs. Midmorc, somewhere about 1820. 
 To be more exact, it is Henry .Tames speaking with 
 the emphasis that always abounded in his novels and 
 his letters and his talk. Again : " I can't keep off 
 that strangeness of my momentary lapse." That 
 doesn't sound to my ear a bit like 1S2(). Again : 
 " It must have been one of your pale passions, as 
 you call 'em, truly -so that even if her ghost dois 
 hover I shan't be afraid of so very thin a shade." 
 
 5
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 Note the " 'em," the author's timid little speck of 
 antique colour, but note also how the speaker carries 
 on the " ghost " figure — in a way that is signed 
 " Henry James, 19 — " all over. The fact is, Henry 
 James, with his marked, individual, curiously 
 " modern '' style, was the last man to express himself 
 in an alien style, particularly the more simple style 
 of an earlier age. To write a pure pastiche you must 
 begin by surrendering, putting clean away your 
 own personality — how otherwise are you to take on 
 another's ? 
 
 I have no illusions about the essays in pastiche 
 to be found in the earlier of the following papers. If 
 they do not always fall below jiarody, they never 
 rise above it. Occasional fragments of authentic 
 text will be recognized at a glance. " These Things 
 are but Toves."
 
 AN ARISTOTELIAN FRAGMENT 
 
 Ix the nciglibourhood of Wardour Street, where 
 the princes of the film hold their Court, a legislative 
 code for film-making, a " Poetics " of the film, by 
 some maestro di color che sanno, has long been 
 yearned for. If only, they say, if only the maestro 
 himself, the great Aristotle, had been alive to write 
 it ! After all, kinematograph is Greek, isn't it ? It 
 seems to cry aloud, somehow, for its code by the 
 great Greek authority. Well, they little knew what 
 luck was in store for them ! 
 
 To-day comes a startling piece of news from the 
 East. A certain Major Ferdinand M. Pinto, O.B.E., 
 R.E., whet her on military duty or on furlough the 
 report does not say, has been sojourning witii the 
 monks of Mount Porthos, and, in the most singidar 
 manner, has discovered in the possession of his 
 hosts a precious treasure of which tluy wrre entin ly 
 ignorarit. It was a Greek manuseript, and, as the 
 Reverend Prior laughingly observed, it was (Jreek 
 to them. It seems that — such is the lieenee of 
 modern manners even in monasteries — the monks 
 have lately taken to smoking, and to using what in 
 lay circles are calleil " spills." Now on tjie spill 
 
 7
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 which the Major was lighting for his cigar there 
 suddenly stared him in the face the words 
 
 otiTTTff) .\yd6(j>v Key It 
 
 and the name Agathon thrilled him with memories 
 of a certain Oxford quad, with dear " old Straehan " 
 annoying the Master by wondering why Agathon 
 should have said anything so obvious as that " it 
 is jMobable that many things should happen con- 
 trary to probability." To examine the spill, all the 
 spills collected, was the work of a moment. They 
 proved, at a glance, to be an entirely unknown MS. 
 of the " Poetics,"' more complete even than the 
 Parisian, and with new readings transcending even 
 the acutest conjectures of Vahlen. But, greatest 
 find of all, there was disclosed — though with imfor- 
 tunate lacuncc caused by the monks' cigars — an 
 entirely new chapter inquiring into the structure of 
 the Moving Picture Drama. Through the courtesy 
 of the Pseudo-Hellenic Society I am favoured with 
 a translation of this chapter, and a few passages, 
 which .seemed of more general interest, are here 
 extracted. 
 
 " As we have said,' the MS. begins, " it is a 
 (juestion whether tragedy is to be judged in itself 
 or in relation also to the audience. But it is another 
 story (aAXo? XJyo?) with the moving pictures. For 
 it is not clear whether they have an 'itself at 
 all, or, if they have, where this self is to be found, 
 whether on the screen, f>r in the lens of the camera,
 
 AX ARISTOTELIAN FRAGMENT 
 
 or in tlie head of the photographic artist. Whereas 
 there is no doubt (save in very inclement weather) 
 about tlic audience. They are to be judged, then, 
 solely in relation to the audience. And, for this 
 reason, they do not resemble tragedy, whose action, 
 we said, must be whole, consisting of a beginning, a 
 middle, and an end. For the audience may arrive 
 at the end of a picture play, and though, in due 
 time, the beginning will come round again, the 
 audience may not have the patience to wait for it. 
 Some audiences prefer to arrive in the middle and 
 to jjrocced to the end, and then to end with the 
 beginning. By this means the general sense of con- 
 fusion in human affairs is confirmed in the picture 
 theatre, and in this sense, but only in this sense, the 
 picture drama may be said to be, like tragedy, an 
 imitation of life. 
 
 " Nor can it be said of picture drama, as it was of 
 tragedy, that the element of plot is more important 
 than the element of character. For here neither 
 element is important. The important element now 
 is motion. Any plot will serve the picture poet's 
 purpose (indeed most of them take them ready- 
 made from those prose epics known as ' shockers "), 
 and any characters likewise (it will sullice if these be 
 simplified types or ' masks '). The essence of the 
 matter is that all should be kept moving. And as 
 moving objects are best seen to be moving when 
 they are moving quickly, the picture poet will con- 
 trive that his horses shall always, as Homer says, 
 
 9
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 devour the ground and his motor cars be ' all out.' 
 . . . Unity of plot — when there is a plot — docs not, 
 as some persons think, consist in the unity of the 
 hero. It consists in the final dwelling together in 
 unity of the hero and his bride. Final must be 
 understood as posterior to the pursuit of the bride 
 by other men, who may be cither white or red. Red 
 men are better, as more unbridled in their passions 
 than white. As yEschylus first introduced a second 
 actor in tragedy, so an American poet, whose name 
 is too barbarous to be wTitten in Greek, introduced 
 the red man in picture drama. . . . 
 
 " With regard to the hero and his bride, though 
 their characters should, as in tragedy, be morally 
 good {xp-qa-Tu), it is chicfly necessary that their 
 persons should be kinematographically good or 
 good on the film. F'or at every peripety of the action 
 they must become suddenly enlarged by the device 
 of the photographer, so that every furrow of the 
 knitted brow and every twitch of the agitated 
 mouth is shown as large as life, if not larger. It is, 
 in fact, by this photographic enlargement that the 
 critical turns of the action arc marked and distin- 
 guished, in the absence of the tragic element of 
 diction. Where the tragic actor talks big, the pic- 
 ture player looks big. Nevertheless, the element of 
 diction is not entirely wanting. Sentences (wiiieh 
 should comprise as many solecisms as possible) may 
 be shown on the screen, descriptive of what the 
 players are doing or saying. But the more skilful 
 
 10
 
 AN ARISTOTELIAN FRAGMENT 
 
 players habitually say somethin<,' else than what is 
 thus imputed to them, thereby giving the audience 
 the additional interest of conjeeturing what they 
 aetually do say in place of what they ought to have 
 said. 
 
 ..." Picture poetry is a more philosophical and 
 liberal thing than history ; for history expresses the 
 particular, but picture poetry the not too parti- 
 cular. The particular is, for example, what Alci- 
 biades did or suffered. The not too particular is 
 what Charlie Chaplin did or suffered. But the 
 moving pictures do to some extent show actual 
 happenings, in order to reassure people by nature 
 incredulous. For what has not happened we do 
 not at once feel sure to be possible ; but what has 
 happened is manifestly possible ; otherwise it would 
 not have happened. On the wjiole, however, as the 
 tragic poet should prefer jirobable im})Ossibilities to 
 improbable possibilities, the picture poet should go, 
 as Agathon says, one better, and aim at improbable 
 impossibilities." . . . 
 
 n
 
 MR SHAKESPEARE DISORDERLY 
 
 At the meeting preliminary to " Warriors' Day 
 I was wending my way along the eorridor of the 
 Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, when I encountered an 
 amphibious-looking figure with the mien of one of 
 Mr. W. W. Jacobs's people, but attired in the classic 
 tunic and sandals of a Greek of the best period. 
 Knowing that the meeting was to include all sorts 
 and conditions of theatrical men, I taxed him with 
 being somebody out of Orjohce mtx Enfers or La Belle 
 Ilelene. He said it was not a bad shot, but, as a 
 matter of fact, he was a ferryman, " saving your 
 honour's reverence, name o' Charon." " A 
 ferryman ? "' said I ; " then you nuist be from the 
 Upper River, Godstow way."' " No, sir," he 
 answered, " I ply my trade on the Styx, and I've 
 brought over a boatful of our tip-toppers — our 
 intelli-gents-you-are they calls 'em in the Elysian 
 Fields — to this 'ere mectin'. Precious dry work it 
 is, too, sir," he added, wijiing his mouth with the 
 back of his hand. " Where are they ? " I asked in 
 high excitement. " In this 'ere box, sir, where the 
 management have allowed them to sit incog." 
 " And who, my good fellow, are they ? " " Well, 
 
 12
 
 MR. SHAKESPEARE DISORDERLY 
 
 sir, let mc see ; thcres Mr. William Shakespeare, 
 one of the most pop'Iar of our gents and the neatest 
 hand at nectar puncli with a toast in it. Then 
 there's Mr. David Garrick, little Davy, as they calls 
 'im (though the other one, 'im who's always a-slingin' 
 stones at the giants, isn't no great size, neither), and 
 there's 'is friend Dr. Samuel Johnson, a werry 
 harbitrary cove, and there's Mrs. Siddons, an "oly 
 terror of a woman, sir, as you might say. Likewise, 
 there's Mr. Sheridan and Mr. Edmund Kcan, both 
 on 'em gents with a powerful thirst — just like mine 
 this blessed mornin', sir.'' At this second reminder 
 I gave him wherewithal to slake his thirst, directed 
 him to the bar, and, as soon as he was out of sight, 
 slipped noiselessly into the back of the box, where I 
 hid beiiind the overcoats. 
 
 Mr. Shakespeare was beckoning Mrs. Siddons to 
 his side. " Come hither, good mistress Sal " (this 
 to the majestic Sarah, the Tragic Muse !), " and 
 prythcc, dearest clnick, sit close, for 'tis a nipping 
 and an eager air, and poor Will's a-cold." 
 
 Mus. S.— Sir, you are vastly oblecging, but where's 
 the chair ? 
 
 Dr. Johnson. — Madam, you wlio have so often 
 occasioned a want of seats to other people, will the 
 more easily excuse the want of one yourself. 
 
 Mr. Shakespeaue. — Marry come up ! ANOuldst 
 not sit in my lajj, Sal? 'Tis not so deep as a well 
 nor so wide as a church door, but 'twill serve. 
 
 Mrs. S. {scmidalized but dignified). — Sir, I am 
 1.'}
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 sensible of the lionour, but fear my train would 
 incommode the Immortal Bard. 
 
 Mr. Shakespeare. — Oh, Immortal Bard be 
 
 Mr. Garrick {liastily). — I perceive, sir, a stir 
 among the company. The gentleman who is 
 taking the chair has notable eyebrows ; he must 
 be 
 
 Mr. Shakespeare. — Master George Robey. I've 
 heard of him and his eyebrows. 
 
 Mr. G. — No, no, 'tis Sir Arthur Pinero, an actor- 
 dramatist like yourself, sir. 
 
 Mr. Shakespeare. — Beshrew me, but I would 
 hear the chimes at midnight with him and drink a 
 health unto his knighthood. (Sings.) " And let me 
 the canakin clink, clink, and '' 
 
 The House {indignantly). — Sh-h-h ! 
 
 Mr. Shakespeare. — A murrain on these gallants ! 
 They have no ear for a catch and should get them to 
 a monastery. But I'll sit like my grandsire, carved 
 in alabaster. Who's the young spark, now speak- 
 ing ? 
 
 Dr. J. {shocked). — The young spark, sir, is His 
 Royal Highness tiie Prince of Wales. 
 
 Mr. Sheridan. — Egad ! This reminds me of old 
 times, but the young man is not a bit like my friend 
 Prinny. And though / managed Drury Lane, I 
 never got Prinny on my stage. 
 
 Dr. J. — Sir, your Prinny never had so good a 
 cause to be there. He only thought he fought in 
 the wars ; but this Prince is a real cx-Service man, 
 
 14
 
 MR. SHAKESPEARE DISORDERLY 
 
 pleading for the cx-Service men, his comrades in 
 arms. He has been a soldier, and not a man of us 
 in this box but wishes he could say as much for 
 himself. Every man thinks meanly of himself for 
 not having been a soldier ; but he ^vill think less 
 meanly if he can help those wlio have. That is the 
 very purpose of this numerous assembly. 
 
 Mr. Shakespeare. — Oh, most learned doctor, a 
 Daniel come to judgment ! F faith I am most 
 heartily of thy mind, and would drink a loving toast 
 to the young Prince and another to the ex-Service 
 fellows, and eke a third to this — how runs it ? — this 
 numerous assembly. {Sings.) " And let me the 
 canakin clink, clink, and " 
 
 The House {in a frenzy of indignation). — Sh-h-h ! 
 Turn him out ! {Hisses.) 
 
 Mr. Shakespeare.— What ! the " bird " ! Well- 
 a-day, this isn't the first time they've hissed my 
 Ghost. 
 
 Mr. Keax. — Sir, they've hissed 7ne 1 
 
 Mr. Shakespeare. — Ha ! say'st thou, honest 
 Ned ! But thou wast a jackanapes to let thyself 
 be caught with the Alderman's wife and 
 
 Mrs. S. {icily). — Mr. Shakespeare, there are ladies 
 present. 
 
 Mr. Sheridan- {whispering tu Dr. J.).— \l\\t what 
 docs little Davy here, doctor ? He has always been 
 rcj)rcsented as very saving. 
 
 Dr. J. — No, sir. Davy is a liberal man. He has 
 given away more money than any man in England. 
 
 15
 
 PASTICHK AND PREJUDICE 
 
 There may be a little \anity mixed, but he has 
 shown that money is not his first object. 
 
 At this moment Charon popped his head in 
 at the door, pulling his forelock, and said, " Time, 
 gen'lemen, time ! " The house was rising and I 
 took the opportunity to step back, unperceived, into 
 the corridor. Mr. Shakespeare led the procession 
 out, declaring that, as he had come in a galliard, 
 he must return in a coranto, and offering to dance 
 it with Mrs. Siddons, who, however, excused herself, 
 saying that she knew no touch of it, though she had 
 of old taken great strides in her profession. Dr. 
 Johnson turned back, when half way out, to touch 
 the doorpost. Mr. Garrick sallied forth arm-in-arm 
 with Mr. Kean and Mr. Sheridan. " Egad ! " 
 chuckled Mr. Sheridan, " Garrick between Tragedy 
 and Comedy," and subsequently caused some con- 
 fusion by tumbling down the stairs and lying helpless 
 at the bottom. When the attendants ran to his 
 assistance and asked his name, he said he was Mr. 
 Willjcrforcc. As they emerged under the portico 
 the crowd outside raised a loud cheer, and Mr. 
 Shakespeare doffed his plumed cap and bowed 
 graciously to right and left until they told him that 
 the crowd were cheering the Prince of Wales, when 
 he looked crestfallen and called those within earshot 
 " groundlings "' and " lousy knaves." As he jumped 
 into a taxi, I heard him direct the driver to the 
 " Mermaid," when Dr. Johnson, running up and 
 pufling loudly, cried, " A tavern chair is the throne 
 
 16
 
 MR. SHAKESPEARE DISORDERLY 
 
 of human felicity. But the ' Mitre ' is the nearer. 
 Let us go there, and TU have a frisk with you.'" 
 And as the taxi disappeared down Catherine Street, 
 my ear caught the distant strain, " And let me the 
 canakin clink, clink." 
 
 17
 
 SIR ROGER AT THE RUSSIAN 
 BALLET 
 
 No. 1000. Wednesday, October 29Tn, 19 — . 
 
 Sahare eleganfius quam necesse est probce. 
 
 Sallust. 
 
 My friend Sir Roger de Covcrley, when we last 
 met together at the ehib, told me that he had a 
 great mind to see the Museovite daneers with me, 
 assuring me at the same time that he had not been 
 at a playhouse these twenty years. When he learnt 
 from me that these daneers were to he sought in 
 Leieestcr Fields, he asked me if there would not be 
 some danger in coming home late, in case the 
 Mohoeks should be abroad. " Howe\er," says the 
 knight, " if Captain Sentry will make one with us to- 
 morrow night, I will have my own eoaeh in readiness 
 to attend yf)u ; for John tells me he has got the fore- 
 wheels mended." Thinking to smoak him, I whispered, 
 " You must have a care, for all the streets in the West 
 arc now up."" but he was not to be daunted, saying he 
 minded well when all the West Country was up with 
 Monmouth ; and the Captain bid Sir Roger fear 
 nothing, for that he had put on the same sword which 
 he made use of at the battle of Steenkirk. 
 
 When we had eon\oyed him in safety to Leicester 
 IS
 
 SIR ROGER AT RUSSIAN BALLET 
 
 Fields, and he had descended from his coach at the 
 door, he straifrhtway engaged in a conference with 
 the door-keeper, who is a notable prating gossip, 
 and stroak'd the page-boy upon the head, bidding 
 him be a good child and mind his book. As soon as 
 we were in our places my old friend stood up and 
 looked about him with that pleasure which a mind 
 seasoned with himianity naturall}^ feels in itself, at 
 the sight of a multitude of j)eople who seem pleased 
 with one another, and partake of the same common 
 entertainment. He seemed to be no less pleased 
 with the gay silks and satins and sarsenets and 
 brocades of the ladies, but pish'd at the strange 
 sight of their bare backs. "Not so bare, neither," I 
 whispered to him, "for if you look at them through 
 your spy-glass you will see they wear a little coat of 
 paint, which particularity has gained them the name 
 of Piets." " I warrant you," he answered, with a more 
 than ordinary \'ehemence, "these naked ones are 
 widows— widows. Sir, are the most perverse crea- 
 tures in the world." Thinking to humour him, I said 
 most like they were war widows, whereon the gofxl 
 knight lifted his hat to our brave fellows who fought 
 in the Low Countries, and offered several rellections 
 on the greatness o( the liritish land and sea forces, 
 with many other honest prejudices which naturally 
 cleave to the heart of a true Englishman. 
 
 Luckily, the Muscovites then began dancing and 
 posturing in their pantomime which they call 
 Fetrouchka and the old gcntlenian was wonderfully 
 
 1«> V 2
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 attentive to the antics of the three live fantoccini. 
 AViicn the black fellow, as he called the Moor, clove 
 tiie head of his rival with the scimitar, the knight 
 said he had never looked for such barbarity from a 
 fellow who, but a moment ago, was iiuiocently play- 
 ing a game of l)all, like a child. What strange dis- 
 orders, he added, are bred in the minds of men 
 whose passions are not regulated by virtue, and dis- 
 ciplined by reason, " But ])ray, you that are a 
 critic, is this in accordance with your rules, as you 
 call them ? Did your Aristotle allow pity and 
 terror to be moved by such means as dancing ? "' I 
 answered that the Greek jjhilosopher had never seen 
 the Muscovites and that, in any case, wc had the 
 authority of Shakespeare for expecting nuirder 
 from any jealous Moor. " Moreover, these Mus- 
 covites dance murder as they dance everything. I 
 love to shelter myself under the examples of great 
 men, and let me put you in mind of Hesiod, who 
 says, ' The gods have bestowed fortitude on some 
 men, and on others a disposition for dancing.' For- 
 tunately the Muscovites have the more amiable 
 gift," The knight, with the proper respect of a 
 country gentleman for classick authority, was struck 
 dumb by Hesiod. 
 
 He remained silent during the earlier part of 
 Scheherazade until Karsavina, as the favourite of the 
 Sultan's harem, persuaded the Chief Eunuch to 
 release her orange-tawny favourite, Monsieur Mas- 
 sine, at which the knight exclaimed, " On my word, 
 
 20
 
 SIR ROGER AT RUSSIAN BALLET 
 
 a notable young baggage ! " I refrained from tell- 
 ing my innocent friend that in the old Arabian tale 
 these tawny creatures were apes. He mightily liked 
 the Sultan's long beard. " When I am walking in 
 my gallery in the country," says he, " and see the 
 beards of my ancestors, I cannot forbear regarding 
 them as so many old patriarchs, and myself as an 
 idle smock-faced young fellow. I love to sec your 
 Abrahams and Isaacs, as we have them in old pieces 
 of tapestry with beards below their girdles. I sup- 
 pose this fellow, witii all these wives, must l)e Solo- 
 mon."' And, his thoughts running upon that King, 
 he said he kept his Book of Wisdom by his bedside 
 in the country and foiuid it, though Apoeryi)hal, 
 more conducive to virtue than the writings of Mon- 
 sieur La Rochefoucauld or, indeed, of Socrates him- 
 self, whose life he had read at the end of the Dic- 
 tionary. Captain Sentry, seeing two or three wags 
 who sat near us lean with an attentive ear towards 
 Sir Roger, and fearing lest they should snioak the 
 knight, plucked him by the elbow, and whispered 
 something in his ear that lasted until the Sultan 
 returned to the harem and i)ut the ladies and their 
 tawny companions to the sword. The faNourite's 
 plunging the dagger into her luart moved him to 
 tears, but he dried them hastily on l)ethinking liiin 
 she was a Mahometan, and asked of us, on our way 
 home, whether there was no |)layhouse in London 
 where they danced true Church of Kngland panto- 
 mimes. 
 
 '21
 
 PARTRIDGE AT JULIUS CESAR" 
 
 Mr, Jonks ha\ing spent throe hours in reading 
 and kissing Sophia's letter, and being at hist in a 
 state of good spirits, he agreed to earry an appoint- 
 ment, whieh he had before made, into exeeution. 
 This was, to attend Mrs. Miller and her youngest 
 daughter into the gallery at the St. James's play- 
 house, and to admit Mr. Partridge as one of the 
 company. For, as Jones had really that taste for 
 humour Avhieh many affeet, he expected to enjoy 
 nnieh entertainment in the criticisms of Partridge ; 
 from whom he expected the simple dictates of 
 nature, unimproved, indeed, but likewise unadul- 
 terated by art. 
 
 In the first row, then, of the first gallery did Mr. 
 Jones, Mrs. Miller, her youngest daughter, and Part- 
 ridge take their places. Partridge inuuediatcly 
 declared it was the finest place he had ever been in. 
 When the first music was played he said it was a 
 wonder how so numy fiddlers could j^lay at one time 
 without putting one another out. 
 
 As soon as the play, which was Shakesi)eares 
 Julius C(vsar, began, Partridge was all attention, 
 nor did he break silence till the .scene in Brutus's 
 
 22
 
 PARTRIDCiE AT .TTLIUS C^SAR" 
 
 orchard, win ii he asked Jones, " What season of the 
 year is it. Sir ? "' Jonts answered, "' Wait bnt a 
 moment and you siiall liear the boy Lueius say it is 
 the l-tth of Mareh." To whieh Partridge rephed 
 witli a smile, " Ay, then I understand why the boy 
 was asleej). Had it been in apple-iiarvesting time I 
 warrant you he would have been awake and busy 
 as soon as what"s-jus-nanu', Squire Brutus, had 
 turned his baek."' And upon the entreaties of 
 Portia to share lirutuss eonfidenee he inquired if 
 she was not a Somersetshire weneh. "" For Madam," 
 said he, " is might} like the housewives in our 
 county, who will plague their husbands to death 
 rather than let "em keeji a seeret." Nor was he 
 satisfied with Ca-sar's yielding to Cali)hurnia\s 
 objections against his going to the Capitol. '" Ay, 
 anything to please your wife, you old dotard," said 
 he ; " you n>ight have known better than to gi\e 
 heed to a silly wonums nightmares." 
 
 When they eame to the Forum scene and the 
 speeches of Brutus and Antony, Partridge sat with 
 his eyes fixed on the orators and with his mouth 
 open. The same passions which succeeded each 
 other in the crowd of citizens succeeded likewise in 
 him. He was at first all for Brutus and then all for 
 Antony, until he learnt that Casar had left 75 
 drachmas to every Roman citizen. '* How much is 
 that in our English money ? ' he asked Joins, who 
 answered that it was al)out two guineas. .\t that he 
 looked cha})fallen, bethinking him tlial, though a 
 
 28
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 round sum, it was not enough to warrant the crowd 
 in such extravagant rejoicing. 
 
 " I begin to suspect, Sir,"' said he to Jones, " this 
 Squire Antony hath not been above hoodwinking 
 us, but he seemed so nuich more concerned about 
 the matter than the other speaker, Brutus, that I 
 for one couldn't help believing every word he said. 
 Yet I believed the other one, too, wiicn he was talk- 
 ing, and I was mightily pleased witii what he said 
 about liberty and Britons never being slaves." 
 " You mean Romans," answered Jones, " not 
 Britons." " Well, well,"" said Partridge, " I know 
 it is only a play, but if I thought they were merely 
 Romans, and not Britons at heart, I should not care 
 a hang about 'em or what became of "em." 
 
 To say the truth, I believe honest Partridge, 
 though a raw country fellow and ignorant of those 
 dramatic rules which learned critics from the Temple 
 and the other Inns of Court have introduced, along 
 with improved catcalls, into our i)layhouses, was 
 here uttering the sentiments of nature. Should we 
 be concerned about the fortunes of those ancient 
 Romans were they utter strangers to us and did we 
 not put ourselves in their places, which is as much 
 as to turn them all from Romans into Britons ? To 
 be sure, while our imagination is thus turning them, 
 it will not forbear a few necessary amendments for 
 the sake of verisimilitude. For, to name only one 
 particular, no free and independent Briton could 
 imagine himself bribed by so paltry a legacy as a 
 
 24
 
 PARTRIDGE AT "JULIUS C^SAR" 
 
 couple of guineas ; but he can multiply that sum in 
 his mind until it shall have reached the nuich more 
 considerable amount which he will consent to take 
 for his vote at a Westminster election ; and thus 
 honour will be satisfied. And the critics aforesaid 
 will then be able to point out to us the advantages 
 of British over Roman liberty, being attended not 
 only with the proud privileges of our great and 
 glorious Constitution, but also with a higher emolu- 
 ment. 
 
 Mr. Jones would doubtless have made these 
 reflections to himself had he not, while Partridge 
 was still speaking, been distracted by the sudden 
 appearance in an opposite box of Lady Bcllaston 
 and Sophia. As he had only left her ladyship that 
 very afternoon, after a conversation of so private a 
 nature that it must on no account be communi- 
 cated to the reader, he would iiavc disregarded the 
 imperious signals which she forthwith began making 
 to him with her fan ; but the truth is, whatever 
 reluctance he may have felt to rejoin her ladyship 
 at that moment was overborne by his eagerness to 
 approach the amiable Sophia, though he turned pale 
 and iiis knees trembltd at the risk of that approach 
 in circumstances so dangerous. As soon as he had 
 recovered his composure he hastened to obey her 
 ladyships commands, but on his entry into the box 
 his spirits were again confoimded by the evident 
 agitation of Sophia, and, seizing her hand, he stam- 
 mered, " Madam, I ." " lloity, toity 1 Mr. 
 
 25
 
 PA STIC HP: AM) PR EJ I'D ICE 
 
 Jones," cried Lady Bellaston ; " do you salute a 
 chit of a rr'irl before you take notice of a dowager ? 
 Arc these the new manners among people of fashion ? 
 It is lucky for my heart that I can call myself a 
 dowager, for I vow to-night you look like a veritable 
 Adonis, and," she added in a whisper too low to be 
 heard by Sophia, " your Venus adores you more 
 macll\' than ever, you wicked wretch.** 
 
 Jones was ready to sink with fear. He sat kick- 
 ing his heels, playing with his fingers, and looking 
 more like a fool, if it be possible, than a young booby 
 squire when he is at Mrst introduced into a polite 
 assembly. He began, however, now to recover him- 
 self ; and taking a hint from the behaviour of Lady 
 Bellaston, who, he saw, did not intend openly to 
 claim any close acquaintance with him, he resolved 
 as entirely to affect the stranger on his part. Accord- 
 ingh', he leaned over to Soi)hia, who was staring 
 hard at the stage, and asked her if she enjoyed the 
 performance. " Pray, don't tease Miss Western 
 with your ei\ilities,'* interrupted Lady Bellaston, 
 " for you must know the child hath lost her heart 
 this night to that raxishing fellow Ainlev, though I 
 tell her to my certain knowledge he is a husljand 
 already, and, what is more, a father. These country 
 girls have nothing but sweethearts in their heads." 
 * Upon my honour, madam," cried Sophia, " your 
 ladyship injures me." " Not 1, miss, indeed," 
 replied her ladyship tartly, " and if you want a 
 sweetheart, have you not one of the most gallant 
 
 26
 
 PARTRIDGE AT -JULIUS C\ESAR ' 
 
 young fellows about town ready to your hand in 
 Lord Fellamar ? You nuist be an arrant mad 
 woman to refuse him."' Sophia was visibly too mucii 
 confounded to make any observations, and again 
 turned towards the stage, Lady Bellaston taking the 
 opportunity to dart languishing glances at Jones 
 behind her back and to scjueezc his hand ; in short, 
 to practise the behaviour customary with women of 
 fashion who desire to signify their sentiments for a 
 gentleman without expressing them in actual 
 speech ; when Jones, who saw the agitation of 
 Sophias mind, resolved to take the only method of 
 relieving her, which was by retiring. This he did, as 
 Brutus was rushing upon his own sword ; and j)oor 
 Jones almost wished the sword might spit him, too, 
 in his rage and despair at what her ladyship had 
 maliciously insinuated about Sopliia and Mr. 
 Ainley. 
 
 27
 
 DR. JOHNSON AT THE STADIUM 
 
 I AM now to record a curious incident in Dr. 
 Johnson's life, which fell under my own observation ; 
 of which 2)ars magna fui, and which I am persuaded 
 will, with the liberal-minded, be in no way to his 
 discredit. 
 
 When I was a boy in the N'ear 1745 I wore a white 
 cockade and prayed for Kin^ James, till one of my 
 uncles gave me a shilling on condition that I should 
 pray for King George, which I accordingly did. 
 This uncle was General Cochran ; and it was with 
 natural gratification that I received from another 
 member of that family, Mr. Charles Cochran, a 
 more valuable present than a shilling, that is to 
 say, an invitation to witness the Great Fight at the 
 Stadium and to bring with me a friepd. " Pray," 
 said I, " let us have Dr. Johnson." Mr. Cochran, 
 who is much more modest than our other great 
 theatre-manager, Mr. Garrick, feared that Dr. 
 Johnson could hardly be prevailed upon to conde- 
 scend. " Come," said I, " if you'll kt me negotiate 
 for you, I will be answerable that all shall go well." 
 
 I had not forgotten Mrs. Thrale's relation (which 
 she afterwards printed in her " Anecdotes ") that 
 
 28
 
 DR. JOHNSON AT THE STADIUM 
 
 " Mr. Johnson was very conversant in the art of 
 attack and defence by boxing, which science he had 
 learned from his uncle Andrew, I believe ; and I 
 have heard him discourse upon the age when people 
 were received, and when rejected, in the schools 
 once held for that brutal amusement, much to the 
 admiration of those who had no expectation of his 
 skill in such matters, from the sight of a figure which 
 precluded all possibility of personal prowess." This 
 lively lady was, however, too ready to deviate from 
 exact authenticity of narration ; and, further, I 
 reflected that, whatever the propensities of his youth, 
 he who had now risen to be called by Dr. Smollett 
 the Great Cham of literature might well be affronted 
 if asked to countenance a prize-fight. 
 
 Notwithstanding the high veneration which I 
 entertained for him, I was sensible that he was 
 sometimes a little actuated by the spirit of contra- 
 diction, and by means of that I hoped I should gain 
 my i)oint. I therefore, while we were sitting quietly 
 by ourselves at his house in an evening, took occasion 
 to open my plan thus : — " Mr. Cochran, sir, sends 
 his respectful comj)limcnts to you, and would be 
 happy if you would do him the honour to visit his 
 entertainment at the Stadium on Tiiursday next ? " 
 Johnson. — " Sir, I am ul)liged to Mr. Coeliran. 
 I will go " IJoswELL. — " Provided, sir, I sup- 
 pose, that the entertainment is of a kind agreeable 
 to you ? " Johnson. — " What do you mean, sir ? 
 What do you take me for ? Do you tiiink I am so 
 
 29
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 ignorant of the world as to imagine that I am to 
 prescribe to a gentleman what kind of entertainment 
 he is to offer his friends ? " Boswell. — " But if it 
 were a prize-fight ? " Joiinsox. — " Well, sir, and 
 what then ? "' Boswell. — " It might bring queer 
 eompany.'' Johnson. — " My dear friend, let us 
 have no more of this. I am sorry to be angry with 
 you ; but really it is treating me strangely to talk to 
 me as if I could not meet any company whatever 
 occasionally, " Thus I secured liiin. 
 
 As it proved, however, whctiier by good luck 
 or by the forethought of the ingenious Mr. Cochran, 
 Dr. JohiiS(^n could not have found himself in better 
 company than that gathered round hinj in Block H 
 at the Stadium. There were many members of the 
 Literary Club, among them Mr. Beauclerk, Mr. 
 Burke, Mr. Garriek, Mr. Gibbon, Sir Joshiui Rey- 
 nolds, and Mr. R. B. Sheridan. A gentleman 
 present, who had been dining at the Duke of 
 Montrose's, where the bottle had been circulated 
 pretty freelj', was rash enough to rally Dr. Johnson 
 about his Uncle Andrew, suggesting that his uncle's 
 nej)lu \v might now take the opportunity of exhibiting 
 his prowess in the ring. Johnson. — " Sir, to be 
 facetious, it is not necessary to be indecent. I am 
 not for tapj)ing any mans claret, but we see that thou 
 hast already tapped his Grace's." Burke. — " It is 
 remarkable how little gore is ever shed in these 
 contests. Here have we been for half an hour 
 watching — let me see, what are their names ? — 
 
 30
 
 DR. JOHNSON AT THE STADIUM 
 
 Eddie Feathers and Gus Platts — and not even a 
 bleeding nose between them/' Reynolds. — " In a 
 previons contest one boxer knocked the other's 
 teeth out." Sheridan. — " Yes, but they were false 
 teeth.' 
 
 At this moment the talk was interrupted by the 
 arrival of the Prince. As His Highness passed Dr. 
 Johnson, my revered friend made an obeisance 
 which was an even more studied act of homage than 
 his famous bow to the Arehbislio]) of York ; and he 
 subsequently joined in singing " For he's a jolly 
 good fellow " with the most loyal enthusiasm, 
 relocating the word " fe-ellow " over and over again, 
 doubtless because it was the only one he knew. 
 (" Like a word in a catch,'' Bcauclcrk whispered.) 
 I am sorry that I did not take note of an eUxiucnt 
 argument in which he proceeded to maintain that the 
 situation of Prince of Wales was the hajopiest of any 
 person's in the kingdom, even beyond that of the 
 Sovereign. 
 
 But there was still no sign of Heekitt and C'ar- 
 |)entier, the heroes of the evening, and the eonipanv 
 became a little weary of the jH-eliniinary contests. 
 \ hush fell upon the assembly, and many glanced 
 furtively towards the alley down which the cham- 
 pions were to approach. (iinnoN. — '' \\V are un- 
 happy because wc arc ke|)t waiting. ' Man never is, 
 but always to be, blest.' " Johnson. — " And \\v 
 arc awaiting wc know not what. To the impatience 
 of expectation is added the discpiiet of the unknown. " 
 
 81
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 Garrick {playing round his old friend zvith a fond 
 vivacity). — " My dear sir, men arc naturally a little 
 restless, when they have backed Beckett at 70 to 
 •iO." Reynolds. — " But, see, the lights of the 
 kinematographers " (we were all abashed by the 
 word in the presence of the Great Lexicographer) 
 " arc brighter than ever. I observe all the con- 
 testants take care to smile under them." Sheridan. 
 — " When they do agree, their unanimity is wonder- 
 ful." Johnson'. — " Among the anfractuosities of 
 the human mind, I know not if it may not be one, 
 that there is a morbid longing to attitudinize in the 
 * moving ))ieturcs.' " 
 
 But at length Beckett and Carpentier made their 
 triumphal entry. Beckett first, quietly smiling, 
 with eyes cast down, Carpentier debonair and lightly 
 saluting the crowd with an elegant wave of the hand. 
 After the pair had stripped and Dr. Johnson had 
 {)ointed out that " the tenuity, the thin part " in 
 Carpentier's frame indicated greater lightness, if 
 Beckett's girth promised more solid resistance, 
 Mr. Angle invited the company to preserve silence 
 during the rounds and to abstain from smoking. 
 To add a last touch to the solemnity of the moment, 
 Carpenticr's supernumerary henchmen (some six or 
 eight, over and above his trainer and seconds) came 
 and knelt by us, in single file, in the alley between 
 Block H and Block E, as though at worship. 
 
 NN'liat then happened, in the twinkling of an eye, 
 all the world now knows, and knows rather better 
 
 82
 
 DR. JOHNSON AT THE STADIUM 
 
 than I knew myself at the moment, for I saw 
 Beckett lying on his face in the ring without clearly 
 distinguishing tlie decisive blow. While Carpcnticr 
 was being carried round the ring on the shoulders 
 of his friends, being kissed first by his trainer and 
 then by ladies obligingly held up to the ring for the 
 amiable purpose, I confess that I watched Beckett, 
 and was pleased to see he had successfully resumed 
 h'S quiet smile. As I carried my revered friend 
 home to Bolt Court in a taximetric cabriolet, I 
 remarked to him that Beckett's defeat was a blow 
 to our patriotic pride, whereupon he suddenly 
 uttered, in a strong, determined tone, an apophthegm 
 at which many will start : — " Patriotism is the last 
 refuge of a scoundrel ! " " And yet," said Beau- 
 clerk, when I told him of this later, " he had not been 
 kissed by Curpcntier." 
 
 88
 
 MY UNCLE TOBY PUZZLED 
 
 " 'Tis a pity," cried my father, one winter's night, 
 after reading the account of the Shakespeare 
 Memorial meeting — " 'tis a pity," cried my father, 
 putting my mother's thread-paper into the news- 
 paper for a mark as he spoke, — " that truth, brother 
 Tob)', should shut herself up in such impregnable 
 fastnesses, and be so obstinate as to surrender her- 
 self up sometimes only upon the closest siege." 
 
 The word siege, like a talismanic power, in my 
 father's metaphor, wafting back my uncle Toby's 
 fancy, quick as a note could follow the touch, he 
 opened his ears. 
 
 " And there was nothing to shame them in the 
 truth, neither," said my father, " seeing that they 
 had many thousands of pounds to their credit. 
 How could a bishop think there was danger in 
 telling it ? " 
 
 " Lord bless us ! Mr. Shandy," cried my mother, 
 " what is all this story about ? " 
 
 " About Shakespeare, my dear," said my father. 
 
 " He has been dead a hundred years ago," replied 
 my mother. 
 
 My uncle Toby, who was no chrcuologer, whistled 
 " Lillibullero." 
 
 84
 
 MY UNCLE TOBY PUZZLED 
 
 " By all that's good and great ! ma'am," cried my 
 father, taking the oath out of Ernulphus's digest, 
 " of course. If it was not for the aids of philosophy, 
 which befriend one so much as they do, you would 
 put a man beside all temper. He is as dead as a 
 doornail, and they are thinking of building a theatre 
 to honour his memory." 
 
 " And why should they not, Mr. Shandy ? " said 
 my mother. 
 
 " To be sure, there's no reason why," replied my 
 father, " save that they haven't enough money left 
 over after buying a plot of land in Gowcr Street to 
 build upon." 
 
 Corporal Trim touclied his Montero-cap and 
 looked hard at my uncle Toby, " If I durst pre- 
 sume," said he, " to give your honour my advice, 
 and speak my ojnnion in this matter." " Thou art 
 welcome. Trim," said my uncle Toby. " Why then," 
 repHcd Trim, " I think, with humble submission to 
 your honour's better judgment, I think that had we 
 but a rood or a rood and a half of this ground to do 
 what we pleased witli, 1 would make fortifications 
 for you something like a tansy, with all their bat- 
 teries, saps, ditches, und ])alisadoes, that it should 
 be worth all the world's riding twenty miles to go 
 and see it." 
 
 " Then thou wouldst have, Trim," said my father, 
 " to palisado the Y.M.C.A." 
 
 " I never understood rightly the meaning of 
 that word," suid my unelr Toby, " und I am sure 
 
 85 D 2
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 nothing of that name was known to our armies in 
 Flanders." 
 
 " 'Tis an association of Christian young men," 
 repHed my father, " who for the present hold the 
 Shakespeare Memorialists' ground in Gower Street." 
 'Twas no inconsistent part of my uncle Toby's 
 character that he feared God and reverenced 
 religion. So the moment my father finished his 
 remark my uncle Toby fell a- whistling " Lilli- 
 bullero " with more zeal (though more out of tune) 
 than usual. 
 
 " And the money these Christian youths pay for 
 rents," continued my father, " is to be used to main- 
 tain a company of strolling players " [Here my 
 uncle Toby, throwing back his head, gave a mons- 
 trous, long, loud whew-w-w.], " who are to go up 
 and down the country showing the plays of Shake- 
 speare. Up and down, and that, by the way, is how 
 their curtain went on twenty-two occasions in Romeo 
 and Jidiety 
 
 " \N'ho says so ? " asked my uncle Toby. 
 
 " A parson," replied my father. 
 
 " Had he been a soldier," said my imcle, " he 
 would never have told such a taradiddle. He would 
 have kno^vn that the curtain is that part of the wall 
 or rampart which lies between the two bastions, and 
 joins them." 
 
 " By the mother who bore us I brother Toby," 
 quoth my father, " you would provoke a saint. 
 Hero have you got us, I know not how, souse into 
 
 86
 
 MY UNCLE TOBY PUZZLED 
 
 the middle of tlie old subject again. We are speak- 
 ing of Shakespeare and not of fortifications." 
 
 " Was Shakespeare a soldier, Mr. Shandy, or a 
 young men's Christian ? " said my mother, who had 
 lost her way in the argimient. 
 
 " Neither one nor t'other, my dear," replied my 
 father (my uncle Toby softly whistled " Lilli- 
 bullero ") ; " he was a ^^Titer of plays." 
 
 " They are foolish things," said my mother. 
 
 " Sometimes," replied my father, " but you have 
 not seen Shakespeare's, Mrs. Shandy. And it is 
 for the like of you, I tell you point-blank " 
 
 As my father pronounced the word point-blank 
 my uncle Toby rose up to say something upon pro- 
 jectiles, but my father continued : — 
 
 " It is for the like of you that these Shakespeare 
 Memorialists are sending their strolling players 
 around the country, to set the goodwives wondering 
 about Shakespeare, as they wondered about Diego's 
 nose in the tale of the learned Ilafen Slawken- 
 bergius." 
 
 " Surely the wonderful nose was Cyrano's ? " 
 said my mother. " Cyrano's or Diego's, 'tis all one," 
 cried my father in a passion. " Zooks ! Cannot a 
 man use a plain analogy but his wife nuist interrupt 
 him with her focjjish questions about it ? May the 
 eternal curse of all the devils in " 
 
 " Our armies swore terribly in Flanders," cried 
 my uncle Toby, " but nothing to this." 
 
 " As you please, Mr. Shandy," said my mother. 
 87
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 " Where was I ? " said my father, in some con- 
 fusion, and letting his hand fall upon my uncle 
 Toby's shoulder in sign of repentance for his violent 
 cursing. 
 
 " You was at Slawkenbergius," replied my uncle 
 Toby. 
 
 " No, no, brother, Shakespeare, I was speaking 
 of Shakespeare, and how they were going to carry 
 him round the country because they had not money 
 enough to build a theatre for him in London." 
 
 " But could they not hire one ? " said my nnc\e 
 Toby. 
 
 " No, for my Lord Lytton said that would be too 
 speculative a venture." 
 
 " 'Tis a mighty strange business," said my uncle, 
 in much perplexity. " They buy their land, as I 
 understand it, brother, to build a house for Shake- 
 speare in London, but lease it for a house for yoimg 
 Christians instead, and spend their money on send- 
 ing Shakespeare packing out of London." 
 
 " 'Tis all the faidt of the Londoners," replied my 
 father. " They have no soul for Shakespeare, and 
 for that matter, as I believe, no soul at all." 
 
 " A Londoner has no soul, an' j^lcase your honour," 
 whispered Corporal Trim doubtingly, and touching 
 his Montero-cap to my uncle. 
 
 " I am not much versed, Corporal," quoth my 
 uncle Toby, " in things of that kind ; but I suppose 
 God would not leave him without one, any more 
 than thee or mc." 
 
 88
 
 LADY CATHERINE AND MR. COLLINS 
 
 EuzABETH and Charlotte were seated one morning 
 in the parlour at Hunsford parsonage, enjoying the 
 prospect of Rosings from the front window, and 
 Mr. Collins was working in his garden, which was 
 one of his most respectable pleasures, when the 
 peace of the household was suspended by the arrival 
 of a letter from London : — 
 
 " Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, 
 
 " London, December, 19 — . 
 " Dear Cousin William, — We have long neg- 
 lected to maintain a commerce of letters, but I have 
 learned through the public jirints of your recent 
 union with an elegant female from Hertfordshire 
 and desire to tender you and your lady my respects 
 in what I trust will prove an agreeable form. I am 
 directing an entertainnu-ut at this theatre, which 
 is designed to be in harmony with the general 
 Christmas rejoicings, and, you may rest assured, 
 in no way offends the jirinciples of the Ciuireh 
 which you adorn. Will you not honour it by your 
 presence and thus confer an innocent enjoyment 
 upon your lady ? In that hope, I enclose a box 
 
 89
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 ticket for the pantomime on Monday se'nnight 
 and remain you well-wisher and cousin, 
 
 " Arthur Collins." 
 
 Smiling to herself, Elizabeth reflected that the 
 two Messrs. Collins might certainly call cousins in 
 epistolary composition, while Charlotte anxiously 
 inquired if the proposal had her William's approval. 
 
 " I am by no means of opinion," said he, " that 
 an entertainment of this kind, given by a man of 
 character, who is also my own second cousin, to 
 respectable people, can have any evil tendency ; 
 but, before accepting the invitation, it is, of course, 
 proper that I should seek the countenance of Lady 
 Catherine dc Bourgh." Accordingly, he lost no 
 time in making his way to Rosings. 
 
 Lady Catherine, who chanced to be meditating 
 that very morning on a visit to London for the 
 purchase of a new bonnet and pelerine, was all 
 affability and condescension. 
 
 "To be sure, you will go, Mr. CoUins," said her 
 ladyship. " I advise you to accept the invitation 
 without delay. It is the duty of a clergyman of your 
 station to refine and improve such entertainments by 
 his presence. Nay," she added, " Sir Lewis highly 
 approved them and / myself will go with you." Mr. 
 Collins was overwhelmed by civility far beyond his 
 ex})ectations, and hurried away to prepare Charlotte 
 and Elizabeth for this splendid addition to their 
 party. 
 
 40
 
 LADY CATHERINE AND MR. COLLINS 
 
 Early on the Monday se'nnight they set out for 
 London in one of her ladyship's carriages, for, as 
 Mr. Collins took the opportunity of remarking, she 
 had several, dra^vn by four post-horses, whieh they 
 changed at the " Bell " at Bromley. On the way 
 her ladyship examined the young ladies' knotting- 
 work and advised them to do it differently, instructed 
 Elizabeth in the hiunility of deportment appropriate 
 to the front seat of a carriage, and determined what 
 the weather was to be to-morrow. 
 
 Wlien they were at last arrived and seated in 
 their box Lady Catherine approved the spacious 
 dignity of the baronial hall, which, she said, reminded 
 her of the great gallery at Pemberley, but was 
 shocked at the familiarities which passed between 
 the Baron and Baroness Beauxchamps and their 
 page-boy. " These foreign nobles," she exclaimed, 
 " adventurers, I daresay ! It was Sir Lewis's 
 opinion that all foreigners were adventurers. No 
 English baron, it is certain, would talk so familiarly 
 to a common domestic, a person of inferior birth, 
 and of no importance in the world. Honour, 
 decorum, jirudencc, nay, interest, forbid it. With 
 such manners, I do not wonder that the domestic 
 arrangements are in disorder, the very stair-carpet 
 unfastened, and a machine for cleaning knives 
 actually brought into a reception room ! See, they 
 cannot even lay a table-cloth ! " And her ladyshi[) 
 advised Charlotte on the proper way of laying table- 
 cloths, especially in clergymen's families. 
 
 41
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 After a song of Miss Florence Smithson's Charlotte 
 talked in a low tone with Elizabeth, and her ladyship 
 called out : — " What is that you are saying, Mrs. 
 Collins ? What is it you are talking of ? What arc 
 you telling Miss Bennet ? Let me hear what it is." 
 
 " We arc speaking of musie, madam," said 
 Charlotte. 
 
 " Of musie ! Then pray speak aloud. It is of 
 all subjects my delight. I nnist have my share in 
 the conversation, if you are speaking of music. 
 There are few people in England, I suppose, who have 
 more true enjoyment of music than myself, or a 
 better natural taste. If I had ever learnt, I should 
 have been a great proficient." 
 
 When Cinderella set out for the ball in her eoach- 
 and-six with a whole train of running-footmen Lady 
 Catherine signified her approbation. " Yoimg women 
 should always be properly guarded and attended, 
 according to their situation in life. When my 
 niece Georgiana went to Ramsgate last simimer, I 
 made a point of her having two men-servants go 
 with her. I am excessively attentive to all those 
 things." 
 
 But now they were at the ball, and the box party 
 was all attention. The Prince, dignified and a little 
 stiff, reminded Eliziibeth of Mr. Darcy. But guests 
 so strange as Mutt and Jeff, she thought, would 
 never be allowed to pollute the shades of Pemberley. 
 Mr. Collinss usually cold composure forsook him 
 at the sight of the Baroness playing cards with the 
 
 42
 
 LADY CATHERINE AND MR. COLLINS 
 
 Baron on one of her paniers as a table, and felt it 
 his duty to apologize to Lady Catherine for the 
 unseemly incident. " If your ladyship will warrant 
 me," he began, " I will point out to my cousin that 
 neither a person of your high station nor a clergyman 
 of the Church of England ought to be asked to witness 
 this licentiousness of behaviour." " And advise 
 him," said her ladyship, " on the authority of Lady 
 Catherine de Bourgh, that paniers were never used 
 for this disgraceful purpose. There is no one in 
 England who knows more about paniers than myself, 
 for my grandmother. Lady Anne, wore them, and 
 some day Mrs. Jennings, the housekeeper, shall 
 show tium to Miss Bennet," for Elizabeth coiild not 
 forbear a smile, " at Rosings." 
 
 The party retired early, for Elizabeth had to be 
 conveyed to her imclc's as far as Graccchureh Street, 
 and Lady Catherine desired the interval of a long 
 night before choosing her new bonnet. It was not 
 until Mr, Collins was once more in his ])arsonagc 
 that he sent his cousin an acknowledgment of the 
 entertainment afforded at Drury Lane, as follows : — 
 
 " HuNSFOui), near Westerham, Kent, 
 
 " January, 19 — . 
 " Dear Sir, — We withdrew from your Ciiristmas 
 cntertaimnent on Monday last with mingled feelings 
 of gratification and reprobation. When I say ' we ' 
 I should tell you that my Ciiarlotte and I not only 
 brought with us a Miss Elizabeth Bennet, one of 
 
 48
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 the friends of her maiden state, but were honoured 
 by the company of the Right Honourable Lady 
 Catherine dc Bourgh, widow of Sir Lewis de Bourgh, 
 whose bounty and benefieence have, as you know, 
 preferred me to the vahiablc rectory of this parish, 
 where it shall be my earnest endeavour to demean 
 myself with grateful respect towards her ladyship, 
 and be ever ready to perform those rites and cere- 
 monies which arc instituted by the Church of 
 England. It is as a clergyman that I feel it my duty 
 to warn you against the sinful game of cards 
 exhibited in the scene of the Prince's ball. If it 
 had been family whist, I could have excused it, for 
 there can be little harm in whist, at least among 
 players who are not in such circumstances as to 
 make five shillings any object. But the Baroness 
 Beauxchamps is manifestly engaged in a game of 
 sheer chance, if not of downright cheating. The 
 admission of this incident to your stage cannot but 
 have proceeded, you must allow me to tell you, 
 from a faulty degree of indulgence. And I am to 
 add, on the high authority of Lady Catherine, 
 probably the highest on this as on many other 
 subjects, that there is no instance on record of the 
 paniers once worn by ladies being used as card- 
 tables. With respectful compliments to your lady 
 and family, 
 
 " I remain, dear sir, your cousin, 
 
 " William Collins." 
 
 44
 
 MR. PICKWICK AT THE PLAY 
 
 " And now,'' said Mr. Pickwick, looking round 
 on his friends with a good-humoured smile, and a 
 sparkle in the eye which no spectacles could dim 
 or conceal, " the question is, Where shall we go to- 
 night ? " 
 
 With the faithful Sam in attendance behind his 
 chair, he was seated at the head of his own table, 
 with Mr. Snodgrass on his left and Mr. Winkle on 
 his right and Mr. Alfred Jingle opposite him ; his 
 face was rosy with jollity, for they had just dis- 
 patched a hearty meal of chops and tomato sauce, 
 with bottled ale and Madeira, and a special allowance 
 of milk punch for the host. 
 
 Mr. Jingle proposed Mr. Pickwick ; and Mr. Pick- 
 wick proposed Mr. Jingle. Mr. Snodgrass proposed 
 Mr. Winkle ; and Mr. Winkle proi)osod Mr. Snod- 
 grass ; while Sam, taking a deep pull at the stone 
 bottle of milk punch behind his master's chair, 
 silently proposed himself. 
 
 " And where," said Mr. Pickwick, " shall we go 
 to-night ? " Mr. Snodgrass, as modest as all great 
 geniuses arc, was silent. Mr. Winkle, who had been 
 thinking of Arabella, started violently, looked 
 
 46
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 knowing, and was beginning to stammer some- 
 thing, when he was interrupted by Mr. Jingle — " A 
 musical eomcdy, old boy — no plot — fine women — 
 gags — go by-by — wake up for chorus — entertaining, 
 very." 
 
 " And lyrics," said Mr. Snodgrass, with poetic 
 rapture. 
 
 " I was just going to suggest it," said Mr. Winkle, 
 " when this individual " (scowling at Mr. Jingle, 
 who laid his hand on his heart, with a derisive 
 smile), " when, I repeat, this individual interrupted 
 me. 
 
 " A musical comedy, with all my heart," said Mr. 
 Pickwick. " Sam, give me the paper. H'm, h'm, 
 what's this ? The Eclipse, a farce with songs — will 
 that do ? " 
 
 " But is a farce with songs a musical comedy ? " 
 objected Mr. Winkle. 
 
 " Bless my soul," said Mr. Pickwick, " this is very 
 puzzling." 
 
 " Beggin' your pardon, sir," said Sam, touching 
 his forelock, " it's a distinction without a difference 
 — as the j)ork pieman remarked when they asked 
 him if his pork wasn't kittens." 
 
 " Then," said Mr, Pickwick, with a benevolent 
 twinkle, " by all means let us go to The Eclipse.'' 
 
 " Beg pardon, sir," said Sam again, doubtfully, 
 " there ain't no astrongomies in it, is there ? " Sara 
 had not forgotten his adventure with the scientific 
 gentleman at Clifton. But, as nobody knew, they 
 
 46
 
 MR. PICKWICK AT THE PLAY 
 
 set off for tlie Garrick Theatre, and were soon en- 
 sconced in a box. 
 
 They found the stage occu])icd by a waiter, who 
 was the very image of the waiter Mr. Pickwick had 
 seen at the Old Royal Hotel at Birmingham, except 
 that he didn't imperceptibly melt away. Waiters, 
 in general, never walk or run ; they have a peculiar 
 and mysterious power of skimming out of rooms 
 which other mortals possess not. But this waiter, 
 unlik*" his kind, couldn't " get off " anyhow. He 
 explained that it was because the composer had 
 given him no music to " get off " with. 
 
 " Poor fellow," said Mr. Pickwick, greatly dis- 
 tressed ; " will he have to stop there all night ? " 
 
 " Not," muttered Sam to himself, " if I wos 
 behind 'im with a bradawl." 
 
 However, the waiter did at last get off, and then 
 came on again and sang another verse, amid loud 
 hoorays, until Mr. Pickwick's eyes were wet with 
 gratification at the universal jollity. 
 
 " Fine fellow, fine fellow," cried Mr. Pickwick ; 
 " what is his name ? " 
 
 " Hush-h-h, my dear sir," whispered a charming 
 young man of not nmch more than fifty in the next 
 box, in whom Mr. Pickwick, abashed, recognized Mr. 
 Angelo Cyrus Bantam, "that is Mr. Alfred Lester." 
 
 " A born waiter," interjected Mr. Jingle, " once 
 a waiter always a waiter — stage custom — Medes and 
 Persians — wears his napkin for a nightcap — droll 
 fellow, very." 
 
 47
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 By and by there was much talk of a mysterious 
 Tubby Haifj, and tlicy even sang a song about him ; 
 but he did not appear on the stage, and Mr. Pick- 
 wick, whose curiosity was excited, asked who this 
 Tubby Haig was. 
 
 Sam guessed lie might be own brother to Mr. 
 Wardle's Fat Boy, Joe, or j)erhaps " the old 
 gen'l'm'n as wore the pigtail — rcg'lar fat man, as 
 hadn't caught a glimpse of his own shoes for live- 
 and-forty year," but Mr. Bantam again leaned over 
 from his box and whispered : — 
 
 " Hush-h-li, my dear sir, nobody is fat or old in 
 
 Ba-a 1 mean in literary circles. Mr. Tubby Haig 
 
 is a popular author of detective stories, much prized, 
 along with alley tors and commoncN'S, by the youth 
 of this town." 
 
 But a sudden start of Mr. Winkle's and a rapturous 
 exclamation from Mr. Snodgrass again directed Mr^ 
 Pickwick's attention to the scene. He almost fainted 
 with dismay. Standing in the middle of the stage, in 
 the full glare of the lights, was a lady with her 
 shoulders and back (which she kept turning to the 
 lights) bare to the waist ! 
 
 " Bless my soul," cried Mr. Pickwick, shrinking 
 behind the curtain of the box, " wiiat a dreadful 
 thing 1 " 
 
 He mustered up courage, and looked out again. 
 The lady was still there, not a bit discomposed. 
 
 " Most extraordinary female, this," thought Mr. 
 Pickwick, jDopping in again. 
 
 48
 
 MR. PICKWICK AT THE PLAY 
 
 She still remained, however, and even threw an 
 arch glanee in Mr. Pickwick's direction, as niucii as 
 to say, " You old dear." 
 
 " But — but — " cried Mr. Pickwick, in an agony, 
 " won't she catch cold ? " 
 
 " Bless your heart, no, sir," said Sam, " she's 
 quite used to it, and it's done with the very best 
 intentions, as the gcn'l'man said ven he run away 
 from his wife, 'cos she seemed unhappy with him." 
 
 If Mr. Pickwick was distressed, very different was 
 the effect of the lovely vision upon Mr. Winkle. Alas 
 for the weakness of human nature ! he forgot for 
 the moment all about Arabella. Suddenly grasping 
 his hat, he rose from his scat, said " Good-night, my 
 dear sir," to Mr. Pickwick between his set teeth, 
 added brokenly, " My friend, my benefactor, m\' 
 honoured companion, do not judge me harshly " — 
 and dashed out of the box. 
 
 " 'V^ery extraordinary," said Mr. Pickwick to him- 
 self, " what can that young man be going to do ? " 
 
 Meanwhile, for Mr. Winkle to rush downstairs, 
 into the street, round the corner, as far as the stage- 
 door, was the work of a moment. Taking out a card 
 engraved " Nathaniel Winki.k, M.P.C," he hastily 
 pencilled a few fervent words on it and handed it to 
 the doorkeeper, rccjuiring him instantly to convey it 
 to Miss Teddie Gerard. 
 
 " What now, impcrencc," said the man, roughly 
 pushing him from the door and knocking his hut 
 over his eyes. 
 
 r.r. 49 B
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 At the same moment Mr. Winkle found his arms 
 pinioned from behind by Sam Weller, who led him, 
 crestfallen, back into the street and his senses. The 
 public were now leaving the theatre, and Mr. Pick- 
 wick, beckoning Mr. Winkle to approach, fixed a 
 searching look upon him, and uttered in a low, but 
 distinct and emphatic, tone these remarkable 
 words : — 
 
 " You're a humbug, sir." 
 
 " A what ! " said Mr. Winkle, starting. 
 
 " A humbug, sir." 
 
 With these words, Mr. Pickwick turned slowly on 
 his heel, and rejoined his friends. 
 
 50
 
 MR. CRICHTON AND MR. LITTIMER 
 
 They were seated together, Mr. and Mrs. Crichton 
 in the bar-parlour of their httle pubhc-house in the 
 Harrow Road, at the more fashionable end, for 
 which Mr. Criehton had himself invented the sign 
 (in memory of his i)ast expcricnecs) of " The Case 
 is Altered." Mr. Crichton, too, was altered and yet 
 the same. He wore one of the Earl's old smoking- 
 jackets, with a coronet still embroidered on the 
 breast pocket — not, he said, out of anything so 
 vulgar as ostentation, but as a sort of last link with 
 the Upper House — but his patent leather boots 
 had given place to car])et slippers, and his trousers, 
 once so impeccable, were now baggy at the knees. 
 Altogether he was an easier, more relaxed Crichton, 
 freed as he was from tiic restraining, if nspeetful, 
 criticism of the servants' hall. Indeed, Miss Fisher, 
 who had always hated him, hinted that he had 
 become slightly Rabelaisian — a reference whieh she 
 owed to mademoiselle — though she would not have 
 dared to repeat the hint to Mrs. Criehton (///f Tweeny). 
 For marriage had in no degree abated Tweeny's 
 reverence for her Crichton, or rather, as old habit 
 still impellfd her to rail him, Ikt (Jiiv. 
 
 51 ■ S
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 The Guv. was at this moment comforting himself 
 witli a glass of port (from the wood) and thinking of 
 that bin of '47 he had helped the Earl to finish in past 
 days. And now he was inhabiting a road where (at 
 least at the other, the unfashionable, end) port was 
 invariably " port wine." Such are the vicissitudes 
 of human affairs. Tweeny herself was guilty of the 
 solecism, as was perhaps to be expected from a lady 
 who, for her own drinking, preferred swipes. Though 
 she had made great strides in her education ruider 
 the Guv.'s guidance (she was now nearly into 
 quadratic equations, and could say the dates of 
 accession of the kings of England down to James II.), 
 she still made sad havoc of her nominatives and verbs 
 in the heat of conversation. 
 
 " A gent as wants to see the Guv.," said the pot- 
 boy, pojjping his head in at the bar-parlour door — 
 the potboy, for Tweeny knew better than to have 
 a barmaid about the place for the Guv. to cast a 
 favourable eye on. 
 
 A not very clean card was handed in, inscribed : — 
 " Mk. Littimer," 
 and the owner walked in after it. Or, rather, 
 glided softly in, shutting the door after entry as 
 delicately as though the inmates had just fallen 
 into a sweet sleep on which their life depended. 
 Mr. Littimer was an old-fashioned looking man, 
 with mutton-chop whiskers, a " stock," tied in a 
 large bow, a long frock-coat, and tight trousers — 
 the whole suggesting nothing of recent or even 
 
 52
 
 MR. CRICHTON AND MR. LITTIMER 
 
 modern date, but, say, 1850. It was an appearance 
 of intense respectability, of super-respectability, of 
 that 1850 respectability which was so infinitely more 
 respectable than any respectability of our own day. 
 Mr. Crichton stared, as well he might, and washed 
 his hands with invisible soap. Though, in fact, 
 now middle-aged, he felt in this man's presence 
 extremely young. He clean forgot that he had been 
 a King in Babylon. Indeed, for the first time in 
 his life he, the consummate, the magisterial, the 
 admirable Crichton, felt almost green. 
 
 '■ Mr. Crichton, sir," said the visitor, with an 
 apologetic inclination of the head, " I have ventured 
 to take the great liberty of calling upon you, if you 
 please, sir, and," he added with another inclination 
 of the head to Mrs. Crichton (who felt what she 
 would herself have called flabbergasted), " if you 
 please, ma'am, as an old friend of your worthy father. 
 He was butler at Mrs. Steerforth's when I valeted 
 poor Mr. James." His eye fell, respectably, on Mr. 
 Crichton's port. " Ah ! " he said, " his wine was 
 
 Madeira, but " A second glass of port was 
 
 thereupon ))laced on the table, and he sipped it 
 respectably. 
 
 Mr. Crichton could only stare, speechless. All his 
 aplomb had gone. lie gazed at a ship's bucket, his 
 most chtrislKd island relic, which hung from the 
 ceiling (as a shade for the electric light — one of his 
 little mechanical ingenuities), and wondered whether 
 he ever could have put anybody's head in it. His 
 
 68
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 philosophy was, for once, at fault. He knew, none 
 better, that " nature " had made us all unequal, 
 dividing us up into carls and butlers and tweenies, 
 but now for the first time it dawned upon him that 
 *' nature " had made us unequally respectable. 
 Here was something more respectable, vastly more 
 respectable, than himself; respectable not in the 
 grand but in the sublime manner. 
 
 He could not guess his visitor's thoughts, and it 
 was well for his peace of mind that he could not. 
 For Mr. Littimer's thoughts were, respectably, 
 jiaternal. He thought of Mr. Crichton, sen., and 
 still more of the senior Mrs. Crichton, once " own 
 woman " to Mrs. Steerforth. Ah ! those old days 
 and those old loves ! How sad and bad and mad 
 it was — for Mr. Littimer's poet was Browning, as his 
 host's was Henley, as suited the difference in their 
 dates — and how they had deceived old Crichton 
 between them ! So this was his boy, his, Littimer's, 
 thoTigh no one knew it save himself and the dead 
 woman ! And as he gazed, with respectable fond- 
 ness, at this image, modernized, modified, subdued, 
 of his o\vn respectability, he reflected that there was 
 something in heredity, after all. And he smiled, 
 respectably, as he remembered his boy's opinion 
 that the union of butler and lady's maid was perhaps 
 the happiest of all combinations. Perhaps, yes ; but 
 without any perhaps, if the combination included the 
 valet. 
 
 Unhappy, on llu- tUher hand, were those com- 
 
 64
 
 MR. CRICHTON AND MR. LITTIMER 
 
 binations from which valets were pointedly excluded. 
 There was that outrageous young person whom Mr. 
 James left behind at Naples and who turned upon 
 him, the respectable Littimer, like a fury, when he 
 was prepared to overlook her past in honourable 
 marriage. 
 
 His meditations were interrupted by Mrs. Criehton, 
 who had been mentally piecing together her recol- 
 lections of " David Copperfield " — her Guv. had 
 given her a Dickens course — and had now arrived at 
 a conclusion. " Axin' yer pardon, mister," she said 
 (being still, as we have stated, a little vulgar when 
 excited), " but if you was valet to Mr. James 
 Steerforth, you're the man as 'elped 'im to ruin 
 that pore gal, and as afterwards went to quod for 
 stcalin'. I blushes " — here her eye fell on the Guv., 
 who quietly dropped the correction " blush " — " I 
 blush for yer, Mr. Littimer." " Ah, ma'am," Mr. 
 Littimer respectably apologized, " I attribute my 
 past follies entirely to having lived a thoughtless life 
 in the service of young men ; and to having allowed 
 myself to be led by them into weaknesses, which I 
 had not the strength to resist." 
 
 " And that, I venture to suggest, ma'am," he 
 respectably continued, " is why your worthy husband 
 has been so much more fortunate in the world than 
 myself. We are both respectable, if 1 may say so, 
 patterns of respectability " (Criehton coloured with 
 gratification at this compliment from the Master), 
 " and yet our respectability has brought us very 
 
 65
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 different fates. And wliy, if you please, ma'am ? 
 liecause I have served the young, wliile he has served 
 the old — for I believ^e, ma'am, the most noble the 
 Earl of Loam is long past the meridian. Besides, 
 ma'am, we Early Victorians had not your husband's 
 educational advantages. There were no Board 
 schools for me. Not that I'm complaining, ma'am. 
 We could still teach the young 'uns a thing or two 
 about respectability." And so with a proud himiility 
 (and an intuition that there was to be no more port) 
 he took his leave, again shutting the door with the 
 utmost delicacy. He was, in truth, well content. 
 He had seen his boy. The sacred lamp of respecta- 
 bility was not out. 
 
 But Mr. Crichton sat in a maze, still washing his 
 hands with invisible soap. 
 
 50
 
 HENRY JAMES REPUDIATES 
 "THE REPROBATE" 
 
 He had dropped, a little wearily, the poor dear 
 man, into a seat at the shady end of the terrace, 
 whither he had wended or, it came over him with 
 a sense of the blest " irony " of vulgar misinterpre- 
 tation, almost zig-zagged his way after lunch. For 
 he had permitted himself the merest sip of the 
 ducal Yquem or Brane Cantenac, or whatever — he 
 knew too well, oh, didnH he ? after all these years 
 of Scratchem house-parties, the dangerous con- 
 vivialities one had better show for beautifully 
 appreciating than freely partake of — but he had 
 been unable, in his exposure as the author of 
 established rej)utation, the celebrity of the hour, the 
 " master," as chattering Lady Jemima would call 
 him between the omelette and the chaudfroid, to 
 " take cover " from the ducal dales, ^Vell, the 
 " All clear " was now sounded, but his head was 
 still dizzy with the reverberating "87"s and '90's 
 and "OG's and other such bombs of chronological 
 precision that the host had dropped upon the guests 
 as the butler filled their glasses. His subsequent 
 consciousness was (iiiile to cherish the view that 
 
 57
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 dates which went thus distressingly to one's head 
 must somehow not be allowed to slip out of it a^ain, 
 but be turned into " coj)y " for readers who inno- 
 cently look to their favourite romancers for eon- 
 noisseurship in wines. ^Vhat Lady Jemima had 
 flung out at hnieh was true, readers are a " rum lot," 
 and, hang it all, who says art says sacrifice, readers 
 were a necessary evil, the many-headed monster 
 must be fed, and he'd be blest if he wouldn't feed 
 it with dates, and show himself for, indulgently, 
 richly, chronologically, " rum." 
 
 It marked, however, the feeling of the hour with 
 him that this vision of future " bluffing " about 
 vintages interfered not at all with the measure 
 pf his actual malaise. He still nervously fingered 
 the telegram handed to him at lunch, and, when 
 read, furtively crumpled into his pocket under 
 Lady Jemima's celebrated nose. It was entirely 
 odious to him, the crude purport of the message, as 
 well as the hideous yellow ochre of its envelope. 
 " Confidently expect you," the horrid thing ran, 
 " to come and see your own play." This Stage 
 Society, if that was its confounded name, was indeed 
 of a confidence ! Yes, and of the last vulgarity ! 
 His conscience was not void, but, on the contrary, 
 quite charged and brimming with remembered 
 lapses from the ideal life of letters — it was the hair- 
 shirt he secretly wore even in the Scratchem world 
 under the conventional garment which the Lady 
 Jemimas of that world teased liim by calling a 
 
 ffS
 
 "THE REPROBATE" 
 
 " boiled rag " — but the " expected," that, thank 
 goodness, he had never been guilty of. Nay, was 
 it not his " note," as the reviewers said, blithely and 
 persistently to balk " expectation " ? Had he not 
 in every book of his successfully hugged his own 
 mystery ? Had not these same reviewers always 
 missed his little point with a perfection exactly as 
 admirable when they patted him on the back as 
 when they kicked him on tlic shins ? Did a single 
 one of them ever discover " the figure in the carpet " ? 
 How many baflfled readers hadn't written to him 
 imploring him to divulge what really happened 
 between Milly and Densher in that last meeting at 
 Venice ? Certainly he was in no chuckling mood 
 under the smart of the telegram, but it seemed to 
 him that he could almost have chuckled at the 
 thought that he beautifully didn't know what 
 happened in that Venetian meeting himself ! And 
 this impossible Stage Society, with that collective 
 fatuity which seems always so much more gross 
 than any individual sort, " confidently expected " 
 him to come ! 
 
 What was it, jjlease, he put tlie question to him- 
 self with a heat which seemed to give even the 
 shad)' end of the terrace the inconvenience of an 
 exposure to full sun, they expected him to come to, 
 or, still worse, for having probed the wound he must 
 not flinch with the scalpel, to come /or ? Oh, no, 
 he had not forgotten The Reprobate, and what angered 
 him was that tlu^y hadn't, either. He had not for- 
 
 69
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 gotten a blessed one of the plays he had written for 
 the country towns a score of years ago, when he had 
 been bitten by the tarantula of the theatre, and, 
 remembering them, he felt now viciously capable of 
 biting the tarantula back. He had written them, 
 God forgi^'e him, for country towns. He positively 
 shuddered when he found himself in a country town, 
 to this day. The terrace at Scratchem notoriously 
 commanded a distant prospect of at least three, in 
 as many counties, with cathedrals, famous inns, 
 theatres — the whole orthodox equipment, he summed 
 it up vindictively in cheap journalese, of country 
 towns. Vindictive, too, was his reflection that these 
 objects of his old crazy solicitude must have been 
 revolutionized in twenty years, their cathedrals 
 " restored," their inns (the " A.B.C." vouched for 
 it) " entirely refitted with electric light," their 
 theatres turned into picture palaces. All the old 
 associations of The Reprobate were extinct. It was 
 monstrous that it should be entirely refitted with 
 electric liglit. 
 
 And in the crude glare of that powerful illuminant, 
 with every switch or whatever mercilessly turned — 
 didn't they call it ? — " on," he seemed to see the 
 ^^Tetchcd thing, bare and hideous, with no cheap 
 artifice of " make-up," no dab of rouge or streak of 
 burnt cork, spared the dishonour of exposure. The 
 crack in the golden bowl would be revealed, his 
 awkward age would be brought up against him, 
 what Maisie knew would be nothing to what every- 
 
 60
 
 "THE REPROBATE" 
 
 body would now know. His agony was not long 
 purely mental ; it suddenly became intercostal. A 
 sharp point had dug him in the ribs. It was Lady 
 Jemima's, it couldn't not be Lady Jemima's, pink 
 parasol. Aware of the really great ease of really 
 great ladies he forced a smile, as he rubbed his side. 
 Ah, Olympians were unconventional indeed — that 
 was a part of their high bravery and privilege. 
 
 " Dear Master," she began, and the phrase iuirt 
 him even more than the parasol, " won't you take 
 poor little me ? " 
 
 The great lady had read his telegram ! Olympian 
 unconventionality was of a licence ! 
 
 " Yes," she archly beamed, " I looked over your 
 shoulder at lunch, and " 
 
 " And," he interruptingly wailed, " you know 
 all." 
 
 " All," she nodded, " iuut le trcmblerncnt , the wiiole 
 caboodle. Now be an angel and take me." 
 
 " But, dear lady," he gloomed at her, " that's just 
 it. The blest play is so naively, so vulgarly, beyond 
 all redemption though not, thank ^ea^■en, beyond 
 my repudiation, caboodle." 
 
 '' Oh, fiddlesticks," she playfully rejoined, and 
 the artist in him registered for future use her rich 
 Olympian vocabulary, " you wrote it. Master, any- 
 how. We've all been young once. Take mc, and 
 we'll both be young again," she gave it him straight, 
 " together." 
 
 Ah, then the woman rcf/.v dangerous. Scratcluin 
 
 61
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 gossip had, for once, not overshot the mark. He 
 would sliow her, all Olympian though she was, that 
 giving it straight was a game two could play at. 
 
 " Dear lady," he said, " you're wonderful. But 
 I won't take you. What's more, I'm not " — and 
 he had it to himself surprisingly ready — " taking 
 any." 
 
 62
 
 M. BERGERET ON FILM CENSORING 
 
 A LATE October sun of unusual splendour lit up 
 the windows of M. Paillot's bookshop, at the corner 
 of the Place Saint-Exupere and the Rue des Tintel- 
 leries. But it was sombre in the back region of the 
 shop where the second-hand book shelves were and 
 M. Mazure, the departmental archivist, adjusted 
 his spectacles to read his copy of Le Phare, with one 
 eye on the newspaper and the other on M. Paillot 
 and his customers. For M. Mazure wished not so 
 much to read as to be seen reading, in order that he 
 might be asked what the leading article was and 
 reply, " Oh, a little thing of my own." But the 
 question was not asked, for the only other hahitui 
 present was the Lecturer in Latin at the Faculty of 
 Letters, who was sad and silent. M. Bergerct was 
 turning over the new books and the old with a 
 friendly hand, and though he never bought a book 
 for fear of the outcries of his wife and three daughters 
 he was on the best of terms with M. Paillot, who 
 held him in high esteem as the reservoir and alc-mbie 
 of those huMianer letters that are the livelihood aiul 
 profit of booksellers. He took up Vol. XXXVIII. 
 of " L'llistoire Grru'rale des Voyages," which 
 
 63
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 always opened at the same place, p. 212, and he 
 read ; — 
 
 " ver nn passage au nord. ' C'est a cet echcc, dit-il, 
 que nous dcvons n'avoir i)u visiter les iles Sandwich 
 et enrichir notre voyage d'une decouverte qui . . .'" 
 
 For six years past the same page had presented 
 itself to M. Bergerct, as an example of the monotony 
 of life, as a symbol of the uniformity of daily tasks, 
 and it saddened him. 
 
 At that moment M. de Tcrrcmondrc, president of 
 the Society of Agriculture and Archaeology, entered 
 the shop and greeted his friends with the slight air 
 of superiority of a traveller over stay-at-homes. 
 " I've just got back from England," he said, " and 
 here, if either of you have enough English to read it, 
 is to-day's I'imes.'" 
 
 M. Mazure hastily thrust Le Phare into his pocket 
 and looked askance at the voluminous foreign 
 journal, wherein he could claim no little thing of 
 his own. M. Bergeret accepted it and applied him- 
 self as conscientiously to construing the text as 
 though it were one of those books of the .Eneid from 
 which he was compiling his " Virgilius Nauticus." 
 " The manners of our neighbours," he presently 
 said, " are as usual more interesting to a student of 
 human nature than their polities. I read that they 
 are seriously concerned about the ethical teaching 
 of their kinematogra}jiiy, and they have appointed 
 a fihu censor, the deputy T. P. OToiuior." 
 
 64
 
 M. BERGERET ON FILM CENSORING 
 
 " I think I have heard speak of hiin over there," 
 interrupted M. de Terremondre ; " they call him, 
 famiUarly, Tepe." 
 
 " A mysterious name," said M. Bergeret, " but 
 manifestly not abusive, and that of itself is a high 
 honour. History records few nicknames that do not 
 revile. And if the deputy O'Connor, or Tepe, can 
 successfully acquit himself of his present functions 
 he will be indeed an ornament to history, a saint of 
 the Positivist Calendar, which is no doubt less 
 glorious than the Roman, but more exclusive." 
 
 " Talking of Roman saints," broke in M. Mazure, 
 " the Abbe Lantaigne has been spreading it abroad 
 that you called Joan of Arc a mascot." 
 
 " By way of argument merely," said M. Bergeret, 
 " not of epigram. The Abbe and I were discussing 
 theology, about which I never permit myself to be 
 facetious." 
 
 " But what of Tepe and his censorial functions ? " 
 asked M. de Terremondre. 
 
 " They are extremely delicate," replied M. Ber- 
 geret, " and offer pitfalls to a censor with a velleity 
 for nice distinctions. Thus I read that this one has 
 already dislingiiished, and distinguished con alle- 
 grezza, between romantic crime and realistic crime, 
 between murder in Mexico and murder in Mile End 
 (which I take to be a suburb of London). He has 
 distinguished between ' guilty love ' and ' the pur- 
 suit of lust.' He has distinguished between a lightly- 
 clad lady swimming and the same lady at rest, 
 
 p.p. 65 '
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 Surely u man gifted with so exquisite a discrimina- 
 tion is wasted in rude practical life. He should have 
 been a metaphysician." 
 
 " Well, I," confessed M. de Terremondrc, " am no 
 metaphysician, and it seems to me murder is murder 
 all the world over." 
 
 " Pardon me," said M. Bergeret, " but there, I 
 think, your Tepe is quite right. Murder is murder 
 all the world over if 30U are on the spot. But if you 
 are at a sufficient distance from it in space or time, 
 it may present itself as a thrilling adventure. Thus 
 the Mexican film censor will be right in prohibiting 
 films of mmdcr in Mexico, and not ANTong in admit- 
 ting those of murder in Mile End. ^Vhcre would 
 tragedy be without murder ? We enjoy the murders 
 of Julius Casar or of Duncan because they are re- 
 mote ; they gratify the primeval passion for blood 
 in us without a sense of risk. But we could not 
 tolerate a play or a picture of yesterday's murder 
 next door, because we think it might happen to our- 
 selves. Remember that murder was long esteemed 
 in our human societies as an energetic action, and 
 in our manners and in our institutions there still 
 subsist traces of this antique esteem. And that is 
 why I approve the English film censor for treating 
 with a wise indulgence one of the most venerable of 
 our human admirations. He gratifies it under con- 
 ditions of remoteness that deprive bloodshed of its 
 reality while conserving its artistic verisiniilitude." 
 
 " But, bless my soul,"" said M. dc Ti rrfiiiondre 
 66
 
 M. BERGERET ON FILM CENSORING 
 
 " how docs the man distinguish between guilty love 
 and lust ? " 
 
 " It is a fine point,"' said M. Bergeret. " The 
 Fathers of the Church, the schoolmen, the Renais- 
 sance humanists, Descartes and Locke, Kant, Hegel, 
 and Schopenhauer, have all failed to make the dis- 
 tinction, and some of them have even confounded 
 with the two what men to-day agree in calling inno- 
 cent love. But is love ever innocent — unless it be 
 that love Professor Bcllac in Pailleron's play de- 
 scribed as V amour psychique, the love that Petrarch 
 bore to Laura ? " 
 
 " If I remember aright," interposed M. Mazure, 
 " someone else in the play remarked that Laura had 
 eleven children." 
 
 Just then Mme. dc Gromance passed across the 
 Place. The conversation was suspended while all 
 three men watched her into the patissier's opposite, 
 elegantly hovering over the plates of cakes, and 
 finally settling on a baba an rhum. 
 
 " Sapristi ! " exclaimed M. de Terrcmondre, " she's 
 the prettiest woman in the whole place." 
 
 M. Bergeret mentally went over several passages 
 in /Eneid, Book IV., looked ruefully at his frayed 
 shirt cuffs, and regretted the narrow life of a pro- 
 vincial university lecturer that reduced him to in- 
 significance in the eyes of the prettiest woman in 
 the place. 
 
 " Yes," he saiti witli a sigh, " it is a very fine point. 
 I wonder how on eartli Tepe manages to settle it " 
 
 07 F2
 
 THE CHOCOLATE DRAMA 
 
 Civilization is a failure. That we all knew, even 
 before the war, and indeed ever sinee the world 
 first began to suffer from the intolerable nuisance 
 of disobedient parents. But the latest and most 
 fatal sign of dccadcnee is the advent of a paradoxical 
 Lord Chancellor. I read in a I'imes leader : — 
 " When the Lord Chancellor ponderously observes 
 in the House of Lords that the primary business of 
 theatres ' is not to sell chocolates but to present the 
 drama,' he is making a statement which is too absurd 
 to analyse." The Times, I rejoice to see, is living 
 up to its high traditions of intrepid and incisive 
 utterance. I should not myself complain if the 
 Lord Ciianccllor was merely i)onderous. As the 
 dying Heine observed, when someone wondered if 
 Providence would pardon him, c'esi son metier. 
 What is so flagrant is the Lord Chancellor's ignorance 
 of the eonunanding position acquired by chocolate 
 in relation to the modern drama. 
 
 Let me not be misunderstood. I am not a 
 chocolatier. I have no vested interest in cither 
 Menier or Marquis. But I am a frequenter of 
 the playhouse, and live, therefore, in the odour 
 of chocolate. I know that without chocolates our 
 
 68
 
 THE CHOCOLATE DRAMA 
 
 womenkind could not endure our modern drama ; 
 and without womenkind the drama would cease to 
 exist. The question is, therefore, of the deepest 
 theatrical importance. I feel sure the British 
 Drama League nmst have had a meeting about it. 
 The advocates of a national theatre have probably 
 considered it in committee. The two bodies (if they 
 are not one and the same) should arrange an early 
 deputation to the Food Controller. 
 
 Meanwhile the Lord Chancellor wantonly para- 
 doxes. Evidently he is no playgoer. That is a 
 trifle, and since the production of lolanihe perhaps 
 even (in the phrase of a famous criminal la\\yer) " a 
 amiable weakness." But, evidently also, he is not 
 a chocolate eater, and that is serious. I suppose, 
 after all, you are not allowed to eat chocolates on the 
 Woolsack. But there is the Petty liag. It would 
 hold at least 2 lb. of best mixed. Why not turn it 
 to a grateful and comforting purpose ? The Great 
 Seal, too, might be done in chocolate, and as I under- 
 stand the Lord Chancellor nnist never part with it, 
 day or night, he would have a perpetual source of 
 nourishment. It is time that the symbols of oflicc 
 ceased to be useless ornaments. Stay ! I btlicxc I have 
 stumbled incidentally on the secret of Lord Ilals- 
 bury's splendid longevity. Ask Menier or Marquis. 
 
 But the i)resent Chancellor has, clearly, missed 
 his opportunities. Let him \\s\[ our lh(;itr(s and 
 there recognize the futility of his prcfencc that their 
 primary lousiness is to presint drama. He will sec 
 
 (J9
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 at once that what he put forward as a main business 
 is in reality a mere parergon. Drama is presented, 
 but only as an agreeable, not too obtrusive, accom- 
 paniment to the eating of chocolate. The curtain 
 goes up, and the ladies in the audience, distraites, 
 and manifestly feeling with Mrs. Gamp (or was it 
 Betsy Prig ?) a sort of sinking, yawn through the 
 first scene or two. Then there is a rustic of paper 
 wrappings, little white cardboard boxes are brought 
 out and passed from hand to hand, there is a dainty 
 picking and choosing of romid and square and 
 triangular, with a knowing rejection of the hard- 
 toffee-filled ones, and now the fair faces are all set 
 in a fixed smile of contentment and the fair jaws 
 are steadily, rhythmically at work. To an un- 
 prepared observer it cannot be a pretty sight. 
 Fair Americans chewing gum are nothing to it. 
 There are superfine male volu])tuaries who do not 
 much care to see women eat, even at the festive 
 board. But to see scores of women simultaneously 
 eating chocolates at the theatre is an micanny thing. 
 They do it in unison, and they do it with an air of 
 furtive enjoyment, as though it were some secret 
 vice and all the better for being sinful. The act- 
 drop goes up and down, actors arc heard talking or 
 the orchestra playing, men pass out for a cigarette 
 and repass, but the fair jaws never cease working. 
 The habit of needlework, lace-making, and perhaps 
 war knitling has given lovely woman that form of 
 genius which has been defined as a long patience. 
 
 70
 
 THE CHOCOLATE DRAMA 
 
 They eat chocolates with the monotonous regularity 
 with which they hemstitch linen or darn socks. It 
 has been said that women go to elnireh for the sake 
 of the hhns, but they go to the theatre for the sake 
 of chocolates. And the Lord Chancellor, good, easy 
 man, says the primary business of the theatre is to 
 present drama ! 
 
 No, its primary business is to provide comfortable 
 and amusing surroundings for fair chocolate-caters. 
 The play is there for the same reason the coon band 
 is at a restaurant, to assist mastication. That is 
 the real explanation of recent ^^cissitudcs in the 
 dramatic genres. Why has tragedy virtually disap- 
 peared from the stage ? Because it will go with 
 neither fondants nor pralines. Why the enormous 
 vogue of revues ? Because they suit every kind of 
 chocolate from Is. to 6*. per lb. Why is Mr. George 
 Robey so universal a favourite ? Because he creates 
 the kind of laughter which never interferes with 
 your nmnching. The true, if hitherto secret, 
 history of the drama is a history of theatrical 
 dietary. Why is the Restoration drama so widely 
 different from the Victorian ? Because the first 
 was an accompaniment to oranges and the second 
 to pork-pies. We live now in a more refined age, 
 the age of chocolate, and enjoy the drama that 
 chocolate deserves. There has been what tlie 
 vulgar call a " slump " in the theatrical world, and 
 all sorts of far-fetched ( xplanations have been 
 offered, such as the deartii of ^ood plays and the 
 
 71
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 dismissal of the " temporary " ladies from Govern- 
 ment ofTices, Avith consequent loss of pocket-money 
 for playgoing. The real cause is quite simple, as real 
 causes always are. Chocolate has " gone up." 
 
 And that is the secret of all the agitation about 
 the 8 o'clock rule. The purveyors know that, 
 once in the theatre, ladies 77iust eat chocolate, 
 whatever its price. It is a necessity for them there, 
 not a luxury, and after 8 p.m., when the imported 
 supplies are running low, almost any price might 
 be obtained for the staple article of food on the spot. 
 But why, it may be asked, are the imported supplies, 
 in present circumstances, insufficient for the whole 
 evening's consumption ? Simply because the choco- 
 lates eaten by women are purchased by men, and 
 men arc so forgetful. Besides they have an absurd 
 prejudice against bulging pockets. Clearly " Dora " 
 ought gracefully to withdraw the 8 o'clock pro- 
 hibition. It would not only be a kindness to those 
 meritorious public servants, the chocolate vendors, 
 but be also a great lift to the languishing drama. 
 Ladies who huAc emptied their chocolate boxes are 
 apt to become pee\ish — and then woe to the last 
 act. With still another smooth round tablet to 
 turn over on the tongue (especially if it is the 
 deligiitful sort that has i)epperniint cream inside) the 
 play might be followed to the very end with satis- 
 faction, and even enthusiasm. The Lord Chancellor 
 may ignore these facts, but they are well known to 
 every serious student of the chocolate drama. 
 
 72
 
 CROCK 
 
 There must be a philosophy of clowns. I would 
 rather find it than look up their history, which is 
 " older than any history that is written in any book," 
 though the respectable compilers of Encyclopaedias 
 (I feel sure without looking) must often have written 
 it in their books. I have, however, been reading 
 Croce's history of Pulcinella, because that is history 
 written by a philosopher. It is also a work of for- 
 midable erudition, disproving, among other things, 
 the theory of the learned Dietcrich that he was a 
 survival from the stage of ancient Rome. No, he 
 seems to have been invented by one Silvio Fiorillo, a 
 Neapolitan actor who flourished " negli ultimi 
 dceenni del Cincjuecento e nci primi del Sciccnto '' — 
 in fact, was a contemporary of an English actor, one 
 \Villiam Shakespeare. Pulcinella, you know (trans- 
 mogrilied, and spoiled, for us as Punch), was a sort 
 of clown, and it is interesting to learn that he was 
 invented by an actor all out of his own head. IJut I 
 for one should be vastly more interested to know wlio 
 invented Crock. For Crock also is a sort of clown. 
 Yet no ; one nuist distinguish. There are clowns 
 and there is Crock. For Crock happens to be an 
 
 7;j
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 artist, and the artist is always an individual. After 
 all, as an individual artist, he must have invented 
 himself. 
 
 It was a remarkably happy invention. You may 
 sec that for yourselves at the Coliseum, generally, 
 though true clown-lovers follow it about all over the 
 map wherever it is to be seen. Victor Hugo (and the 
 theme would not have been im worthy of that lyre) 
 would have described it in a scries of antitheses. It 
 is genial and macabre, owlishly stupid and Macehia- 
 vellianly astute, platypode and feather-light, caco- 
 phonous and divine)}' musical. Crock's first act is a 
 practical antithesis. A strange creature with a very 
 high and very bald cranium (you think of what Fitz- 
 gerald said of James Spedding's : " No wonder no 
 hair can grow at such an altitude ") and in very 
 baggy breeches waddles in with an enormous port- 
 manteau — which i)roves to contain a fiddle no larger 
 than your hand. The creature looks more simian 
 than human, but is graciously affable — another Sir 
 Oran Haut-ton, in fact, with fiddle substituted for 
 Sir Oran's flute and French horn. 
 
 ]3ut Sir Oran was dumb, whereas Crock has a 
 voice which reverberates along the orchestra and 
 seems almost to lift the roof. He uses it to coimter- 
 feit the deep notes of an imaginary double bass, 
 which he balances himself on a chair to play, and he 
 uses it to roar with contemptuous surprise at being 
 asked if he can play the piano. But it is good- 
 humoured contempt. Crock is an accommodating 
 
 71
 
 CROCK 
 
 monster, and at a mere hint from the vioUnist 
 waddles off to change into evening clothes. In 
 them he looks like a grotesque beetle. Then his 
 antics at the piano ! His chair being too far from 
 the keyboard he makes great efforts to push the 
 piano nearer. When it is pointed out that it would 
 be easier to move the chair he beams with delight at 
 the cleverness of the idea and expresses it in a pecu- 
 liarly bland roar. Then he slides, in apparent 
 absence of mind, all over the piano-case and, on 
 finallj^ deciding to play a tune, does it with his feet. 
 Thereafter he thrusts his feet through the seat of the 
 chair and proceeds to give a performance of extra- 
 ordinary brilliance on the concertina. . . . But I 
 am in despair, because I see that these tricks, wliich 
 in action send one into convulsions of laughter, are 
 not ludicrous, are not to be realized at all in narra- 
 tive. It is the old dilliculty of transposing tiic comic 
 from three dimensions into two — and when the 
 comic becomes the grotesque, and that extreme form 
 of tiie grotesque which constitutes the clowncsque, 
 then the dilliculty becomes sheer impossibility. 
 
 \Vhy does tiiis queer combination of antiu'opoid 
 appearance, unearthly noises, physical agility, and 
 musical talent — so flat in description— make one 
 laugh so inunoderately in actual presentation ? Well, 
 there is, first, the old idea of the parturient moun- 
 tains and the ridiculous mouse. Of the many 
 theories of the comic (all, according to Jean Paul 
 Hichtcr, themselves comic) the best known perhaps 
 
 75
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 is tlie theory of suddenly relaxed strain. Your 
 psychic energies have been strained (say by Crock's 
 huge portmanteau), and are suddenly in excess and 
 let loose by an inadequate sequel (the tiny fiddle). 
 Then there is the old theory of Aristotle, that the 
 comic is ugliness without pain. That will account 
 for your laughter at Crock's grotesque appearance, 
 his baggy breeches, his beetle-like dress clothes, his 
 hideous mouth giving utterance to harmless senti- 
 ments. Again, there is the pleasure arising from 
 the discovery that an apparent idiot has wholly 
 unexpected superiorities, acrobatic skill, and vir- 
 tuosity in musical execution. But " not such a fool 
 as he looks " is the class-badge of clowns in general. 
 There is something still unexplained in the attrac- 
 tion of Crock. One can only call it his individuality 
 — his benign, bland outlook on a cosmos of which he 
 seems modestly to possess the secret hidden from our- 
 selves. One comes in the end to the old helpless 
 explanation of any individual artist. Crock pleases 
 because he is Crock. 
 
 And now I think one can begin to see why litera- 
 ture (or if you think that too pretentious a word, say 
 letterpress) fails to do justice to clowns. Other 
 comic personages have their verbal jokes, which can 
 be quoted in evidence, but the clown (certainly the 
 clown of the Crock type) is a joke confined to appear- 
 ance and action. His effects, too, are all of the 
 simplest and broadest— ^the obxious things (obvious 
 when he has invented them) whicli arc tiie most 
 
 76
 
 CROCK 
 
 difficult of all to translate into prose. You see, I 
 have been driven to dcjiend on general epithets like 
 grotesque, bland, macabre, whicli fit the man too 
 loosely (like ready-made elothes eut to fit innumer- 
 able men) to give you his exaet measure. My only 
 consolation is that I have failed with the best. 
 Crock, with all his erudition, all his nicety of analysis, 
 has failed to realize Puleinella for me. And that is 
 where clowns may enjoy a secret, malign pleasure ; 
 they proudl}' confront a universe which delights in 
 them but cannot describe them. A critic may say 
 to an acrobat, for instance : — " I cannot swing on 
 your trapeze, but I can understand you, wiiile you 
 cannot \mderstand me." Cut Crock seems to under- 
 stand everything (he could do no less, with tluit 
 noble forehead), probably even critics, while tiiey, 
 poor souls, can only struggle helplessly witli their 
 inadequate adjectives, and give him up. But if he 
 condescended to criticism, be sure he would not 
 struggle helplessly. He would blandly thrust his 
 feet through the seat of his chair, and then write liis 
 criticism with tliem. And (Crock is a Frenchman) 
 it would be better than Sainte-Beuve. 
 
 77
 
 THE FUNCTION OF CRITICISM 
 
 EvEKY critic or would-be critic has his own Httlc 
 theory of criticism, as every baby in Utopia Limited 
 had its own ickle prospectus. This makes him an 
 avid, but generally a recalcitrant, student of other 
 people's theories. He is naturally anxious, that is, 
 to learn what the other j)eople think about what 
 inevitably occupies so nuich of his own thoughts ; 
 at the same time, as he cannot but have formed his 
 own theory after his own temperament, consciously 
 or not, he must experience a certain discomfort when 
 he encounters other theories based on temperaments 
 alien from his own. You have, in fact, the converse 
 of Stendhal's statement that every commendation 
 from confrereto confrere is a certificate of resemblance ; 
 every sign of unlikeness provokes the opposite of 
 commendation. So I took up with somewhat mixed 
 feelings an important leading article in tiie Literary 
 Supplement on " The Function of Criticism." 
 Important because its subject is, as Henry James 
 said once in a letter to Mrs. Humphry Ward, 
 among " the highest speculations that can engage 
 the human mind." (Oho 1 I should like to hear 
 Mr. Bottles or any other Jionime sensuel moyen on 
 that !) Well, after reading the article, I have the 
 
 78
 
 THE FUNCTION OF CRITICISM 
 
 profoundest respect for the writer, whoever he may 
 be ; he knows what he is talking about au fond, 
 and can talk admirably about it. liut then comes 
 in that inevitable recalcitrancy. It seems to me 
 that if the writer is right, then most art and criticism 
 are on the \\Tong tack. Maybe they are — the ^\Titer 
 evidently thinks they are — but one cannot accept 
 that uncomfortable conclusion offhand, and so one 
 cannot but ask oneself whether the writer is right, 
 after all. 
 
 He is certainly ^^Tong about Croce. The ideal 
 critic, he says, " will not accept from Croce the thesis 
 that all expression is art ; for he knows that if 
 expression means anything it is by no means all art." 
 Now the very foundation-stone of the Croccan 
 ffisthetic is that art is the expression of intuitions ; 
 when you come to concepts, or the relations of 
 intuitions, though the expression of them is art, the 
 concepts themselves (what " expression means ") 
 arc not ; you will have passed out of the region of 
 art. Thus your historian, logician, or zoologist, 
 say, has a style of his own ; that side of him is art. 
 But historical judgments, logic, or zoology are not. 
 Croce discusses this distinction exhaustively, and, I 
 should have thought, clearly. Yet here our leader- 
 writer puts forward as a refutation of Croce a state- 
 ment carefully made by Croce himself. But this 
 is a detail which does not affect the writer's main 
 position. I only mention it as one of the many 
 misrepresentations of Croce which students of tliat 
 
 79
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 philosopher are, by this time, used to accepting as, 
 apparently, inevitable. 
 
 Now, says the writer, the critic must have a 
 philosophy and, what is more, a philosophy of a 
 certain sort. That the critic must have a philosophy 
 we should, I suppose, all aorcc ; for the critic is a 
 historian, and a historian without a theory of 
 realities, a system of values, i.e., a philosophy, has no 
 basis for his judgments — he is merely a chronicler. 
 (And a chronicler, let me say in passing, is precisely 
 what I should call the writer's " historical critic " 
 — who " essentially has no concern with the greater 
 or less literary excellence of the objects whose history 
 he traces — their existence is alone sudieient for him.") 
 But what particular philosophy must the critic 
 have ? It must be, says the writer, " a humanistic 
 philosophy. His inquiries must be modulated, and 
 subject to an intimate, organic governance by an 
 ideal of the good life." Beware of confusing this 
 ideal of good life with mere conventional morality. 
 Art is autonomous and therefore independent of that. 
 No ; " an ideal of the good life, if it is to have the 
 internal coherence and the organic force of a true 
 ideal, must inevitably be ajsthctic. There is no other 
 power than our aesthetic intuition by which we can 
 imagine or conceive it ; we can express it only in 
 aesthetic terms." And so we get back to Plato and 
 the Platonic ideas and, generally, to " the Greeks for 
 the principles of art and criticism." " The secret " 
 of the humanistic philosophy " lies in Aristotle." 
 
 80
 
 THE FUNCTION OF CRITICISM 
 
 But is not this attempt to ciistinf,niish between 
 conventional morality and an ideal of the good life, 
 jesthetically formed, rather specious ? At any rate, 
 the world at large, for a good many centuries, has 
 applauded, or discountenanced, Greek criticism as 
 essentially moralistic — as importing into the region 
 of aesthetics the standards of ordinary, conventional 
 morality. That is, surely, a commonj)lace about 
 Aristotle. Ilis ideal tragic hero is to be neither 
 saint nor utter villain, but a character between these 
 two extremes. Further, he must be illustrious, like 
 CEdipus or Thyestes (Poetics, ed. Butcher, XIII. 3). 
 Again, tragedy is an imitation of persons who are 
 above the common level (XV. 8). It seems to me 
 that the standards aj)plied here are those of our 
 ordinary, or eon\entional, morality, and I am only 
 confused by the introduction of the mysterious 
 " ideal of the good life.'' It seems to me — that may 
 be my stupidity — but it seemed so, also, to our fore- 
 fathers, for it was this very moralism of Greek 
 criticism that led men for so many centuries to 
 demand " instruction " from art. And that is why 
 it was such a feather in Dryden's cap (Drydcn, of 
 whom our leader-writer has a ])oor opinion, as a 
 critic without a philosophy) to have said the 
 memorable and decisive thing : " delight is the 
 chief if not the only end of j)oesy ; iiislruetion can 
 be admitted but in the second place, for |)()esy only 
 instructs as it delights." 
 
 This " ideal of good life " leads our Kader-writcr 
 
 p.p. 81 o
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 far — away up into the clouds. Among the activities 
 of the human spirit art takes " the place of sove- 
 reignty." It " is the manifestation of the ideal in 
 human life." This attitude, of course, will not be 
 altogether unfamiliar to students of aesthetics. 
 Something not unlike it has been heard before from 
 the " mystic " aestheticians of a century ago. It 
 leaves me unconvinced. I cannot but think that 
 that ])hilosophy makes out a better case which assigns 
 to art, as intuition-expression, not the " place of 
 sovereignty " but the place of foundation in the 
 liuman sj^irit ; for which it in not flower nor fruit, 
 but root. You see, Croce, like " cheerfulness " in 
 Boswcll's story of the otlier philosopher, will come 
 " breaking in." 
 
 82
 
 COTERIE CRITICISM 
 
 A YOUNG critic was recently so obliging as to send 
 me the proof of an article in the hope that I might 
 find something in it to interest me. I did, but not, 
 I imagine, what was expected. The article discussed 
 a modern author of European reputation, and inci- 
 dentally compared liis mind and his style with that 
 of Mr. X., Mrs. Y., and Miss Z. These three, it 
 appeared, were contemporary English novelists, and 
 — here was the interesting thing to me in our young 
 critics article — I had never heard of one of them. 
 They were evidently " intellectuals " — the whole 
 tenor of the article showed that — the idols of some 
 young and naturally solemn critical " school," 
 familiar classics, I dare say, in Chelsea studios and 
 Girton or Newnham rooms. One often wonders 
 what these serious young ])coj)le are reading, and 
 here, it seemed, was a valuable light. They nnist be 
 reading, at all events, Mr. X., and Mrs, Y., and 
 Miss Z. Otherwise, our young critic would never 
 have referred to them with such gra\ity and with 
 so confident an assumption that his i)artieular set 
 of readers would know all about tlicin. And yet the 
 collocation of these three names, these coterie 
 
 88 G 2
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 classics, with tliat ol the great P^uropean author, 
 famous througliout the whole world of })olite letters, 
 struck one as infinitely grotesque. It showed so 
 naive a confusion of literary " values," so queer a 
 sense of proportion and eongruity. It was, in short, 
 coterie criticism. 
 
 There seems to be a good deal of that about just 
 now. One sees innumerable reviews of innumerable 
 poets, which one supposes to l)e written by other 
 poets, so solemnly do the writers take their topic 
 and their author and themselves. And for the 
 most part this writing bears the mark of " green, 
 unknowing youth ' — the bland assumption that 
 literature was invented yesterday, and that, since 
 the Armistice, we cannot but require a brand-new 
 set of literary canons, estimates, and evaluations. 
 Evidently our young warriors have come back from 
 the front with their sj)irit of camaraderie still glow- 
 ing within them. Well, youth will be served, and 
 we must resign ourselves, with a helpless shrug, to a 
 deluge of crude over-estimates, enthusiastic magni- 
 fications of the ephemeral, and solenm examinations 
 of the novels of Mr. X., Mrs. Y., and Miss Z. And 
 we must be ]irepared to see the old rei)utations 
 going down like a row of nine])ins. We shall have 
 to make a polite affectation of listening to the young 
 gentlemen who dismiss Meredith as " pretentious " 
 and tell us that Hardy " cant write '" and that 
 Anatole France is vieux jeu. Vox if you are always 
 adoring the new because it is new, then you may as 
 
 84
 
 COTERIE CRITICISM 
 
 well make a complete thing of it by decrying the old 
 because it is old. The breath you can spare from 
 puffing the " Georgians *' up you may as well use 
 for puffing the '" Victorians '" out. And thus the 
 world wags. 
 
 \Vhat is more, it is thus that the history of litera- 
 ture gets itself evolved. For it is time that I tried 
 to see what good can be said of the coteries, as well 
 as what ill, and this, I think, can be said for them — 
 that they keep the ball rolling. It is they, with 
 their foolish face of praise, who discover the new 
 talents and begin the new movements. If you are 
 always on the pounce for novelties you must occa- 
 sionally " spot a winner ' and lind a novelty that the 
 outer world ratifies into a permanency. The minor 
 Elizabethan dramatists were once the darlings of a 
 coterie, but Webster and one or two others still sur- 
 vive. The Lakists were once coterie poets, and, if 
 Southey has petered out, Wordsworth remains. Of 
 course the}' make awful "howlers." A coterie 
 started tiie vogue of that terribly tiresome " Jean 
 Christophe, ' of Romain Holland, and where is it now ? 
 On the other hand, a coterie " discovered * Pater, and 
 it was a real find ; the world will not willingly let die 
 "Marius" or the "Renaissance." Henry James began 
 as the idol of a coterie, and " The Golden Bowl " is 
 not yet broken. It may be- who knows? that the 
 novels of Mr. X., .Mrs. V., and Miss Z. will by and 
 by range themselves pioiully «>n our selves alongside 
 Fielding and .Jane and McM-ditli and llanly. 
 
 «5
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 But while these young reputations are still to 
 make in the great world, let us not, as Mrs. Gamp 
 says, proticipate ; let us keep our high estimate of 
 them modestly to ourselves, and not stick them up 
 on the classic shelf among the best bindings before 
 their time. What makes it worse is that the coteries 
 are apt to have no classic shelf. Their walls are lined 
 :md their boudoir tables littered with new books, 
 II nd nothing but new books. Women are great 
 offenders in this way, especially the women whom 
 American journals call " Society Ladies " — who are 
 accustomed, in the absence of contradiction and 
 criticism and other correctives (tabooed as " bad 
 form "), to mistake their wayward fancies for con- 
 sidered judgments. We want a modern Moliere to 
 write us another Femmes Savantes. (I present the 
 idea to Mr. Bernard Shaw. They have dubbed him 
 " the English Moliere." Well, here's a chance for 
 him to make good.) There is Lady Dulcibclla. She 
 is always recommending you a new book that nobody 
 else has ever heard of. " Oh, how perfectly sweet 
 of you to call on this horrid wet afternoon ! Have 
 you read ' Mes Larmes ' ? It's written by a Russian 
 actress with such wonderful red hair, you can't 
 think, and they say she was a princess, until those 
 dreadful Bolshevists, you know. We met her at 
 Florence in the winter, and everybody said she was 
 just like one of the Botticellis in the Accadcmia. 
 They do say that Guide da Verona — or D'Annunzio, 
 or somebody (don't you think that horrid little 
 
 8G
 
 COTERIE CRITICISM 
 
 D'Annunzio is just like a frog ?) — was quite mad 
 about her. But ' Mes Larmes ' is perfectly sweet, and 
 dont forget to order it. Two lumps or three ? " 
 And listen to the chatter of some of those wonder- 
 fully bedizened ladies who variegate, if they dont 
 exactly decorate, the stalls of one of our Sunday 
 coterie theatres. The queer books they rave about ! 
 The odd Moldo-Wallachian or Syro-Phoenician dra- 
 matists they have discovered ! 
 
 All this, it is only fair to remember, may leave 
 our young critic inviolate. After all, he may belong 
 to no coterie, or only to a coterie of one ; he may 
 have sound critical reasons for the faith that is in 
 him about Mr. X., and Mrs. Y., and Miss Z. And 
 even if he does rei^resent a coterie, he might, I sup- 
 pose, find a fairly effective retort to some of my 
 observations. " You talk of our love of novelties 
 for novelty's sake. But you have admitted that, if 
 we always go for the new, we must sometimes light 
 on the true. What we really go for is life. The new 
 is more lively than the old. The actual, the present, 
 the world we are at this moment living in, has more 
 to say to us in literature than the old dead world, 
 the ' sixty years since ' of your classic Scott. The 
 classic, as Stendhal said, is what pleased our grand- 
 fathers ; but I am out to please my grandfather's 
 grandson. And our coteries, I dare say, are often 
 kept together by the mere docility of mind, the 
 imitative instinct, of their members. But is there 
 not a good deal of mere docility among the old fogey 
 
 87
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 party, the people who reject the new because it is 
 new and admire the old because it is old ? Is not 
 this mere imitative instinct at work also among the 
 upholders of literary traditions and the approved 
 classics ? Absurdity for absurdity, the youthful 
 coterie is no worse than the old fogey crowd." To 
 put all straight I will now go and read the novels of 
 Mr. X., Mrs. Y., and Miss Z. 
 
 88
 
 CRITICISM AND CREATION 
 
 A PLAY of Drj'dc'irs has been successfully rcvi\cd 
 by the Phoenix Society. One or two others might 
 be tried, but not many. For most of Drj'den "s plays, 
 as tJK" curious may satisfy themselves by reading 
 them, are as dead as a doornail. They bore us in the 
 reading, and would simply drive us out of the theatre. 
 Some of Drydens non-dramatic poems still permit 
 themselves to be read, but the permission is rarely 
 sought by modern readers, apart from candidates 
 for some academic examination in English literature, 
 who have no choice. Yet we all render him lip 
 service as u great poet. How many are there to 
 pay him propt-r homage as a great critic ? For a 
 great critic he was, and, moreover, our first dranuitic 
 critic in time as well as in importance. He discussed 
 not the details of this or that play, but the funda- 
 mental principles of drama. lie abounded in ideas, 
 and expressed them witli a con\ersational ease 
 which, in his time, was an entirely new thing. IJut 
 it would lie imjiert incut to j^raise Drydens prose 
 style alter .Johnsons exhausli\c- eulogy and the 
 delicate aj)j)reeiations of Professor Ker. What I 
 would point out is that all Drydens critical work 
 
 81)
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 can still be read ^vith pleasure, while most of his 
 dramatic work cannot be read at all. And the 
 humour of it is that I shall at once be told the 
 dramatic work was " creative," while the critical 
 was not. 
 
 This distinction, an essentially false one, as I shall 
 hope to show, is still a great favourite with our 
 authors of fiction ; they " create," their critics do 
 not. Authors who write, in Flaubert's phrase, like 
 cochers de fiacre, and who arc particularly given to 
 this contrast, it would be cruel to deprive of a 
 comforting illusion ; but authors of merit and repute 
 also share it, and to them I would urge my modest 
 plea for a reconsideration of the matter. 
 
 What does the dramatist, or writer of fiction in 
 general, create ? Actions and characters ? Not so, 
 for these are only created in real life, by the contend- 
 ing volitions of real men and the impact between 
 their volitions and external reality. The author 
 creates images of actions and characters, or, in other 
 words, expresses his intuitions of life. When the 
 intuition is vivid, when the image is a Falstaff, a 
 Baron llulot, a Don Quixote, a Colonel Newcome, 
 we are apt to think of it as a real person. And they 
 arc, in truth, as real to us as anybody in the actual 
 world whom we have never met but only know of. 
 For the historic person, unmet, is, just like the 
 imaginary person, only a bundle for us of our 
 intuitions. Julius Ca,'sar was a real person, but we 
 can only know of him, as we know of Mr. Pickwick, 
 
 90
 
 CRITICISM AND CREATION 
 
 by hearsay. These vivid intuitions are what your 
 author likes to call " creations." So they arc. 
 Tliat is the magic of art. 
 
 And because, to the vast majority of men, their 
 intuitions (in the case of actual reality encountered, 
 their perceptions) of other men and their actions 
 are their most interesting experience, art is allowed 
 without challenge to arrogate to itself this quality 
 of " creation." There is a biographical dictionary 
 of Balzac's personages — some 2,000, if I remember 
 rightly — of whom a few are actual historical people. 
 But, in fact, you make no distinction. The one 
 set are as real to you as the others. In this way the 
 Comedie Ilumaine does, as its author said, compete 
 with the Etat Civil. There are few ideas, specu- 
 lations, judgments in Balzac that are worth a rap ; 
 when he tried abstract thought he was apt to 
 achieve nonsense. But very few readers want 
 abstract thought. They want " to know people," 
 " to see people." Balzac makes " people," tells you 
 all about their families, their incomes, their loves and 
 hates, " splendours and miseries," their struggles, 
 their orgies, their squalor, their death. That is 
 " creative " art. Let us admire it. Let us revel 
 in it. Let us be profoundly thankful for it. 
 
 But when, as so frequently happens, one hears 
 some fourteenth-rate yarn-spinner, who also makes 
 " people," but ))copIc who were not worth juaking, 
 people who arc- puppets or I lie men- plKuitonis of 
 a greensick brain — when one hears this gentleman 
 
 91
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 claiming kinship with Balzac or with my friend the 
 distinguished novelist and real artist already 
 mentioned, as a " creator " one is inclined to smile. 
 " Creation ' is a blessed word. But the thing 
 created may be quite valueless. 
 
 And so it is, precisely, with criticism. For 
 criticism is also " creative. " But it does not create 
 images of people or their lives ; it creates thought, 
 ideas, concepts. That is, it builds up something 
 new out of the artist's intuitions and exhibits the 
 relations between them. Here, in the conceptual 
 world, we are in a different region from the intuitional 
 world of the artist. Those who care to enter it, who 
 feel at home in it, are comparatively few ; the 
 absence of personal interest, of " people," makes it 
 seem cold to the average, gregarious man. " People "' 
 are a natural, ideas an acquired, taste. But the 
 one set are just as much a " creation "" as the other. 
 And in the one set just as in the other the thing 
 created may not be worth creating. Ideas, expo- 
 sitions, illustrations in criticism have a distressing 
 habit of being as poor and conventional and nicciiani- 
 eal as many a novelists or playwrights characters 
 and life histories. There is not a pin to choose 
 between them. For as the one thing that matters 
 in art is the artist behind it, so the critic behind it 
 is the one thing that matters in criticism. 
 
 These are elementary commonplaces. But they 
 need restating from time to time. For the average 
 man, with all his interest in life fixed on " people," 
 
 92
 
 CRITICISM AND CREATION 
 
 is always falling into the error that the novelist or 
 playwright makes something, while the critic makes 
 nothing. And your fourteenth-rate author, sharing 
 the temperament of the average man, falls into the 
 same error and seems, indeed, inordinately proud 
 of it. He seems to say : " Why, you, good master 
 critic, couldn't even begin to do what I, the 
 ' creative ' artist, do " ; and he would probably be 
 surprised by the answer that it is the critic's very 
 critical faculty, his endowment of judgment and 
 taste, which makes the writing of bad plays or 
 novels impossible, because repugnant to him. It is 
 precisely because the critical faculty is so rare a 
 thing that so many bad novels and plaj's get them- 
 selves written. 
 
 But enough of these sharp distinctions between 
 the " creation ' of images and the " creation " of 
 concepts ! Is not a union of the two, like the union 
 of butler and lady's-maid, as described by Mr. 
 Crichton, " the happiest of all combinations " ? 
 Who does not feel how immensely the mere story 
 part of " Tom Jones " gains by the critical chapter 
 introductions ? And, on the other hand, how the 
 mere critical part of Dryden's " Essay of Dramatic 
 Poesy " gains by the little touches of story, from 
 the opening moment when " they ordered the 
 watermen to let fall their oars more gently " to the 
 close at Somerset Stairs, where '' they went up 
 through a crowd of French people, who were merrily 
 dancing in the open air " ? 
 
 93
 
 ACTING AND CRITICISM 
 
 A VETERAN who has been regaling the readers of 
 The Times with his recollections of the London stage 
 has dropped by the way a remark on modern 
 theatrical criticism. For it, he says, " the play is 
 everything, and the leading actor or actress has 
 often to be content with a few lines." Dean 
 Gaisford began a sermon, " Saint Paul says, and I 
 partly agree with him."' I partly agree with the 
 veteran. Criticism has occasionally to deal with 
 plays that cannot be " everything " for it. There 
 arc new plays that are merely a vehicle for the art 
 of the actor, who must then get more than a few lines. 
 There are old plays revived to show a new actor in a 
 classic part, and the part is then greater than the 
 whole. This, I think, accounts for " the space 
 devoted to the acting in London criticisms at the 
 time Henry Irving rose to fame." Either he 
 appeared in new plays of little intrinsic merit, like 
 The Bells, or else in classic parts of melodrama 
 (made classic by Fred-^ric Lemaitre) or of Shake- 
 speare. In these conditions criticism nnist always 
 gravitate towards the acting. It did so, long before 
 Irving's time, with Ilazlitt over Edmund Kean. It 
 
 04
 
 ACTING AND CRITICISM 
 
 has done so, since Trving's time, over Sarah and 
 Duse, and must do so again over every new Shylock 
 or Millamant or Sir Peter. 
 
 But these conditions are exceptional, and it is 
 well for the drama that they are. For the vitality 
 of the drama primarily depends not upon the talent 
 of its interpreters but on that of its creators, and a 
 new image or new transposition of life in a form 
 appropriate to the theatre is more important than 
 the perfection of the human instrument by which it 
 is " made flesh." If criticism, then, has of late years 
 and on the whole been able to devote more attention 
 to the play than to the playing, I suggest to our 
 veteran that the fact is a healthy sign for our drama. 
 It shows that there have been plays to criticise and 
 that criticism has done its duty. 
 
 But that, I hasten to add, is its luck rather than 
 its merit. One must not ride the high ethical horse, 
 and I should be sorry to suggest that good criticism 
 is ever written from a sense of duty, any more than a 
 good play or any other piece of good literature. 
 Good criticism is written just because the critic feels 
 like that — and bad, it may be added, generally be- 
 cause the critic has been trying to write something 
 which he supposes ether people will feel like. The 
 good critic writes with his temperament — and here 
 is a reason why, in the long run, plays will interest 
 him more than players. For are we not all agreed 
 about the first principle of criticism ? Is it not to 
 put yourself in the place of the artist criticized, to 
 
 95
 
 PASTICHE AND PKEJTTDTCE 
 
 adopt his point of view, to recreate his work within 
 yourself? Well, the critic can put himself in the 
 place of the playwright much more readily than into 
 that of the actor. The playwrifrht and he are work- 
 ing in different ways, with much the same material, 
 ideas, and images, or, if you like, concepts and intui- 
 tions mainly expressed in words — which is only a 
 long way of saying that they arc both authors. And 
 they have in common the literary temperament. 
 Now the literary temperament and the histrionic arc 
 two very different things. 
 
 The actor, as his very name imports, is an active 
 man, a man of action. At his quietest, he perambu- 
 lates the stage. But violent physical exercise is a 
 part of his trade. He fights single combats, jumps 
 into open graves, plunges into lakes, is swallowed 
 down in quicksands, sharpens knives on the sole of 
 his boot, deftly catches jewel caskets thrown from 
 upper windows, wrestles with heavy-weight cham- 
 pions, knouts or is knouted, stabs or is stabbed, rolls 
 headlong down staircases, writhes in the agonies of 
 poison, and is (or at any rate in the good old days 
 was) kicked, pinched, and pummelled out of the 
 limelight by the " star."' And all this under the 
 handicaj) of greasc-])aint and a wig ! It must be 
 very fatiguing. But then he enjoys the physical 
 advantages of an active life. He has Sir Willoughby 
 Pattcrne's leg (under trousers that never l)ag at the 
 knee, and terminating in boots of the shiniest patent 
 leather), and all the rest to match. As becomes a 
 
 96
 
 ACTING AND CRITICISM 
 
 man of action, he is no reader. I have heard the 
 late Mr. Henry Neville declare that an actor should 
 never be allowed to look at a book. This may seem 
 to the rest of us a sad fate for him, but look at his 
 compensations ! lie spends much, if not most, of 
 his stafjc-life making love to pretty women, wives, 
 widows, or ingetnies. Frequently he kisses them, or 
 seems to — for he will tell you, the rogue, that stage- 
 kisses are always delivered in the air. Let us say 
 then that he is often within an inch of kissing a 
 pretty woman — which is already a considerable 
 privilege. When he is not kissing her (or the air, as 
 the case may be), he is sentimentally bidding her to a 
 nunnery go or dying in picturesque agonies at her 
 feet. Anyhow he goes through his work in the 
 society and with the active co-operation of pretty 
 women. And note, for it is an enormous advantage 
 to him, that that work is a fixed, settled thing. His 
 words have been invented for him and written out 
 in advance. lie has rehearsed his actions. He 
 knows precisely what he is going to do. 
 
 Contrast with this alluring picture the tempera- 
 ment and working habits of the critic. He is a man, 
 not of action, but of contemplation. His pursuit is 
 sedentary, and with his life of forced iiuiction he 
 risks becoming as fat as Mr. dJibbon, without the 
 alleviation of the Gibbonian style. Personal advan- 
 tages are not aids to comjiosition, and he may be the 
 ugliest man in London, like G. H. Lewes, whose 
 dramatic critieisnis, nevertheless, may still be read 
 
 PH. 97 H
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 with pleasure. His fingers are inky. His face is 
 not " made up," but sicklied o'er with the pale cast 
 of thought. No pretty women help him to write his 
 criticisms. Indeed, if Helen of Troy herself, or 
 Aphrodite new-risen from the sea came into his study 
 he would cry out with writer's petulance (a far more 
 prevalent and insidious disease than writer's cramp)» 
 " Oh, do please go away ! Cant you see I'm not 
 yet through my second slip ? " (She will return 
 when he is out, and " tidy up " his desk for him — a 
 really fiendish revenge). Uooks, forbidden to the 
 actor, are the critic's solace — and also his despair, 
 because they have said all the good things and taken 
 the bread out of his mouth. And, unlike the actor, 
 he is working in the unknown. His head is filled 
 with a chaos of half-formed ideas and the transient 
 embarrassed phantoms of logical developments. 
 Will he ever be able to sort them out and to give 
 them at any rate a specious appearance of con- 
 tinuity ? Nay, can he foresee the beginning of his 
 next sentence, or even finish this one ? Thus he is 
 perpetually on the rack. *' Luke's iron crown and 
 Damien's bed of steel " arc nothing to it. It is 
 true that his criticism does, mysteriously, get itself 
 completed — mysteriously, because he seems to have 
 been no active agent in it, but a mere looker-on 
 while it somehow wrote itself. 
 
 Is it surprising that it should generally write itself 
 about the play (which, I daresay, writes itself, too, 
 and with the same tormenting anxiety) rather than 
 
 98
 
 ACTING AND CRITICISM 
 
 about the playing, which proceeds from so different 
 a temperament from the critic's and operates in 
 conditions so alien from his ? But, let me add for 
 the comfort of our veteran, there are critics and 
 critics. If some of us displease him by too often 
 sparing only a few lines for the leading actor or 
 actress, there will always be plenty of others who are 
 more interested in persons than in ideas and images, 
 who care less for transpositions of life than for Sarah's 
 golden voice and Duse's limp, and " Quin's high 
 plume and Oldfield's petticoat." These will redress 
 the balance. 
 
 99
 
 ACTING AS ART 
 
 Nothing could be more characteristically En^lisli 
 than the circumstances which gave rise the other day 
 to the singidar question, " Is acting an art ? " 
 There was a practical issue, whether the Royal 
 Academy of Dramatic Art was or was not entitled 
 to exemption under an Act of 1843 from the payment 
 of rates. Sir John Simon argued it, of course, as a 
 practical question. He dealt with custom and 
 precedent and authority, dictionary definitions and 
 judicial decisions. He had to keep one eye on 
 esthetics and the other on the rates. This is our 
 traditional English way. We " drive at practice." 
 Nevertheless, this question whether acting is an art 
 is really one of pure a;sthcties, and is in no way 
 affected by any decision of the Appeal Committee 
 of the London County Council. 
 
 You cannot answer it until you have made up 
 your mind what you mean by art. Sir John Simon 
 seems to have suggested that art was something 
 " primarily directed to the satisfaction of the 
 oesthetic sense." IJut is there any such thing as a 
 special " aesthetic sense " ? Is it anything more 
 than a name for our spiritual reaction to a work of 
 
 100
 
 ACTING AS ART 
 
 art, our response to it in mind and feeling ? And 
 are we not arguing in a circle when we say that art 
 is what provokes the response to art ? Perhaps it 
 might amuse, perhaps it might irritate, perhaps it 
 might simply bewilder the Appeal Committee of the 
 London County Comieil to tell them that art is the 
 expression of intuitions. They might reply that 
 they cannot find intuitions in the rate-book, and that 
 the Act of ISJ'S is silent about them. Yet this is 
 what art is, and you have to bear it in mind when 
 you ask, " Is the actor an artist ? "' Art is a spiritual 
 activity, and the artist's expression of his intuitions 
 (the jmintcr's " vision," the actor's " conception "' 
 of his part) is internal ; when he wishes to exter- 
 nalize his expression, to conununicate it to others, 
 he has to use certain media — paint and canvas, 
 marble and brick, musical notes, words and gestures. 
 Hut it is the spiritual activity, the intuition-expres- 
 sion, that makes the artist. The medium is no part 
 of his definition. 
 
 And yet, I suggest, it is the j^eeuliarity of the 
 actor's medium that has often witliheld from 
 him, at any rate with unthinking people, his title 
 to rank as an artist. He is his own medium, 
 his own paint and canvas, his own l)rick and 
 marble. The works of other artists, the picture, 
 the poem, the sonata, have an independent life, they 
 survive their authors ; the actor's works are in- 
 separa})le from his actual presence, and die with him. 
 Hence a certain dillieulty for the unsoi)histicated in 
 101
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 distinguishing the artist from what the philosophers 
 call the empirical man ; the Edmund Kean whose 
 genius is illuminating and revitalizing Shylock from 
 the Edmund Kean who is notoriously fond of the 
 bottle and who has lately got into trouble with an 
 alderman's wife. The physique, the temperament, 
 of the empirical man furnish the medium for the 
 artist. He arrives at the theatre in a taxi, or his 
 own Rolls-Royce, smoking a big cigar, every inch 
 of him a man of to-day ; the next moment he is 
 pretending to be an old mad King of Britain. This 
 confusion is behind Johnson's " fellow who claps a 
 hump on his back and calls himself Richard the 
 Third."' It leaves out of account the imaginative 
 side of him, the artist. Johnson might just as well 
 have dismissed Shakespeare as a " fellow who 
 supposed a hump clapped on the back of one of his 
 fancies, which he calls Richard the Third." Lamb 
 raised another objection, that the bodily presence 
 of the actor materialized, coarsened, the finer 
 elements of the part — hid from sight " the lofty 
 genius, the man of vast capacity, the profound, the 
 witty, accomplished Richard." The medium, in 
 other words, is a hindrance to the art, not so much 
 a medium as a nuisance. 
 
 These are the objections of ignorance or of whim. 
 Certainly the peculiarity of his medium imposes 
 peculiar restrictions on the actor. If the painter 
 lacks a certain ])igment he can get it at the colour- 
 man's. If the composer needs a certain timbre he 
 102
 
 ACTING AS ART 
 
 can add the necessary instrument to his orchestra. 
 All the quarries are open to the architect. But no 
 " make up " box will furnish a resonant voice to a 
 shrill-piped actor or make Garrick six feet high. An 
 actress may be at the height of her powers, and yet 
 too old to play Juliet. Sir Henry Irving's physical 
 oddities went far to ruin some of his impersonations. 
 But these limitations of the medium do not affect 
 the actor's status as an artist. They only restrict 
 the range in which he may exercise his art. 
 
 And can it be gainsaid that what he exercises is 
 true art, a spiritual activity, the expression of his 
 intuitions ? People, comparing his work with the 
 " creations " of the playwright, arc apt to speak of 
 him as a mere " interpreter." He has his words 
 given him, they say, and his significant acts pre- 
 scribed for him in advance. The truth is, " creation " 
 and " interpretation " are figurative terms ; it would 
 be quite reasonable to intereiiange tiicm. Shake- 
 speare " interprets " life by gi\'ing form to it, by 
 piecing together, say, certain scraps of actual obser- 
 vation along witli the image of his fancy into tlie 
 character of Falstaff. With the printed words and 
 stage-directions as data, the actor re-imagines 
 Falstaff, brings his own temperament and fci-hngs 
 and sympathetic vision to the service of Sliake- 
 speare's indications, and " creates " the living, 
 moving man. True, the processes are at different 
 stages, and may be of different imi)()rtanee. Shake- 
 speare has intuited and expressed lite, the actor has 
 
 103
 
 PASTICHK AND PUEJUDUK 
 
 intuited and expressed Shakespeare, But both 
 expressions arc art. 
 
 And note that wliile Shakespeare " created " 
 Falstaff, no playgoer has ever seen or ever will see 
 Shakespeare's Falstaff. For the image formed in 
 Shakespeare's mind has always on the stage to be 
 translated for us in terms of other minds which can 
 never be identical with his — is, in fact, " re-created " 
 by each actor in turn. It is the actor who converts 
 the " cold print " of the text into vivid, concrete 
 life. Life ! that is the secret of the actor's 
 " following," a much more notable fact in the 
 world of the theatre than the " following " of this 
 or that playwright. The actor, like all who, in 
 Buffons phrase, " parlcnt au corps par le corjjs,'"' 
 expresses a temperament, a personality, himself ; 
 imposes himself on his part and on us. People 
 " follow " a favourite actor in all his impersonations 
 because his art gives them more pleasure than the 
 playwright's, or because his art nuist be added to 
 the playwright's before they will care about that. 
 
 When I say " people '' I don't mean " littery 
 gents." The typical playgoer prefers life to litera- 
 ture. He is as a rule no great reader. Nor are the 
 actors. There has always been a certain coolness 
 between the men of letters and the actors — their 
 temj)eraments are so o})i)osed. I have (pioted from 
 Lamb. Anatole France said much the same thing 
 of the Comcdie Fran^aisc — " Leur pcrsonne efface 
 I'cnivre qu'ils rcprc.scntent."' Views like these merely 
 101
 
 ACTING AS ART 
 
 express a preference for one art o^■e^ aiiothcr. They 
 do not contest the actor's right to rank as an artist. 
 That, to speak rigoronsly, is a rank held by many 
 people " for the duration " — i.e., wjiile and whenever 
 they express their intuitions. But it would be 
 impolitic to insist on this strict view. The rate- 
 payers' list might be seriously affected and much 
 uneasiness occasioned to the Appeal Committee of 
 the London Countv Council. 
 
 105
 
 AUDIENCES 
 
 Audiences may be divided into first-nighters, 
 second-nighters, and general playgoers. All audi- 
 ences arc important, but first-nighters most of all. 
 Without them the acted drama would not begin to 
 exist. For obvious reasons, I have nothing but good 
 to say of them. I wish to live at peace with my 
 neighbours. And I do not believe the malicious 
 story told about a manager, now dead, that he liked 
 to fill the second row of his stalls on first-nights with 
 his superannuated sweethearts. Nobody is fat or 
 old in Ba-ath, and there are no superannuitants 
 among first-nighters. 
 
 I find, from Mr. Max Bcerbohm's entirely delight- 
 ful book " Seven Men,'' that it is possible to get 
 tired of first-nighters. I should never have guessed 
 it myself. But this is what he says : — " I was dra- 
 matic critic for the Saturday lieviezv, and, weary of 
 meeting the same lot of people over and over again 
 at first nights, had recently sent a circular to the 
 managers, asking that I might have seats for second 
 nights instead." But mark what follows : — " I 
 found that there existed as distinct and invariable 
 a lot of second-nighters as of first-nighters. The 
 106
 
 AUDIENCES 
 
 sccond-nightcrs were less ' showy ' ; but then, they 
 came more to sec than to be seen, and there was an 
 air that I liked of earnestness and hopefulness about 
 them. I used to \sTite a good deal about the future 
 of the British drama, and they, for their part, used 
 to think and talk a great deal about it. Though 
 sccond-nightcrs do come to sec, they remain rather 
 to hope and pray." Because I have quoted I must 
 not be understood as accepting Mr. Beerbohm's 
 implied aspersion on first-nighters. It is all very 
 well for him. He has retired (the more's the pity) 
 from dramatic criticism. But I take his account of 
 second-nightcrs on trust, because the exigencies of a 
 daily newspaper prevent me from observing them 
 for myself. Evidently they, no more than first- 
 nighters, are average plaj'goers. 
 
 Not that I would disparage the general playgoer. 
 Indeed, I am not sure that he is not, in another 
 sense than Labiehc's, le pluft hcureux ties trois. I 
 can speak for myself. Mind, I am saying nothing 
 against first-nighters. They are entirely admirable 
 persons— I could never bring myself, like Mr. Iker- 
 bohm, to call them a lot. But oh ! the joy of being, 
 on holiday occasions, a general j^laygoer, of throwing 
 one's considering cap o\er the mills, of garnering no 
 impressions for future " copy," of blithely ignoring 
 one's better judgment, of going conif()rtal)ly home 
 from the play, like everyl^ody else, instead of dash- 
 ing madly into a taxi for the newspaper office ! The 
 j)l!iy will be well on in its run, the eoniedian will have 
 107
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 j)olished up his jokes, the superfluities will have been 
 cut out, the progranune girls will long since have 
 given up leading the applause, you won't know a 
 sotil, and you won't e\en bother to look at the 
 author's name. You surrender your individuality 
 and drift with the crowd, or, in more pretentious 
 language, merge yourself in the collective conscious- 
 ness. 
 
 Which reminds me. The general playgoer just 
 because he is general, is what Henry James called 
 George Sand : remarkably accessible. Everybody 
 knows him. He is a public theme. Theorists won't 
 leave him alone. In particular, the collective psy- 
 chologists have marked him for their ]">rey. For 
 them he typifies the theatrical " crowd,'' with the 
 peculiar crowd characteristics these theorists pro- 
 fess to have scientifically classified. Sarcey began 
 it. Lemaitre followed. And comparatively obscure 
 scribes have devoted attention to the general play- 
 goer. They have said that he is no philosopher ; he 
 cannot adopt a detached, impersonal, disinterested 
 view of life ; he must take sides. Hence the conven- 
 tion of the '' sympathetic personage." He has not 
 the judicial faculty, is not accustomed to sift evi- 
 dence or to estimate probabilities. Hence the con- 
 vention of the " long arm of coincidence " and the 
 convention that the wildest improbability may be 
 taken as the starting-point of a j)lay. The general 
 playgoer, as such, is virtuous and generous ; for we 
 are all on our best bchavioiir in public. And he 
 
 108
 
 AUDIENCES 
 
 insists upon a strict separation of virtue and viee. 
 He wants his personafjes all of a piece. Tiie com- 
 posite ciiaracters, blends of good and evil, he refuses 
 to recognize. Hence the conventions of " hero " 
 and " villain,'' of " poetic justice " and of " living 
 happy ever afterwards." Further, it has been sug- 
 gested that a crowd of general playgoers, having an 
 individuality of its own, cannot but be interested in 
 that individuality, apart from all reference to the 
 cause which brought it together. Once assembled, 
 it becomes self-conscious, self-assertive. It finds 
 itself an interesting spectacle. And the general 
 playgoer is not of the cloistered but of the gregarious 
 type of mankind ; he must have bustle, the sense of 
 human kinship brought home to him by sitting 
 elbow by elbow with his neighbours. The faculty 
 of intellectual attention is seldom high in such a 
 temperament as this. Hence the playwright has to 
 force the attention of a temperamentally inatten- 
 tive audience. Mark, once more, that I am not 
 speaking of first-nighters. Their individuality is 
 too strong to be crowd-inunersed. I would not for 
 worlds speak of them as a crowd at all. They are 
 an assemblage, a constellation, a galaxy. Admirable 
 persons ! 
 
 But there is one thing lor which I cii\y the 
 general playgoer above all. I mean his freedom 
 and pungency of eritieism. Anonymity gi\is him 
 irresponsibility, and, his resentment at being bored 
 not being subject lo tlu- cooling process of literary 
 
 100
 
 PASTICHE AND PRP^JUDICE 
 
 composition, liis language is apt to be really terrible. 
 Talk of printed criticism ! Actors and authors do 
 talk of it often enough, and on the whole don't seem 
 to like it ; but let them mingle with the general 
 playgoer and keep their ears open ! Who was the 
 man in Balzac who said that it was absurd to speak 
 of the danger of certain books when we all had the 
 corrupt book of the world open before us, and 
 beyond that another book a thousand times more 
 dangerous — all that is whispered by one man to 
 another or discussed behind ladies' fans at balls ? 
 So the general playgoer is the great purveyor of 
 secret criticism. Disraeli, or another, said that the 
 secret history of the world, which never got into the 
 history books, was the only true history. Let us 
 hope that secret criticism is not the only true sort, 
 but it is certainly the most live. It is free from the 
 literary bias, the cant of criticism, the smell of the 
 lamp. And it is the most potent of persuasives. 
 Published criticism is powerless against it. The fate 
 of a play is not decided by newspaper criticisms 
 (thank goodness ! I should be miserable if it were), 
 but by what the general playgoers say to one another 
 and pass on to their friends. How many plays with 
 " record " runs have been dismissed by the news- 
 papers on the morrow of the first night with faint 
 praise or positive dispraise ? The general playgoer 
 has said his say, and what he says " goes.'' I know 
 he is giving many worthy people just now much 
 uneasiness. They form little theatrical societies d 
 
 110
 
 AUDIENCES 
 
 cote to keep him out. They deplore his taste and 
 organize leagues for his education and improve- 
 ment. I rather fancy he is like the young lady in 
 the play who " didn't want to have her mind im- 
 proved." But that is another story. What I have 
 been en\'ying him for is not his taste but the hearti- 
 ness with which he " abounds in his own sense " and 
 liis freedom in expressing it. After all, perhaps cri- 
 ticism that is so free and so pervasive and so potent 
 is not exactly to be called " secret." I seek the mot 
 juste. Or I would if that were not a back-number. 
 Has not Mr. Beerbohm finally put it in its place as 
 the Holy Grail of the nineties ? 
 
 Ill
 
 FIRST NIGHTS 
 
 There is a movement, I am told, in certain 
 critical circles in favour of the system which obtains 
 in Parisian theatres of the repetition generale. This, 
 as most playgoers know, is a final " dress rehearsal ' 
 held on the evening (at the Fran9ais, where evening 
 performances must be continuous, on the afternoon) 
 of the day before the actual " first night " pro- 
 duction, or premiere, of the play. The seats, 
 including the exceptionally large number allotted 
 in Paris to the Press, are filled by invitation. It is 
 the real " first night " ; only there is no " money " 
 in the house. Notoriously, there is a formidable 
 cohort of Parisians who regard their seat at a 
 repetition generale as a kind of vested interest, and 
 who would be affronted by having to put up with 
 the premiere. A very remarkable i)ublic this is, the 
 public of the repetition generale, with its members 
 virtually all known to one another, filling the foyer 
 with chatter and much scent, and j)atiently sitting 
 through a performance which is apt to begin a 
 good half-hour after the advertised time, and to end 
 in the small hours of the morning. The inter-acts 
 arc of iiiordinate length, j)erhaps in the interests of 
 
 112
 
 FIRST NIGHTS 
 
 the buffet, more likely because of the inveterate 
 leisureliness of the Parisians. The whole thing, at 
 any rate as I have found it, is a weariness to English 
 flesh. But then the gentlemen (and ladies) of the 
 Press have the advantage of being able to go home 
 straight to bed, and of having all next day to think 
 over their " notices." 
 
 That is the reason, I suppose, why some critics 
 would like to see the system introduced in London. 
 They want more time. They want to sleep on it. 
 They would write, they think, better in the morning. 
 Let me leave that point, however, for the moment 
 to turn to what an incorrigibly commercial world 
 will probably think a more important one, the 
 question of finance. To the theatrical manager the 
 introduction of this system would mean the loss of a 
 whole night's receipts. With theatre rents and 
 expenses at their present height, could they possibly 
 contemplate so heavy a sacrifice ? They arc already 
 complaining that theatre scats at their present prices 
 do not pay — and here they woidd be giving away, 
 for one night, the whole house. Further, however 
 they might gratify the friends whom they invited, 
 nothing could save them from the wrath of those 
 who were left over. Some of these, perhaps, might 
 be mollifu'd by a subsecpient invitation — for the 
 " deadhead " habit becomes an insidious disease, 
 and, I am told, the Paris theatres groan under the 
 hordes of playgoers who consider themsrlvi's entitled 
 to gratuitous admission. On the whole, I think our 
 
 p.p. 118 I
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 managers would be ill-advised to countenance the 
 suggested change. 
 
 Another thing. The repetition generale is a trial 
 performance. Effects which don't " tell," incidents 
 which shock or provoke ridicule, arc often cut out 
 next morning, so that the play actually presented at 
 the premiere differs, sometimes vitally, from that 
 presented to the critics, so that the " notice " not 
 seldom describes and criticizes various matters 
 which the public are never shown. If the Enghsh 
 manager imitated this example — and as a practical 
 man of business he would be sure to imitate it — 
 the unhappy critic after wTiting his notice would 
 have to go to the j^lay again, before printing it, in 
 order to assure himself that it still represented the 
 facts. It woiild have to be two bites at a cherry. 
 Now, new j)lays are often produced on two nights 
 numing, in which case two bites at the same cherry 
 would be impossible. In the most favourable case, 
 two successive visits to a play would be a heavy 
 addition to the burden of life. 
 
 But would criticism benefit in quality ? I venture 
 to doubt that, too. I think that theatrical 
 " notices " arc all the better for being piping hot. 
 Ones impressions of the play arc stronger, more 
 definite in outline, richer in colour, when one leaves 
 the theatre than next morning, when they have 
 had time to cool and to fade into " second thoughts," 
 which in criticism are far from being always the best. 
 >Vhen Jules Lemaitre went from the Dcbais to the 
 114
 
 FIRST NIGHTS 
 
 Deux Mondes he found that his thoughts about the 
 play, instead of maturinjL!: with the longer interval 
 for writing, were apt to become simply vague and 
 general. If the play happened to be one " of ideas," 
 not so mueh harm was done, bceause ideas stick in 
 the mind, and arc revolved there. But a play of 
 emotion or a play dependent on fine shades of acting 
 is bound to suffer by the gradual waning of the first 
 impression. And my own experience is that in 
 writing about a play of which one has lost the first 
 hot impression, and which one has to recall by an 
 effort of memory, the proportions get altered, so that 
 the criticism is thrown out of gear. Some point, a 
 mere minor point, perhaps, that attracted one's 
 attention, remains in the mind and assumes an undue 
 importance in relation to other details that have 
 faded. I went to see GriersotCs Way revived the 
 other night after a qjiarter of a century. When I 
 asked myself beforehand what I remembered of it, 
 I could only answer that I had been originally nnich 
 struck by its merits, but that the only one of these 
 merits that remained in my mind was a conversation 
 wherein, under a surface of small talk, two j)eople 
 were revealing depths of tragic emotion. I had 
 forgotten the characters, the motif, the very story. 
 And when my couNcrsation turned up (in .Vet III.), 
 though I was as delighted as ever, I saw, of course, 
 that it was only an item, not the sole memorable 
 thing in the piay. 
 
 ,\ii int«r\;il of a (jiinrlcr of a etntiiry is rather 
 115 , >
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 different from one of four-and-twenty hours ? Un- 
 doubtedly ; but my point is that one's impressions 
 begin to wane and to alter in " values " from the 
 very outset. After all it is the business of crities 
 not merely to eriticizc, analyse, and jud^c a play, to 
 try and " place " it in the realm of art ; they have 
 also the perhaps minor but still important duty of 
 acting as public " tasters." Tiicy have to represent 
 facts, to give the public a reasonably accurate 
 notion of what they are likely to see. And they 
 are in a much better position for doing this if they 
 set down their facts and their views of the facts at 
 once, while they are still quivering with the excite- 
 ment (or yawning with the boredom) of them. 
 
 116
 
 PLAYS WITHIN PLAYS 
 
 Representative arts will represent everything 
 they can, including themselves. The theatre likes 
 to show an image of its own life, life behind the 
 scenes, actors acting on the stage, audiences listening, 
 applauding, or interrupting in front. Hence the 
 plays within plays which Shakespeare found so 
 alluring. It was a comparatively simj)le problem of 
 technique in his time because of the simplicity of 
 the " platform " stage and of the Elizabethan 
 playhouse. 
 
 A standing audience, as his for the most part was, 
 is obviously easier to represent than a seated audi- 
 ence ; it is just a crowd of " citizens " like any other 
 stage crowd. The- only inijjortant (luestion for the 
 stage-manager was the relative position of the 
 mimic players and the minjic pui^lic. Clearly your 
 mimic jjlayers nuist be seen by the real public, or 
 what becomes of your play witliin a play ? The 
 position of your mimic j)ublie nnist have been more 
 or less dej)endt lit on their importance in the action. 
 But, I take it, the Pjlizabcthan arrangement, in any 
 case, must have been of a i)re-Raphaelite symmetry. 
 I presume the play scene in IluiaUi must ha\e taken 
 117
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 place in the lower part of the permanent erection at 
 the back of the stage and that the mimic public was 
 ranged down each side of the stage. The old 
 arrangement has remained essentially unaltered. 
 Tlie mimic i)layers are generally shown in some 
 raised, areaded terrace at the back of the stage ; the 
 King and Queen face Hamlet and Ophelia (in profile 
 with respect to the real public) in front. It would 
 obviously never do to let Hamlet and the King face 
 the performers in the rear and so turn their backs on 
 the real i)ublic, for the whole j^oint of the scene is the 
 effect of the mimic play on the King and on Hamlet 
 watching the King. But I do not, for my part, sec 
 why more might not be made out of this " psycho- 
 logic " effect by an arrangement which placed the 
 mimic players nearer the front of the actual stage, 
 on one side, so that the King might be turned full- 
 face towards us as he watched them. If the King 
 were played by an actor of the first importance 
 (which he seldom or never is), with a gift of facial 
 play, we nuiy be sure that this would be done. 
 
 There is a somewhat similar scene in the first act 
 of Cyrano de Bergcrar. The ehic-f centre of attrac- 
 tion here is not the juiniie play itself, but the beha\i- 
 our of the audience, disturbed by Cyrano's interruj)- 
 tion of the j)layers. That is why I think that 
 Co(pielin\s arrangenient with the players on one side 
 and the audience in profile was better than Mr. 
 Loraine's, with the players in the rear and the mimic 
 audience turning its back to the real one. IJut it is a 
 118
 
 PLAYS WITHIN PLAYS 
 
 point of comparative insignificance. As it was the 
 old playhouse and the old standing audience that 
 was being represented, the stage-nianagenient was 
 essentially as simple as that of the play-scene in 
 IlavUet. 
 
 So soon, however, as yon come to represent the 
 very different modern " picture " stage and the 
 modern seated audience you see at once that the 
 j)robIem becomes immensely more dillieult. Accord- 
 ingly you find a revolution in the method of treating 
 a play within a play. I do not know whether the 
 Guitrys invented it or Reinhardt or whoever, but 
 certainly the most conspicuo\is illustration we have 
 had of it has been presented by the Guitrys. It is 
 something much more than a mechanical change ; it 
 is psychological as well. The mimic stage, the stage 
 of the i)lay within the |)lay, now occupies the whole 
 of the actual stage, and the mimic audience is identi- 
 fied with the real audience. 
 
 We .saw this startling innovation first in Pasteur. 
 Pasteur is supposed to be addressing a meeting of 
 the French Academy of Medicine. His rostrum is 
 at the footlights, and he addresses us, the real 
 audience. We haxc to suj)pose ourselves the 
 Academy of Medicine, To helji us to this illusion 
 one or two actors are scattered about the house, who 
 interrupt, argiie with Pasteur, and arc personally 
 answered by him. W'r find ourselvi-s, in fact, at 
 once listening to a debate, as real audience, and, in 
 the thick of it, taking part in it, as supposed audience.
 
 PASTICHK AND PREJUDICE 
 
 There is a French proverb which says you cannot 
 both join in a ])rocession and look out of the window ; 
 but this experience upsets it. The result is a curious 
 blend of sensations ; you feel yourself both spectator 
 and actor, at a i)lay and in a play. But there is no 
 doubt that the effect is much more vivid and exciting 
 than that which would have attended the mere 
 spectacle of Pasteur addressing a crowd upon the 
 stage itself. You have, by the way, exactly the 
 same effect in Mr. Galsworthy's Skin Game, where 
 an auctioneer addresses us, the public, who are sup- 
 posed to represent the competing purchasers. 
 
 A still more striking instance has been seen in 
 VlUusioniste. Here the first act shows the stage of 
 a music-hall and presents three actual " turns." 
 We, the actual audience, become the music-hall 
 audience, and again there are actors scattered among 
 us to heliD the illusion. They are addressed by the 
 conjurer and answer him ; a lady in a box throws 
 him ardent glances which are returned with interest. 
 But one of the " turns," an act by acrobatic clowns, 
 has absolutely nothing to do with the play ; it is 
 there purely for its own interest, a substantive })cr- 
 formance. This shows, what we knew before, that 
 revolutions run to excess. We are so engrossed by 
 the clowns that we are temiDted to forget what we 
 are there for, to see a play. Anyhow, it is a most 
 amusing innovation, this conversion of the actual 
 stage into an imaginary stage within the ])lay, and 
 of the actual public into an imaginary public taking 
 120
 
 PLAYS WITHIN PLAYS 
 
 part in the play. It is a real enrichment of stage 
 resources. 
 
 But there are obvious dangers. One I have just 
 pointed out, the danger of introducing irrelevancies 
 for their own intrinsic interest, which tend to impair 
 the artistic unity of the play. Another is the danger 
 of applying this method to cases (as in Hamlet and 
 Cyrano) where the real centre of interest is not the 
 mimic play but the mimic audience. Imagine the 
 whole stage given up to the Mouse Trap, with the 
 front row of stalls occupied by the courtiers, and 
 Hamlet and Ophelia in one box watching the King 
 and Gertrude in the opposite box ! That is an 
 extreme instance, which traditional respect for 
 Shakespeare will probably save us from ; but some 
 ambitious producer will probably try this game with 
 some modem play, and then I predict disaster. 
 
 121
 
 PLAYS OF TALK 
 
 The production on two successive nights of two 
 plays so violently contrasted in method as Mr. Har- 
 wood's Grain of Mustard Seed and Mr. Galsworthy's 
 Skin Game — the first a jilay mainly of talk, the second 
 a play entirely of action — sets one thinking. 
 According to the ortliodox canons, the second is 
 the right, nay, the only method. Drama, we are 
 told, is a conflict of wills and all the interest is in the 
 action, the external manifestation of the conflict. 
 There shoidd be just enougli talk to carry that on 
 and not an idle word should be spoken. Diderot, 
 indeed, jjrofessed to think that words were almost 
 sui)ernuous, and went to the play with cotton-wool 
 in his ears in order to judge its merits on the dumb 
 show ; yet he wrote the most wordy and tedious 
 plays. And there is, or was, a certain sciiool of 
 theatrical criticism which forever quotes the old 
 Astlcy maxim, " Cut the cackle and come to the 
 'esses " — which was no doubt a most approi)riate 
 maxim, for quadrujx'ds. Others have mistaken 
 action for physical, j)referably \ iolent action — 
 Maldonado sweeping the crockery off the chimney- 
 pieee or Lady .ViuIIt y pusjiiug her lnisl)an(l (htwii 
 122
 
 PLAYS OF TALK 
 
 the well — and have ignored the fact that talk also 
 may be action, " and much the noblest," as Dryden 
 says. " Every alteration or crossing of a design, 
 every new-sprung passion, and turn of it, is a part 
 of the action, and nuich the noblest, excej)t we 
 perceive nothing to be action, till they come to 
 blows ; as if the painting of the hero's mind were 
 not more proi)erly the poet's work than the strength 
 of his body." How often we were told in the 
 old days that Dumas fils and Ibsen were too 
 " talky," when their talk was mainly psychological 
 action. 
 
 lint this demand for action and nothing but 
 action, so persistently uttered of late years, wo\ild 
 deprive the world of nuieii of its best entertainment. 
 Apply it to Congreve, " cut the eaekk- '" of his plays, 
 and you conic to tiie 'osses, spa\ incd hacks, of plots 
 childislily eomplieated and perfunctorily womid uj). 
 Would any one of taste suppress the " cackle *" of 
 .Sheridan's scandalous college ? Is not, in short, 
 nnicli of the pleasure of comedy in resting from the 
 action, in getting away from it, in the relief of good 
 talk ? Yes. and often enough tlie |)leasure of 
 tragedy, too. There is a bustling, melodramatic 
 action in Hamlet. But with what relief Hamlet gets 
 away fnnn his revenge " mission " at every moment, 
 puts it out of sight, forget.s it ! His intcr\iew with 
 the |)layers and advice to them on histrionics, his 
 chat with the gravedigger, what else arc these but 
 the sheer delight of good talk ? For him the joy 
 1 'J a
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 of living is the joy of talking, and with the chance 
 of these before him his revenge-mission may go 
 hang ! 
 
 Obviously we never get so near Shakespeare and 
 Shakespeare's natural temperament, as in these 
 moments of talk for its own sake, talk unfettered 
 by the exigencies of the ])lot. For that talk wells 
 up spontaneously and is not turned on to order ; 
 the poet has something interesting in his mind which 
 he is bursting to say, and if to say it will keep the 
 plot waiting, why, so much the worse for the plot. 
 And here is a reason, I think, in favour of plays of 
 talk. We get nearer the author in them ; in good 
 talk the author is expressing a pleasure so strong as 
 to override the objection of irrelevance, and in 
 sharing that j)lcasure we get the best of him, the 
 spontaneous element in him, the man himself. On 
 the other hand, mere yarn-spinning, mere plot- 
 weaving, may be an almost mechanical exercise. 
 Not necessarily, of course. I should be sorry to call 
 Mr. Galsworthy's Skin Game a mechanical bit of 
 work. The will-conflict there has an intense reality 
 and is fought tooth and nail. Irrelevant talk in 
 such a white-hot play would obviously be fatal. 
 Everybody speaks briefly, j)lainly, and to the point. 
 Artistic work of any kind gives j)leasure, and it is 
 possible to be as delighted with Mr. Galsworthy's 
 kind as with Mr. Ilarwood's. I am not eomj)aring 
 two artists of two different kinds, wjiieh would be 
 absurd. I am only pleading for a kind wjiicli is not 
 124
 
 PLAYS OF TALK 
 
 what a vain people supposeth, and which is apt to 
 be stupidly condcnincd. 
 
 Not that it woidd be fair, either, to call Mr. Har- 
 wood's brilliant task irrelevant. It helps to paint 
 character. Thus, parents expect their son to have 
 returned from the war a compound of Sir Galahad 
 and Mr. Bottomley, and instead of that he is only a 
 good bridge-player, after four hours' bridge a day 
 for four years. These witticisms help to tell you 
 something about the young man whose family 
 reputation gives rise to them in the family circle. 
 When the old Parliamentary hand compares govern- 
 ment to 'bus-driving, seeking to get through the 
 traffic with the minimum of accident, or remarks on 
 the reputation Canute would have made had he only 
 waited for high tide, he is telling us something about 
 himself and his political principles. But primarily 
 these things are enjoyable for their wit and not for 
 tiicir relevance. In a play of fierce will-eonlliet they 
 would have been impossible. These plays of brilliant 
 talk belong to the qnict genre, and quiet in the theatre, 
 as in art generally, is pcrlia{)S an acquired taste. 
 " Punch," we are constantly being told by the 
 natural unsophisticated man, is what is wanted — 
 the word itself is the invention of an untpiiet people. 
 Well, give me wit, and let who will have the " punch." 
 
 The occasional tendency in the theatre to revolt 
 
 against the restraint of the action and to play lightly 
 
 round it has its counterpart in criticism. What is 
 
 it gives so peculiar a charm to the criticism of 
 
 V2o
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 Drydcn ? Is it not his discursiveness, his httle 
 descriptive embellishments — as, for example, in the 
 " Essay of Dramatic Poesy," the river trip, the 
 listening for the distant thnnder of the Dutch guns 
 "on that memorable day," the moonlight on the water, 
 the landing at Somerset Stairs among the crowd of 
 French dancers ? I have elsewhere said how Hazlitt's 
 theatrical criticisms lose in readableness by their 
 strict attention to business, compared with his 
 miscellaneous essays, where he permits himself to 
 wander " all over the place." George Henry Lewes's 
 theatrical criticisms can still be read with pleasure 
 for the very reason that they were diversified with 
 deliberate, almost frivolous irrelevancies. And then 
 there was Jules Lemaitrc with his perpetual " moi," 
 which provoked the austere Brunetiere to quote 
 Pascal's " le inoi est haissable.'' Yet where will you 
 find more enjoyable criticism than Lemaitre's ? 
 But I must keep off Lemaitrc and the charm of him, 
 or I shall become, what he never was, tiresome. 
 Even as it is, I may resemble the parson who said he 
 had aimed at brevity in order to avoid tediousness, 
 and was answered, " You xcerc brief, and you xvere 
 tedious." 
 
 126
 
 "THE BEGGAR'S OPERA" 
 
 One of Boswells projected works was a history 
 of the eontrovcTsy over The Beggar s Opera. The 
 best known of the works he actually did write con- 
 tains several references to this controversy. Rey- 
 nolds said it afforded a proof how strangely people 
 will differ in opinion about a literary performance. 
 Burke thought it had no merit. Johnson thought 
 very nuieh the opposite, but said characteristically, 
 " There is in it such a labefactation of all princij)lcs 
 as may be injurious to morality." Gibbon suggested 
 that it might refine the nuumers of highwaymen, 
 " making them less ferocious, more ix)litc — in short, 
 more like gentlenun." It is noteworthy that the 
 work was half a century old when tliese observations 
 were made alxmt it. It had become a classic. And 
 later generations treaird it as a classic — that is to 
 say, kept on refashioning it to the taste of their own 
 time. The version, for instance, tiiat Ha/.iitt was 
 so fond of writing alx^ut (in the second decade of the 
 last century) was a sad mangling of the original. 
 Even so, it rej^resented for Ha/litt the high-water 
 mark of theatrical enjoyment, just as the original 
 did for Boswcll, who said, " No performance which 
 
 127
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 the theatre exhibits dehghts me more." You 
 cannot take up a vohuiie of Swift's correspondence, 
 or Horace Walpole's or Arbuthnot's, without men- 
 tion of The Beggar's Opera. It even got into Grimm. 
 It was the II. M.S. Pinafore of the time. 
 
 And that reminds me. As I sat at the Hammer- 
 smith Lyric listenint^ to the dialogue between 
 Peachum and Mrs, Pcachum on the question whether 
 Polly was Macheath's wife or his mistress, the thing 
 seemed strangely modern, and not only modern, but 
 Gilbertian. (I am speaking, of course, of the tone, 
 not of the sentiment — Gilbert was a very Victorian 
 of propriety.) Pcachum is Gilbertian, " Do you 
 think your mother and I should have liv'd com- 
 fortably so long together if ever we had been 
 married ? Baggage ! " Mrs. Pcachum is Gilbertian. 
 " If you must be married, could you introduce 
 nobody into our family but a highwayman ? Why, 
 thou foolish jade, thou wilt be as ill-used and as 
 much neglected as if thou hadst married a lord ! " 
 Again, " If she had only an intrigue with the fellow, 
 why the very best families have cxcus'd and huddled 
 up a frailty of that sort. 'Tis marriage, husband, 
 that makes it a blemish." Once more. " Love 
 him ! Worse and worse ! I thought the girl had 
 been better bred." Polly herself is Gilbertian. 
 " Methinks I see him already in the cart, sweeter and 
 more lovely than the nosegay in his hand ! I hear 
 the crowd extolling his resolution and intrepidity ! 
 What volleys of sighs arc sent from the windows of 
 128
 
 "THE BEGGAR'S OPERA" 
 
 Hoi born, that so comely a youth should be brought 
 to disgrace ! I see him at the tree ! The whole 
 circle arc in tears ! Even butchers weep ! " Lucy 
 is Gilbertian. When Machcath is at the " tree," her 
 comment is, " There is nothing moves one so much 
 as a great man in distress." And not only the tone, 
 but the very principle of the play is Gilbertian. 
 Gilbert took some typical figure of the social hier- 
 archy — a Lord Chancellor, a First Lord of the 
 Admiralty — and set the Chancellor capering and 
 the First Lord singing about the handle of the big 
 front door. He put a familiar figure in unfamiliar 
 postures. Gay took a typical figure of his own 
 time — the highwayman — and showed him, not at 
 work on the highway, but enjoying an elegant 
 leisure, behaving like a Chesterfield or one of Con- 
 greve's fine gentlemen. It was the realism, tin- 
 actuality of the subject, combined with the burlesque 
 of the treatment, that delighted the London of 172S 
 as it delighted the London of a century and a half 
 later. At each date it was a new experiment in 
 opera libretto. Boswcll specified the attraction of 
 Gay's realism — " the real pictures of London life." 
 Johnson singles out the " novelty " of the treatment. 
 But it is time that I said something about Mr. 
 Nigel Playfair's re^'ival. This is a remarkable 
 success, from every point of view. For the original 
 attraction of realism is, of course, no longer there. 
 Wc have to take it all historically. And the revival 
 has been particularly careful of historical accuracy.
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 Just as Gay's dialogue prompts you to say " Gilbert," 
 so Mr. Lovat Frascr's scenery and costumes prompt 
 you lo exclaim " Hogarth ! " By the way, on one 
 of Hazlitt's visits he records the exclamation of an 
 old gentleman in the pit, after the seuflle between 
 Pcachum and Lockit, " Hogarth, by G— d ! " This 
 was, no doubt, a tribute to the grim, ugly squalor 
 of that particular scene. But the whole decor and 
 atmosphere of the present affair are Hogarthian — 
 the stiff, flattened hoops of the women, the tatter- 
 demalion aspect of Macheath's rabble, Peachum's 
 dressing-gown (which I suppose is " documentary "), 
 Macheath's scarlet coat and flowing wig. And the 
 dresses are accurately simple. The women wear 
 plain stuffs ; Polly alone is allowed a little finery. 
 Indeed, there is an almost austere simplicity about 
 the whole affair. One scene, with just the alteration 
 of a few accessories, serves for Peachum's house, 
 for a tavern, and for Newgate. There is an orchestra 
 of five strings, a flute, an oboe, and a harpsichord. 
 It seems to mc that their playing has the delicate 
 charm of chamber nuisic rather than the power and 
 colour of orchestral — but I nmst not stray out of my 
 province. 
 
 Hazlitt indulged in rai)tures over Miss Stephens, 
 the first Polly he heard, and never failed to contrast 
 with her her less ])leasing successors. He had 
 evidently lost his heart to her — a somewhat sus- 
 ceptible heart, if you think of the " Liber Amoris." 
 I have no Miss Stephens to compare Miss Arkandy 
 
 180
 
 "THE BEGGAR'S OPERA" 
 
 with, and can only say the songstress is quite sweet 
 enough for my taste and the actress a charming 
 little doll. Miss Marqucsita, the Lucy, is a good 
 contrast, a voluptuous termagant. BoswcU says of 
 Walker, the original Macheath, that he " acquired 
 great celebrity by his grave yet animated perform- 
 ance of it." Mr. Ranalow's Macheath is decidedly 
 more grave than animated, is in fact a little solemn 
 — long before he gets to the Condemned Hold. 
 There is an almost Oriental impassivcness about him, 
 something of the jaded sultan — which, after all, is 
 not an inappropriate suggestion, surrounded as the 
 poor man is by his seraglio of towii-ladies. Miss 
 Elsie French bravely makes a thorough hag of Mrs. 
 Peachum ; the Pcachum and Loekit of Mr. Wynne 
 and Mr. Rawson are properly, Hogarthianly, 
 crapulous ; and Mr. Scott Russell makes a good, 
 vociferous Filch, leading with a will the fine drinking- 
 song " Woman and Wine " and the still finer " Let 
 us tiike the Road " (to the tune of Handel's march 
 in Rinaldo). Altogether a delicious entertainment : 
 gay, despite the solemn deportment of Macheath, 
 and dainty, despite the sordid crapulc of Newgate. 
 Yes, my final impression of tlie affair is one of 
 daintiness. Even the women of the town arc 
 dainty. They might almost be Dresden china 
 shepherdesses (which would be bearing out the 
 original suggestion of a Newgate " pastoral " very 
 literally). For the sordid milieu is so remote from 
 us as to have become fantastically unreal ; the 
 181 Ka
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 Peachums and the Lockits are no longer ugly men, 
 but have been turned into grotesque gargoyles ; 
 the rabble round Tyburn Tree has lived to see a 
 Russian ballet and learnt to move in its elegant 
 arabesques. It is a Hogarth retouehcd by a 
 Shepperson — or rather, to speak by the card, by a 
 Lovat Fraser. 
 
 182
 
 GRAND GUIGNOLISM 
 
 Dandik, the judge in Racine's comedy of Les 
 Flaideurs, offers to amuse Isabelle by the spectacle 
 of a httlo torturing. " Eh ! Monsieur," exchiims 
 Isabelle, " eh, Monsieur, peut on voir souffrir des 
 malheurcux ? " and Dandin, in his reply, speaks for 
 a by no means negligible proportion of the human 
 race : " Bon ! cela fait toujours passer une heure 
 ou deux." Dandin was a Guignolite. 
 
 We all have our Guignolite moments, moments of 
 Taine's " ferocious gorilla " surviving in civilized 
 man, when we seek the spectacle of torture or phy- 
 sical suffering or violent death ; but we are careful 
 to wsthetize them, refine them into moments of 
 poetry or art. The pleasure of tragedy is jcsthetic. 
 Nevertheless, tragedy involves violent death, and 
 without that would be an idle tale. So Rousseau 
 was not altogether wrong when he said we go to a 
 tragedy for the pleasure of seeing others suffer, with- 
 out suffering ourselves. Your true Guignolite 
 simply pritVrs his tragedy " neat," without a-sthctic 
 dilution. But I think it is unfair to charge him, as he 
 is so often charged, with a loNe of the horrible for its 
 own sake. I think, rather, that he is moved, a little 
 more actively than the rest of the world, by curiosity. 
 
 1813
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 It is customary to talk of curiosity as though it 
 were essentially ifjnoble. Children, women, and 
 savages are said to have most of it. It accounts for 
 *' fortune-telling," prophetic almanacs, spiritualistic 
 seances and other forms of alleged communication 
 with the dead. But tlie trutii is, curiosity, the desire 
 to enlarge experience, is a highly valuable, or, rather, 
 indispensable, human attribute. Without it there 
 could be no science, no progress, and finally no 
 human life at all. And you cannot restrict it. It 
 must crave for all forms of experience. Some of us 
 will be sweeping the heavens for new stars, and 
 others will want to peep into Bluebeard's cupboard. 
 More particularly we are curious to know what is 
 already known to others. We desire to see with 
 our own eyes what others have seen and reported to 
 us. That is why so many people have gone to Chu 
 Chin Chow. We wish to realize for ourselves, by the 
 direct aid of our own senses, " What it's like." And 
 the more dilTieult it is to see, the greater the secrecy, 
 the intimacy, of its actual happening in life, the 
 greater our curiosity to see a pietiirc or other repre- 
 sentation of it. Hence the vogue of stage bedroom 
 scenes, newspaper portraits of " the victim " and 
 " the i)lace of the crime," and Tussaud's Chamber 
 of Horrors. 
 
 I believe that is why " ccla " — the horrible, the 
 
 dreadful, the gruesome — " fait toujours passer une 
 
 heure ou deux " for your Guignolite. It satisfies his 
 
 curiosity about an experience which in real life it is 
 
 184
 
 GPAND GUIGNOLISM 
 
 rare or difficult to obtain. For instance, they liavc 
 been showing at the London Grand Guipnol a repre- 
 sentation of a criminal's last half-hour before execu- 
 tion. Time was when you could see that for your- 
 self, follow the prisoner in the cart to Tyburn, and 
 offer him nosegays or pots of beer. In that time, 
 enjoying the real thing, you wanted no mimic repre- 
 sentation of it. For stage purposes you only cared 
 to have it fantasticated — as in The Beggar's Opera. 
 To-day you cannot (unless you are a prison ofBcial 
 or the hangman himself) enjoy the real thing ; the 
 Press is excluded ; so you seek the next best thing, 
 a realistic stage picture of it. " Realistic," I say. 
 That is the merit of Mr. Reginald Berkeley's Eight 
 o'clock, wherein there is not a trace of stagincss or 
 imported sentiment. He gives you what you arc 
 looking for, the nearest substitute for the real thing. 
 You are shown, as accurately as j)ossibk', " what 
 it's like." You sec how the warders behave, and 
 how the chaplain and how the prisoner — with the 
 result that you feel as though, for that terrible half- 
 hour, you had been in Newgate yourself. You have 
 gone through an experience which in actual life (let 
 us hope) you will never have. Your curiosity has 
 been satisfied. 
 
 And I think realism will have to be the mainstay 
 of the Grand Guignol progranmics. There is an- 
 other " shocker " in the bill, Private lionm No. 6, by 
 a French author, M. de Lorde, which seemed to me 
 not half so effective as the other because it was 
 185
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 largely tinged witli romance. Here again was an 
 attempt to gratify eiiriosity about an unusual experi- 
 enee. The incident was distinctly " private and 
 confidential." How many of us have had the chance 
 of seeing a fiercely-whiskered Muscovite kissing and 
 biting a (conveniently dccoUctee) lady on the shoulder, 
 subsequently swallowing a tumberful of kummel at 
 a draught, and presently being strangled by the 
 lady's glove ? This, you may say, was realistic 
 enough, but what made it romantic, theatrical, was 
 the obviously artificial arrangement of the story, 
 the " preparations,' the conventional types. You 
 knew at once you were in the theatre and being 
 served with carefully calculated '* thrills." That is 
 to say, your curiosity was solely about what was 
 going to happen next in the playwright's scheme — 
 the common interest of every stage plot — which is a 
 very different thing from curiosity about strange, 
 rare, experiences in actual life. You felt that Mr. 
 Berkeley had really shown you " what it's like." 
 You felt that M. de Lorde had only shown you what 
 his skill in theatrical invention was like. 
 
 And there, I suspect, we reach a limitation of 
 Grand Guignolism. The art of drama at its best — 
 shall we call it grand art, as distinguished from 
 Grand Guignol art ? — docs not exist to gratify curio- 
 sity. The best drama does not provoke the spectator's 
 curiosity about what is going to happen so much as 
 excite in him a keen desire that a certain thing shall 
 happen and then satisfy that desire to the full. The 
 
 130
 
 GRAND GUIGNOLISM 
 
 Greek tragedians did not scruple to announce their 
 plot in advance. Lcssinf^, in his " Hani})nrp[ Drama- 
 turgy," maintains that " the dramatic interest is all 
 the stronger and keener the longer and more cer- 
 tainly we have been allowed to foresee everything." 
 and adds, " So far am I from holding that the end 
 ought to be hidden from the spectator that I don't 
 think the enterprise would be a task beyond my 
 strength were I to \mdertake a play of which the end 
 should be announced in advance, from the very first 
 scene." The truth is, in the fine art of drama we are 
 seeking what we seek in every fine art — beauty, a 
 new form and colouring to be given to the actions 
 and emotions of the real world by the artist's imagi- 
 nation. But even on the lower plane of realism 
 Grand Guignolism has ample scope. The one-act 
 formula has a clear technical advantage in the single 
 scene and strict coineidenee of sujiposed with actual 
 time, great helps both to imity of impression. (One 
 counted the minutes in Fight o'Clock almost as anxi- 
 ously as the condenmed man did.) And it has the 
 immense fun of theatrical experiment, of seeing how 
 far you can go, what shocks the jiublie can stand 
 and what it can't, the joy of adventurously explor- 
 ing the unknown and the inhlit. Above all, if it is 
 wise it will remember that (as I believe nt any rate) 
 its public does not yearn for the " shocking " inci- 
 dent merely as such, but as representing a rare 
 experience, and it will look for some rarities that 
 are not shocking. 
 
 1.'37
 
 A THEATRICAL FORECAST 
 
 Newspapers periodically publish their review of 
 the past theatrieal year. But it is always a sad 
 thing to recall the past, especially the immediate 
 past, which is too recent to be history and only old 
 enough to be stale. Why not, then, let bygones be 
 bygones and turn to the future, about which hope 
 springs eternal, and which gives free scope to the 
 imagination instead of imposing the tedious labour 
 of research ? What are our leading dramatists going 
 to give us next year ? The question might be 
 treated in a matter-of-fact way by just going and 
 asking them — and perhaps getting very disappoint- 
 ing answers. It seems more sportsmanlike to guess ; 
 besides, it leaves room for some piquant surprises 
 when one is by and by confronted >\ith the actual. 
 These, then, are one or two guesses for next season. 
 
 It is long, too long, since London had a play from 
 Sir Arthur Pinero. When he writes a play he gives 
 you a play, not a symposiimi or a sermon or a piece 
 of propagandism, but a dramatic action which 
 interests you in its story, makes you wonder what is 
 going to happen next, and takes care that something 
 does happen, striking at the moment and worth 
 
 188
 
 A THEATRICAL FORECAST 
 
 thinking about afterwards. His characters arc 
 presented in strong relief, there is always a dramatic 
 conflict of wills, his women arc never insipid, are 
 sometimes delieiously perverse, and, if not past 
 redemption (in which case they commit suicide), are 
 " saved " by the nearest Anglican bishop or dean. 
 His forthcoming play will ignore the Church and will 
 deal witii a household divided on the " spiritualistic " 
 question. The husband, who suffers from mild shell- 
 shock and saw the " angels of Mons," will have come 
 back from the war a devoted follower of Sir Oliver 
 Lodge and Sir Conan Doyle. The wife (Miss Irene 
 Vanbrugh) will be a pretty sceptic, adoring her 
 husband, but impatient of his credulity and deter- 
 mined to " laugh him out " of it. An opportunity 
 occurs. The young pair have been having a sar- 
 castic scene (a fine opportunity for Miss Irene's 
 merry ringing laugii) about the husband's bosom- 
 friend Jack, whom he had left for dead on the field 
 at Mons. The husband eagerly hopes to get into 
 communication with Jack " on the other side." 
 The wife only remembers, with twinges of conscience, 
 certain love passages she had, before her marriage, 
 with the said Jack, of which she has never told her 
 husband. Now Jack is not dead, but on his way to 
 his bosom-friend, when the wife meets him. She 
 sees at once a chance of oj)ening her husband's eyes. 
 " We'll have a stance," she says to Jack ; " you 
 shall pretend to l^ your own spirit, and then suddenly 
 reveal yourself as flesh and blood — and Tom will be 
 
 180
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 for ever cured of his foolishness." Jack agrees, but 
 he also is suffering from shell-shock (two in one play ! 
 you can imagine how clever the critics will be over 
 this — it will have to be made clear that it was the 
 same shell), forgets himself at the stance, and at 
 sight of his old lady-love cries " Darling ! " ; then, 
 horrified at his own misbehaviour, disappears, and 
 the same night is either run over by a motor-car or 
 tumbles into a canal. The wife's reputation is saved 
 by another lady present, who takes the " darling ! " 
 to herself. It is not yet settled whether this shall 
 be a comic amorous dame, really self-deceived (say, 
 Miss Lottie Venne), or a shrewd, kindly woman of the 
 world (Miss Compton, for choice), who promj;)tly sees 
 how the land lies and sacrifices herself for her little 
 married friend. In cither case, the wife has to keep 
 up the illusion that the voice came from " the other 
 side," while the husband, though confirmed in his 
 spiritualism, is secretly disgusted to discover tiiat the 
 spirits can be such " bad form." Thus the final 
 situation is an ironic transmutation of the first. The 
 divided pair are now united, the merry sceptic being 
 frightened into sinuilating belief, while the believer 
 ruefully finds belief without zest. Much will depend 
 on the acting of this final situation. Miss Irene may 
 safely be trusted to transfer her laugh adroitly to the 
 wrong side of her mouth, but great subtlety will be 
 required from the aetor wlio lias to convey the mixed 
 joy and pain of a belief j)roved at once true and not 
 worth having. It may, i)erha{)s, count among Mr. 
 
 140
 
 A THEATRICAL FORECAST 
 
 Henry Ainlcy's triumphs. Mr. Gerald du Maiirier 
 will play Jack the friend — another triumph, for even 
 in his moment of breakdown he will still keep the 
 sympathy of the audienee. 
 
 Sir James Barrie has not yet exhausted the varia- 
 tions on his " enchantment " theme. After the 
 enchanted wood of Dear Brutus, wlicre people get a 
 second chance in life, and the enchanted island of 
 Mary Rose, where time stands still with you, he will 
 with his next play sound enchanted bagpipes. 
 These will be heard as a weird obbligato, whenever 
 any one of the characters falls into insincerity, from 
 pp (amiable taradiddle) to ff (thumping lie), and, 
 while they are playing, the character will talk broad 
 Scotch and sketch the postures of or, in extreme 
 cases, wildly dance a Highland Reel. As the 
 characters will be drawn exclusively from the Holland 
 House set (the scene throughout will be one of the 
 famous breakfasts), the extravagance of the com- 
 pulsory fits of Caledonianism can be seen a mile off. 
 The dismay of the poet Rogers (Mr. George Robey, 
 specially engaged) at finding his best mechancetis, 
 in his notoriously low voice, unexpectedly uttered 
 in the broadest Scotch will only be equalled by the 
 surprise of Sydney Smith at hearing his choicest 
 witticisms in the same lingo. At one supreme 
 moment the whole party will be joining in a Reel, led 
 recalcitrantly but majestically by Liidy II. Fashion" 
 able dames (a great opportunity for the costumier, 
 and fabulous sums will be spent on the wardrobe) 
 
 141
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 will suddenly change from lisping " vastly amusing 
 I declare ! " and rolled-collared beaux from murmur- 
 ing " monstrous fine women, egad ! " to " aiblins," 
 " hoots, mon," " hceh, sirs," etc. The situation will 
 ultimately be saved by a little Scottish maiden, in a 
 plaid (Miss Hilda Trevelyan), who, being sincerity 
 itself, will never speak anything but the purest 
 Enghsh, and a baby in a box nailed against the wall, 
 who will not speak at all. For the enchanted bag- 
 pipes a squad of pipe-majors of the Black Watch, 
 splendid follows in review order, will be kindly lent 
 from the Edinburgh garrison. 
 
 Mr. Maugham has been to China, and has brought 
 back a play which will aim at being as unlike Mr. JVu 
 as possible. In fact, no Chinaman will figure in it — 
 Mr. Maugham would never do anything so artistically 
 vulgar as that — nor anything Chinese except a little 
 porcelain curio of the best period. This will be sold 
 by auction in a scene (it will be the talk of London) 
 faithfully reproducing a celebrated establishment in 
 King Street, St. James's, with Mr. Hawtrey and Miss 
 Gladj's Cooper as the rival bidders. It will serve, 
 later, for chief piece justificative in a divorce case 
 between the same parties (with a really witty judge 
 — for he will have the wit of Mr. Maugham — who will 
 make a certain actual humorist on the Bench green 
 with envy), and in the end will be broken by an 
 excited counsel (played by the famous crockery- 
 smashing artist from the music-halls). 
 
 Mr. Shaw — but no, it is impossible for Mr. Shaw 
 142
 
 A THEATRICAL FORECAST 
 
 himself, let alone any one else, to guess beforehand 
 what Mr. Shaw will do. Finally, it may be conjec- 
 tured that the rank and file of our playwrights will 
 ^\Tite for us precisely the same plays they have 
 written before, under new titles. It would be an 
 agreeable innovation if they would keep the old titles 
 and write new plays for them. 
 
 148
 
 A THEORY OF BRUNETIifcRE 
 
 There is a tlicory of the late Ferdinand Briinetidre 
 about the periods of dramatic aetivity wliich the 
 time we are now passing througli ought to put to the 
 test. Bruneti^re was an incorrigible generalizer, 
 first because he was a Frenchman, and next because 
 he was a born critic. Criticism without general 
 ideas, without a substructure of principle and theory 
 to build upon, is an idle thing, the mere expression 
 of likes and dislikes, or else sheer verbiage. This 
 French critic was always throwing theories at the 
 drama, and some of them have stuck. Perhaps the 
 soundest of them and the most lasting was his 
 theory of the drama as the spectacle of the struggle 
 of will against obstacles. There has been much 
 controversy about it, there has been no difficulty 
 in instancing cases which it fails to cover, but I 
 venture to think that as a rough generalization it 
 still holds good. I am not, however, concerned with 
 that famous theory for the moment. I am thinking 
 of another theory — a historical one. Bruneti<^re 
 asserted that every outburst of dramatic aetivity 
 in a nation will be found to iiave followed close upon 
 a great manifestation of national energy — Greek 
 144
 
 A THEORY OF BRUNETll^iRE 
 
 tragedy, for instance, after the Persian War, Calderon 
 and de Vega after the Spanish conquests in the 
 New World, Shakespeare after the Armada, the 
 French romantic drama after the Napoleonic cam- 
 paigns. He might have added that the war of 1870 
 was followed by the best work of Dumas fils, by the 
 Theatre Libre, by Ibsen and Bjornson, Hau]:>tmann 
 and Sudermann, and the Russo-Japanese War by 
 the Moscow Art Theatre and Tchekhov. 
 
 I confess, then, my doubts about the soundness 
 of this theory. Throughout the past history of any 
 nation wars have been of so constant occurrence that 
 it would be difficult not to find one preceding, by a 
 fairly short term, any particular outburst of dramatic 
 activity you like to fix upon. One is always post the 
 other ; it is not necessarily propter. And instances 
 to the contrary will readily occur : periods of dra- 
 matic activity that were not immediately preceded 
 by, but rather synchronized with, great manifesta- 
 tions of national energy ; for instance, the period of 
 Corncillc, Racine, and Moli^rc. And sometimes, 
 wiu'ii you look for your dramatic secpiel to your 
 national energizing, you only draw a lilank. Did 
 any outburst of dramatic production follow the 
 American Civil War ? The theory, in short, is " an 
 easy one," relying on lucky coineidc-nce and igiu)ring 
 inconvenient exceptions. 
 
 In any case, we ought to be able now, if ever, to 
 put it to the " acid test." Tlie leading nations of the 
 world have just fought the biggest of all their wars. 
 p.p. 1 45 L
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 Has the promised sequel followed ? Is there any sign 
 at home or abroad of a fresh outburst of dramatic 
 energy ? In Germany they seem to be merely 
 " carrying on," or tending to be a little more porno- 
 graphic than usual. In Vienna they are still trans- 
 lating Mr. Shaw. No new dramatic masterpiece is 
 reported from Italy, D'Annunzio being " otherwise 
 engaged," Mr. BofTui. Paris is still producing its 
 favourite little " spicincsses " or, for the high brows, 
 translating Strindbcrg. (Outside the theatre the effect 
 of the war on Paris seems not merely negative but 
 stupefying. They have achieved Dadaism and, so I 
 read in a recent Literary Supplement, a distaste for 
 the works of M. Anatole France !) In America the 
 drama is in no better case than before the war. 
 
 And what about London ? An absolutely imprece- 
 dented dearth of not merely good but of actable 
 plays. People will give you other causes, mainly 
 economic, for the theatrical " slump." They will 
 tell you, truly enough, that ])laygoers have less 
 money to spend, and that the cheaper " cinema " is 
 diverting more and more money from the theatre. 
 And yet, whenever the managers produce anything 
 really worth seeing there is no lack of })eople to see it. 
 There is nothing, then, to discourage the aspiring 
 dramatist. Only he won't aspire ! Or his aspiration 
 is not backed by talent ! It seems as though the 
 war, instead of stimulating dramatic energy, had 
 repressed and chilled it. What on earth (if I may use 
 a colloquialism condemned by Dr. Johnson) would 
 146
 
 A THEORY OF BRUNETIERE 
 
 poor M. liruneti^re have said if he had hvcd to see 
 his pet theory thus falsified ? Probably he would 
 have invented a new one. He would have said that 
 wars mustn't be too big to fit into a law devised only 
 for usual sizes. Also he might have said, wait and 
 see. The war is only just over ; give your young 
 dramatists a little breathing time. Shakespeare's 
 plays didn't immediately follow the Armada. The 
 French Romantic Drama didn't begin till a good 
 dozen years after Waterloo. 
 
 Well, we can't afford to wait. While we playgoers 
 are waiting for good plays, our young men are all 
 frittering away their talent in minor poetry, which 
 war seems to bring as relentlessly in its train as shell- 
 shock. But the victims of both maladies ought by 
 now to be on the high-road to recovery, and it is 
 time that the young minor poets turned their atten- 
 tion to something useful, e.g., the reintroduetion of 
 the British drama. They have a cai)ital opportunity, 
 since most of our old stalwarts seem to have left the 
 field. Sir Arthur Pinero gives us nothing. !\rr. 
 Art Jnir Henry Jones gives us nothing. Mr. Maugham 
 is, I am told, far away in Borneo, so now is the chance 
 for the young aspirants ; the world is all before them 
 where to choose. Of course it is understood that tluy 
 will drop their verse. That used to be the natural 
 form for plays over two centuries ago. It may come 
 into fashion again, you never can tell, but, quite 
 clearly, the time is not yet. I have heard peoph* ask, 
 " What are the chances for a revival of poetic 
 
 117 Li
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 drama ? " They really mean verse-drama, but the 
 answer is, that the essence of poetry is not verse, 
 which is merely ornament, but the expression of a 
 certain spiritual state, a certain eiat d'ame, and that 
 there is always room for poetic plays. Dear Brutus 
 contained much of the poetic essence ; so docs Mary 
 Rose. But their language is prose, and our young 
 aspirants may be recommended to write in prose, for 
 which their previous verse-exercises will have been 
 a useful preparation. Only let them hurry up ! Let 
 their hearts swell with the proud hope of creating 
 that magnificent affair, which demands capital 
 letters, the Drama of the Future. Mr. Bergson told 
 us at Oxford that when an interviewer invited him 
 to forecast the drama of the future he answered, 
 " If I could do that I'd write it." So we can only 
 wonder what it will be like. " Sir," said Dr. Johnson 
 to Boswcll who was " wondering," " you may 
 wonder." 
 
 148
 
 DISRAELI AND THE PLAY 
 
 We have all been reading Mr. Buckle's concluding 
 volumes, and when we have recovered from the 
 fascination of the great man and the splendid 
 historical pageant they present to us, we dip into 
 them again in search of trifles agreeable to our own 
 individual taste. And I shall make no apology for 
 turning for a moment from Disraeli in robes of 
 ceremony, the friend of Sovereigns, the hero of 
 Congresses, the great statesman and great Parliament 
 man, to Disraeli the playgoer. That dazzling figure 
 is not readily thought of as a unit in the common 
 playhouse crowd. Yet it is with a feeling of relief 
 from the im[)osing spectacle of great numdane 
 affairs that you find Disraeli, after receiving in the 
 afternoon the '' awful news " of the Russian ultima- 
 tum to Turkey (October, 1876), going in the evening 
 with his Stafford House hosts to sec Peril at the 
 Haymarket, and pleased with the acting of Mrs. 
 Kendal. The play, he tells his correspondent, Lady 
 Bradford, is — 
 
 " An adaptation from the French Xus Intimes — 
 not over-moral, but fairly transmogrified from the 
 original, and cleverly acted in the chief part — a 
 
 149
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 woman whom, I doubt not, you, an Jiabituce of the 
 drama, know very well, but quite new to me. Now 
 she is married, but she was a sister of Robertson, the 
 playwright. She had evidently studied in the French 
 sehool. The whole was good and the theatre was 
 ventilated ; so I did not feel exhausted, and was 
 rather amused, and slid, rather have enjoyed myself 
 had not the bad news thrown its dark shadow over 
 one's haunted eonseiousness. . . ." 
 
 Mrs. Kendal's training was, I fancy, entirely 
 English, but her acting was on a level with the best 
 of " the French sehool." Disraeli was an old 
 admirer of French acting, as we know from 
 " Coningsby,"' and I think it is pretty clear from 
 the same source that he particularly liked Dejazet. 
 For he had Dejazet in mind, I guess, in tiic member 
 of Villebccque's troop of French comedians engaged 
 for the delectation of Lord Monmouth, " a lady of 
 maturcr years who performed the heroines, gay and 
 graceful as May." This was the lady, it will be 
 remembered, who saved the situation when Mile. 
 Flora broke down. " The failure of Flora had given 
 fresh animation to her perpetual liveliness. She 
 seemed the very soul of elegant frolic. In the last 
 scene she figured in male attire ; and in air, fashion, 
 and youth beat Vilkbtcciue out of tiie field. She 
 looked younger than Coningsby when he went up 
 to his grandpapa." This is Dejazet to the life. 
 The whole episode of the French players in " Conings- 
 by " shows Disraeli as not only an experienced 
 
 150
 
 DISRAELI AND THE PLAY 
 
 playgoer but a connoisseur of the theatre. His de- 
 scription of tlic company is dcliciously knowing — 
 from the young lady wlio played old woman's parts, 
 " nothing could be more garrulous and venerable," 
 and the old man who " was rather hard, but handy ; 
 could take anything either in tlic higii serious or the 
 low droll," to the sentimental lover who " was 
 rather too much bewiggcd, and spoke too much to 
 the audience, a fault rare with the French ; but this 
 hero had a vague idea that he was ultimately 
 destined to run off with a princess." 
 
 In " Tancred " there is another, and an entirely 
 charming, glimpse of French strolling players or 
 strollers who played in French, the Baroni family — 
 " Baroni ; that is, the son of Aaron ; the name of 
 old clothesmen in London, and of Caliphs in Bagli- 
 dad." There is no more engaging incident in the 
 romantic career of Sidonia than his encounter with 
 this family in a little Fiandirs town. They played 
 in a barn, to which Sidonia had taken care that all 
 the little boys should be admitted free, and Mile. 
 Josepliine advanced warmly cheered by the specta- 
 tors, " wlio thought they were going to have some 
 more tumbling.' It was Racine's "" Andromaque," 
 however, that she presented, and " it seemed to 
 Sidonia that he had never listened to a voice more 
 rich and passionate, to an elocution more complete ; 
 he gazed with admiration on her lightning glance 
 and all the tunuill of iier noble brow.* Sidonia 
 played fairy godmother to the whole family, and 
 
 151
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 " Mile. Josephine is at this moment [1849] the glory 
 of the French stage ; Avithout any question the most 
 adnnrable tragic actress since Clairon, and inferior 
 not even to her." If for Josephine we read Rachel, 
 we shall not be far ^\Tong. 
 
 Anyhow, it is evident that, when Disraeli thought 
 Mrs. Kendal must have studied in the French school, 
 he was paying her the highest compliment at his 
 disposal. It is disappointing that we have no 
 criticism from Disraeli of Sarah Bernhardt. Matthew 
 Arnold said that Sarah left off where Rachel began. 
 Disraeli says nothing, which is perhaps significant, 
 for he did see Sarah. He was first asked to see her 
 play at a partj" at Lord Dudley's, but declined, as 
 he " could not forgo country air." A few weeks 
 later, however, he was at the Wiltons', where " the 
 principal saloon, turned into a charming theatre, 
 received the world to witness the heroine of the hour, 
 Sarah Bernhardt." And that is all. A playgoer 
 of seventy-five is hardly disposed to take up with 
 new favourites — which accounts, perhaps, for Dis- 
 raeli's verdict on Irving. " I liked the Corsican 
 Brothers as a melodrama," he writes to Lady Brad- 
 ford (November, 1880), " and never saw anything 
 put cleverer on the stage. Irving whom I saw for 
 the first time, is third-rate, and never will improve, 
 but good eno' for the part he played, tho' he con- 
 tinually reminded me of Lord Dudley. . . ." Why 
 " though " ? 
 
 On another popular favourite he was even harder. 
 152
 
 DISRAELI AND THE PLAY 
 
 Writing again to Lady Bradford, he says : — " Except 
 at Wycombe Fair, in my youth, I have never seen 
 anything so bad as Pinafore. It was not even a 
 burlesque, a sort of provincial Black-eyed Susan. 
 Princess Mary's face spoke vohimcs of disgust and 
 disappointment, but who cd. have told her to go 
 there ? " Staying later at Hatfield, however, he 
 found all the Cecil youngsters singing the Pinafore 
 music. A few years earlier he tells Lady Bradford 
 a story he had just heard from a friend of a visit 
 paid by a distinguished Opposition party to The 
 Heir at Law at the old Hay market. " Into one of 
 the stalls came Ld. Granville ; then in a little time, 
 Gladstone ; then, at last, Harty -Tarty ! Gladstone 
 laughed very much at the performance ; IL-T. never 
 even smiled. 3 conspirators. ..." Another 
 remarkable trio figures in another story. Disraeli 
 had been to the Aquarium to see a famous ape and 
 the lady who used to be shot out of a cannon. 
 " Chaffed " (if the word is not improper) about this 
 by the Queen at the Royal dinner table, Disraeli 
 said, " There were three sights, madam ; Zazcl, 
 Pongo, and myself." 
 
 It will be seen that there are few records of Dis- 
 raeli's playgoing or show-going in his old age. 
 Gladstone, we know, was to the last a frequent 
 playgoer — and, I believe, an enthusiastic admirer 
 of Irving. Disraeli, I take it, had become ratlier 
 the book-lover tluin the playgoer. Tiie humblest 
 of us may share that taste with the great man, and 
 
 153
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 even take refuge in his illustrious example for the 
 habit, denounced by the austere, of reading over 
 solitary meals. Mr. Bueklc tells us that " over his 
 solitary and simple dinner he would read one of his 
 favourite authors, mostly classics of cither Latin, 
 Italian Renaissance, or English eighteenth century 
 literature, pausing for ten minutes between each 
 course." That passage will endear Disraeli to many 
 of us, simple, home-keeping people, unacquainted 
 with Courts and Parliaments, who feel, perhaps, a 
 little bewildered amid the processional " drums and 
 tramplings " and the gorgeous triumphs of his public 
 career. 
 
 I6i
 
 HENRY JAMES AND THE THEATRE 
 
 Are not the friends of Henry James inclined to 
 be a little too solemn when they write about him, 
 perhaps feeling that they must rise to the oeeasion 
 and i)iit on their best style, as though he had his 
 eye on them and would be " down " on any lapses ? 
 An admirable reviewer of the Letters in the Literary 
 Supplement seemed, indeed, so overcome by his 
 subject as to have fallen into one of Henry James's 
 least amiable mannerisms — his introduction of 
 elaborate " figures," relentlessly worked out and 
 at last lagging superlluous. And the editor of tiic 
 Letters, admirably, too, as he has done his work, 
 is just a little bleak, isn't he ? — wearing the grave 
 face of the historian and mindful never to become 
 familiar. " Thank Heaven ! "' one seems to hear 
 these \vritcrs saying to themselves ; " even he eoidd 
 never have called this vidgar." Such is the post- 
 humous inlhienee of the fastidious " master " ! 
 I daresay I am captious. One is never (jiiilc 
 satisfied with what one sees in j)riiit about pcoph- 
 one loved. One always thinks it is, at any rate, a 
 pleasing illusion — that one has ones own key to that 
 
 155
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 particular cipher, and to see the thing not merely 
 given away but authoritatively expounded in print 
 is rather a nuisance. Look at the number of fair 
 ladies to whom Henry James wrote letters rich in inti- 
 mate charm (oh ! and, as he would have said, of a 
 decorum !) — ])erhaps each of them thouglit she had 
 the best corner of his heart. The most immaculate 
 of women, young and old, matrons and maidens, rvill 
 sentimentalize their men friends in this way. How 
 could Henry James have escaped ? Well, if any one 
 of these ladies had edited the Letters or reviewed 
 them, wouldn't each of the others have said : " No, 
 that isn't my Henry James — sJie never understood 
 him, poor dear " ? I apologize for this fli})pant way 
 of putting it to the two refined writers I began by 
 mentioning. But, as the lady says in 'The Spoils of 
 Poynton, " I'm quite coarse, thank God ! '' 
 
 Henry James, imfortunately for his theatrical 
 ambitions, never was. You must not only be coarse 
 in grain, but tough in hide, for success in the theatre. 
 Everybody knows that Henry James achie\'ed only 
 failure there, cither crushing failure amid hootings 
 and yells, as with Guy Domville, or that very signifi- 
 cant failure which is called a success of " esteem," 
 as with his stage versions of Tlie American and 
 Covering End. But not everybody knows how he 
 positively yearned for the big pojiular success, and 
 for that biggest, loudest, most brazen-trumpeted of 
 successes, success in the theatre. He talks in his 
 letters as though he actually needed the money, 
 156
 
 HENRY JAMES AND THEATRE 
 
 but it was really not so. He looked round the world 
 and found it teeming with " best sellers," idols of 
 the multitude, who by any standards of his simply 
 couldn't " \vrite," didn't artistically " exist." And 
 the most pathetic thing in his letters is their evidence 
 that he began, aye ! and went on, with the illusion 
 that he, such as he was, the absolute artist, might 
 some day become a " best seller." Even so late as 
 the days of his Collected Edition it came as a shock 
 to him that the great public wouldn't buy. 
 
 It is evident that he had good hopes, beforehand, 
 of Guy Domville. And yet he hated the actual 
 process of production. The rehearsal, he says, is 
 " as amazing as anything can be, for a man of 
 taste and sensibility, in the odious process of practical 
 dramatic production. I may have been meant for 
 the Drama — God knows ! — btit I certainly wasn't 
 meant for the Theatre." And when dire failure 
 came, it wasn't, he says, from any defect of tech- 
 nique. " I have worked like a horse — far harder 
 than any one will ever know — over the whole stiff 
 mysterj' of ' technique ' — I have run it to earth, and 
 I don't in the least hesitate to say that, for the 
 comparatively poor and meagre, the pitcously 
 simjilificd purposes of the English stage, I have made 
 it absolutely my own, put it into my pocket." No, 
 the fault must be in his choice of subject. " Tiie 
 question of realizing how different is the attitude of 
 the tlieatre-goer toward the (juaiity of things wliich 
 might be a story in a hook from his attitude toward 
 167
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 the quality of tiling that is given to him as a story 
 in a play is another matter altogether. That 
 difticnlty is portentous, for any writer who doesn't 
 ui)proach it naively, as only a very limited and 
 simple-minded writer can. One has to 7nake 
 oneself so limited and simple to conceive a subject, 
 see a subject, simply enough, and that, in a nutshell, 
 is where I have stumbled.'' " And yet." he adds, 
 pathetically enough (writing to his brother), " if 
 you were to have seen my play ! " He knew he had 
 done good work, in his own way, and the plain fact 
 that his way was a way whieh the gross theatre 
 public would not understand or sympathize with 
 was a terrible blow to him. 
 
 The process of turning himself into a simple- 
 minded writer — that is, of making a sow's ear out 
 of a silk purse, was, of course, impossible. One 
 doesn't want to wallow in the obvious. But doesn't 
 it leap at the eyes that an artist who seeks to abandon 
 his own temperament and point of view for another's 
 will forfeit all chance of tiiat spontaneous joy without 
 which there is no artistic creation ? Fortunately, 
 this theatrical malady of Henry James's (though he 
 had one or two recurrent twinges of it) never became 
 chronic. The history of his real work is a history 
 not of self-renunciation, but of self-development, of 
 abounding, as the French say, in his own sense. 
 As to the theatrical teehnicpie whieh he had put into 
 his pocket he certainly kept it there. Like most 
 laboriously acquired, alien techniques it was too 
 158
 
 HENRY JAMES AND THEATRE 
 
 technical, too '* architectooralooral " — as any one 
 can see who dips into his two forgotten volumes of 
 " Theatricals." His own proper technique was a 
 very different thing, an entirely individual thing, 
 and no reader of his books can have failed to notice 
 how he gradually perfected it as he went along. It 
 reached its highest point, to my thinking, in The 
 Ambassador fi, surely the greatest of his books 
 (though over this question the fierce tribe of Jacobites 
 will fight to their last gasp), when everything, 
 absolutely everything, is shown as seen through the 
 eyes of Strethcr. To see a thing so " done " as he 
 would have said, an artistic difhculty so triumphantly 
 mastered, is among the rarest and most exquisite 
 pleasures of life. That was Henry James's function, 
 to give us rare and exquisite pleasures, of a quality 
 never to be had in the modern theatre. He was no 
 theatrical man, but he could, when he chose, be the 
 most delicate of dramatic critics. Read what he 
 says in these Letters about Rostand's L\liglon 
 (" the man really has talent like an attack of small- 
 pox "), about Bernstein's Lc Secret as a *' case," 
 about Ibsen, '' bottomlessly bourgeois . . . and yet 
 of his art he's a master — and I feel in him, to the 
 pitch of almost intolerable boredom, tlie j)resencc 
 and the insistence of life." 
 
 159
 
 THEATRICAL AMORISM 
 
 " The stage is more beholding to love than the 
 life of man. For as to the stage, love is ever matter 
 of comedies, and now and then of tragedies ; but in 
 life, it doth much mischief ; sometimes like a siren ; 
 sometimes like a fury." It is one of the few things 
 the general reader is able to quote from Bacon, who 
 goes on to make some pointed remarks about love 
 in life, but drops all reference to love on the stage, 
 which he would hardly have done had he been 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 But the converse question, how far love is " be- 
 holding " to the stage — what treatment it has 
 received there, what justice the stage has done to 
 it — is certainly not without interest. Life is not 
 long enough to deal with the whole question, rang- 
 ing through the ages, but it may be worth while to 
 consider for a moment what our contemporary Eng- 
 lish stage is doing with the theme. Are our play- 
 wrights addressing themselves to it with sincerity, 
 with veracity, with real insight ? Or are they just 
 " muddling through " with it, repeating familiar 
 commonplaces about it, not troubling themselves 
 " to see the thing as it really is " ? These questions 
 160
 
 THEATRICAL AMORISM 
 
 have occurred to me in thinking over Mr. Arnold 
 Bennett's Sacred and Profane Love. Thinking' it 
 over ! interrupts the ingenuous reader ; but have 
 you not already reviewed it ? So it may be well to 
 explain that one " notices " a play and then thinks 
 it over. True, one's " notice "" — the virtually instan- 
 taneous record of one's first im])ressions — sometimes 
 wears a specious appearance of thought. But that 
 is one of the wicked deceptions of journalism, 
 mainly designed to appease eager people of the sort 
 who rush up to you the moment the curtain is down 
 on the First Act to ask : "" Well, what do you think 
 of it ? ■' In reality, as the wil}' reader knows, it is 
 at best only thought in the making, a casting about 
 for thought. Not until you have read it yourself 
 next morning can you begin (if you ever do begin) 
 to think. So, as I say, I have been thinking over 
 Mr. Bennett's Sacred and Profane Love. 
 
 It is not what used to be called a " well-made " 
 play. Its main interest is not cumulative, but is 
 suspended for a whole act and, at its most critical 
 |)()int, relegated to an inter-act. In Act I. tin: yoimg 
 Carlotta gives herself to Diaz. In Act II. (seven 
 years later) Diaz has dropped clean out. Carlotta, 
 now a famous novelist, is in love with somebody else 
 and shows herself strong enough to renounce her 
 love. Act III. resumes the Carlotta-Dia/ story. He 
 has become an abject mor|)hiiK)maiiiae ; she li<roir- 
 ally devotes lurself, body and soul, to the ttrriblc 
 t;isk of rccliiiniing liiin. liclucni Ads III. .nul IV. 
 
 p.p. 161 M
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 (fourteen months) this terrible task is accompHshcd. 
 Wc have to take it on trust, a rather " large order." 
 Aet IV. ends the Carlotta-Diaz story in marriage. 
 Obviously it is not a well-told story. It has a long 
 digression, and the speetator's attention is misled ; 
 it assumes a miracle behind the scenes, and the 
 spectator's credulity is over-taxed. Act II. is a play 
 within a play ; how Carlotta nearly ran away with 
 her publisher. In Aet IV. you cannot accept the 
 alleged recovery of the morphinomaniac, you expect 
 him to " break out " again at any moment. Of 
 course, the story being what it is, there was no help 
 for it. Years of rising to fame as a novelist, months 
 of struggling with a drug victim, cannot be shown 
 on the stage. Only, WTitcrs of well-made plays do 
 not choose such stories. 
 
 But is this treating the play fairly ? Is it just a 
 story, the story of Carlotta and Diaz ? Suppose we 
 look at it in another way, suppose we consider it as 
 a study of modern love, or, more particularly, of the 
 modern woman in love. Then the play at once 
 looks much more shipshape. It is the education 
 sentimcnialc of Carlotta. The second aet ceases to 
 be episodical ; it is one of the stages in Carlotta's 
 " love-hfe " (as Ibsen's Ella Renthcim calls it). The 
 miracle of Diaz's reclamation between the acts 
 ceases to worry us ; it only prepares another stage 
 in Carlotta's love-life. And, from this point of view, 
 I think Mr. Bennett has achieved something much 
 better than the construction of a well-made play. 
 162
 
 THEATRICAL A M O R I S M 
 
 He has given us, in his downriglit matter-of-fact 
 
 way, a close study of modern love in the case of a 
 
 woman made for love, living for it, able to dominate 
 
 it and to turn it to heroic purpose. She starts her 
 
 career of love by " giving herself " to a man who is 
 
 almost a stranger. I suppose tliis is considered a 
 
 " bold " scene. But it is, evidently, there from no 
 
 cheap purpose of " audacity," it is no calculated 
 
 fling at the proprieties. Mr. Bennett — it is his way 
 
 — indifferently dejiicts human nature as he sees it, 
 
 and the girl's " fall " is natural enough. In a milieu 
 
 of prosaic provincialism (if one may venture so to 
 
 qualify the Five Towns) she is thrown into contact 
 
 with a romantic figure from the great world, a 
 
 famous pianist who has just enraptured her with 
 
 his music, the embodiment of all her artistic ideals. 
 
 She is of an amorous temperament (and since Mr. 
 
 Bennett is undertaking a study of love, it would be 
 
 no use choosing an ascetic heroine). The inevitable 
 
 happens. When next seen, she has not seen or heard 
 
 of the man for years since their one meeting. They 
 
 have been years of strenuous labour, and she is a 
 
 successful novelist. But she has not parted with 
 
 her temperament, and she falls in love with, so to 
 
 speak, the nearest man. lie seems a poor creature 
 
 for so superior a woman to choose — but such a choice 
 
 is one of the conmionplaces of life. \Vlien she 
 
 realizes the misery she is causing to I lie man's wife 
 
 she promptly renoimces him. (The wife has a little 
 
 past love-history of her own — Mr. Bemutt neglects 
 
 168 Ma
 
 PA STIC UK AM) rUKJl'DICK 
 
 no facet of liis subject.) Then Carlotta hears of Diaz 
 and his niorphinoniania, conceives forthwith her 
 lieroic project of reseuinjr him, takes uj) her lot with 
 him again, and pulls him through. When he is him- 
 self again, he reveals the egoism of the absolute 
 artist. Carlotta must not accompany him to the 
 concert, because she would make him nervous. She 
 obeys, and is left in an agony of suspense at home. 
 When tiie concert has ended in triumph, he nnist be 
 off (without his wife) to an influential patron's 
 party. She acquiesces again, not without tears. 
 The men she loves arc not worthy of her ; but she 
 must love them, she was made for love. There is 
 talk of marriage at the end. It seems an anti- 
 climax. 
 
 I find that I have been discussing Mr. Bennett's 
 play instead of the general question into which I 
 proposed to inquire — the treatment of love by our 
 dramatists of to-day. It looks, I fear, like the fami- 
 liar device of a reviewer for running away from his 
 subject — " imfortunately, our space will not permit, 
 &c. ' — always very usefid when the subject is getting 
 ticklish. IJiit the fact that I have had to dwell on 
 Mr. Bennett's case rather shows how rare that case 
 is with us. The general treatment of love on our 
 ktagc is, it seems to me, inadeipiate. Either it is a 
 mere ficelle, an expedient for a plot, or it is apt to be 
 conventional, second-hand, unobserved. We want 
 fresh, jmtient, and fearless studies of it on our stage. 
 I am not asking for calculated " audacity "' or 
 164
 
 THEATRICAL AM ORIS M 
 
 salacity (there lias never been any dearth of that), 
 but for veraeity. Though the siibjeet is the oldest 
 in the world, it is always becoming new. There are 
 subtleties, fine shades, in our modern love that can- 
 not have been known to the Victorians ; yet most 
 of our stage-love to-day remains placidly Victorian. 
 Was it Rochefoucauld or Chamfort who spoke of the 
 many people who would never fall in love if they 
 hadn't heard it talked about ? But think how we 
 of to-day have all heard it talked about, what books 
 we have read about it ! The old passion has put on 
 a new consciousness, and calls for a new stage-treat- 
 ment. Where is our Donnay or our Porto-Riche ? 
 They, perhaps, pursue their inquiries a little farther 
 than would suit our British delicacy ; but our play- 
 WTights might at least take a leaf out of their book 
 in the matter of veracity, instead of mechanically 
 repeating the old commonplaces. 
 
 H)>
 
 H. B. IRVING 
 
 There is a commonplace about the evanescent 
 glory of actors that will hardly bear close scrutiny. 
 It is said that, as they live more intensely than other 
 men, enjoying their reward on the spot, so they die 
 more completely, and leave behind nothing but a 
 name. Even so, are they worse off than the famous 
 authors whom nobody ever reads ? Or than the 
 famous painters whose works have disappeared ? 
 Which is the more live figure for us to-day, John 
 Kemble, who played in the Iron Chest, or William 
 Godwin, who wrote the original story ? Is Zeuxis 
 or Apelles anything more than a name ? It is said 
 that whereas other artists survive in their work, the 
 actor's dies with him. But we make of every work 
 of art a palimpsest, and it is for us what we ourselves 
 have written over its original text — so that the artist 
 only lives vicariously, through our own life — while 
 the dead actor's work stands inviolate, out of our 
 reach, a final thing. Lamb says of Dodd's Ague- 
 cheek, *' a part of his forehead would catch a little 
 intelligence, and be a long time in comnuuiicating 
 it to the remainder." Nothing can alter that 
 torchcad now ; but if Dodd could have left it behind 
 16G
 
 II. B. IRVING 
 
 him, we should be all agog to revise the verdict. So 
 Mrs. Siddons was famous for her oraceful manner 
 of dismissing the guests at Maebcth's banquet. 
 Nothing ean impair that graee now ; could it have 
 been handed down, we should be having two opinions 
 about it. Dead actors, then, live again in the pages 
 that commemorate them, and they live more securely 
 than the artists whose works survive. They are no 
 longer the sport of opinion. 
 
 But this is only casuistry, the vain effort to seek 
 consolation for the death of a friend. I am not 
 speaking of a boon companion, but of something 
 much better, of that ideal, disinterested friend which 
 every actor is for us on the stage, giving us his mind 
 and heart and temperament and physical being, 
 immolating his very self for us, and at the end (I 
 can see Henry Irving the elder standing before the 
 curtain as he uttered the words) our " obliged, 
 respectful, loving servant." This is pure friendsiiiji, 
 purer than any private intimacy, with its inevitable 
 contacts and reserves of different egoisms. AVhy does 
 my mind go back to the elder Irving ? Because I 
 am thinking of his son Harry, who was so like him 
 (too like him, it was a perpetual handieaj)), and 
 never more like him than in that pride which does 
 not ape humihty but feels it — the pride of the artist 
 in his art and the humility of the devotee in the 
 temj)lc of art. Indeed, I tiiink Il.irry Irving had an 
 almost superstitious reverence for his profession. He 
 had it perhaps not merely because he was his fathers 
 
 1G7
 
 PASTICHE AM) I'UEJUDKE 
 
 soil, but also because lie was his fatlier's son with a 
 difference, an academic difference ; Jic was one of a 
 little band of Oxford men whose adoption of the 
 stage was, in those days, a breach with orthodox 
 Oxford tradition. All that, I daresay, is altered now. 
 In an Oxford which has widened Magdalen Bridge 
 and built itself new Schools anything is possible, 
 liut in those days undergraduates were not habitually 
 qualifying for the stage ; indeed, the old " Vie " in 
 term-time was out of bounds. The old " Vic " had 
 only just disapiK'arod when I went up to see young 
 Irving as Dceius lirutus in Julius Ccesar, and H. B. 
 was still very much an undergraduate. Heavens ! 
 the pink and green sweets we ate at supper not far 
 from Tom Tower after the show — the sweets that 
 only undergraduates can cat ! If I remember the 
 sweets better than the Deeius Brutus, it will be 
 indulgent to infer that Harry Ir\ing's debut was not 
 of the most remarkable. But his reverence for the 
 histrionic art was, even tlien. I teazed him (youthful 
 critics have a crude appetite for controversy) by 
 starting an assault, entirely theoretical and Pick- 
 wickian, on that reverential attitude ; we beat over 
 the ground from Plato to Bossuet ; and I think it 
 took him some time to forgive me. 
 
 In his earlier years on the stage he was a little stiff 
 and formal — characteristics which were not at all 
 to his disadvantage in the young prig of The Princess 
 and the Bulterjhj and the solemn young man-about- 
 town of Letty (though the smart l^ond Street suit 
 
 IGS
 
 II. B. IRVING 
 
 and patent leatlier .shoes ul' the niaii-about-town 
 were obviously a sore trial to a boy who, from his 
 earliest years, dressed after his father). I imagine 
 his Criehton (1902) was his first real success in Lon- 
 don, and an admirable Criehton it was, standing out, 
 as the play demanded, with that \igour and stamj) of 
 personal domination which he had inherited from 
 his father. His Hamlet, though his most important, 
 was hardly his best part. It was too cerebral. J>ut 
 is not Hamlet, some one will ask, the very prince of 
 cerebrals ? Yes, but Hamlet has grace as well as 
 thought, sweetness as well as light. Harry Irving's 
 Hamlet (of 1905, he softened mucii in the later 
 revival) was a little didactic, almost donnish. He 
 hardened the hardness of Hamlet — particularly his 
 hardness to women, Ophelia and Gertrude, which 
 we need not be sickly sentimentalists to dislike seeing 
 emphasized. In a word he was impressive rather 
 than charming — was perhaps almost harsh after the 
 conspicuously charming Hamlet of Forbes-Robert- 
 son. Nevertheless, if Harry Irving's Hamlet was 
 second to Forbes-Robertson's, it was a very good 
 second. 
 
 He had his father's rather Mephistophelean 
 humour — but I am annoyed to find myself always 
 harping on his father. It is a tiresome obsession. 
 None suffered from it more than the son himself, at 
 once hero and martyr f)f filial piety. Hi- invited 
 coniparison, playing as many as jjossible of his 
 fatlur's old parts, all ragged and threadbare as they 
 100
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 had become. But he lacked the quahty which 
 originally saved them, the romantic flamboyant 
 baroque quality of his father's genius. Sir Henry 
 impressed himself upon his time by sheer force of 
 individuality and by what Byron calls " magnopcra- 
 tion." He was a great manager as well as a great 
 actor, doing everything on a gigantic scale and in the 
 grand style. He was a splendid figure of romance, 
 off as well as on the stage. It was hopeless to pro- 
 voke comparison with such a being as this. Though 
 the son showed the family likeness he was naturally 
 a reasonable man, a scholar, a man of discursive 
 analytic mind rather than of the instinctive perfervid 
 histrionic temperament. It was always a pleasure 
 to swop ideas with him, to talk to him about the 
 principles of his art, the great criminals of history, 
 or the latest murder trial he had been attending at 
 the Old Bailey ; but I suspect (I never tried) con- 
 versation with his father, in Boswell's phrase, a 
 " tremendous companion," must have been a rather 
 overwhelming experience. . . . And, after all, the 
 wonderful thing is that the son stood the comparison 
 so well, that he was not utterly crushed by it — that 
 the successor of so exorbitant an arlist could main- 
 tain any orbit of his own. That is a curious corner 
 of our contemporary society the corner of the second 
 generation, where the son mentions " my father " 
 quickly, with a slight drop of the voice, out of a 
 courteous disinclination to let filial respect become a 
 bore to third parties. There is an academician of 
 
 170
 
 H. B. IRVIiNG 
 
 the second generation in Pailleron's play who is 
 always alluding to 7non illustre jpere, and as the ill- 
 natured say joue du cadavre. In our little English 
 corner there is never any such lapse from good taste, 
 Harry Irving was greatly loved there ; and will be 
 sadly missed. 
 
 171
 
 THE PUPPETS 
 
 At the corner of a Bloomsbury square I found 
 my path blocked by a Httlc crowd of children who 
 were watching a puppet show of an unusual kind. 
 The usual kind, of course, is Punch and Judy, which 
 has become a degenerate thing, with its puppets 
 gras])cd in the operator's hand ; these puppets were 
 wired, in the grand manner of the art, and had a 
 horse and cart, no less, for their transport. The 
 show, though lamentably poor in itself — the puppets 
 merely danced solemnly round and round without 
 any attempt at dramatic action — was rich in 
 suggestion. Do we not all keep a warm corner of 
 our hearts for the puppets, if only for their venerable 
 antiquity and their choice literary associations ? 
 Why, in the grave pages of the Literary SuppUment 
 learned arelucologists have lately been corresponding 
 about the Elizabethan " motions," and Sir William 
 Ilidgeway has traced the puppets back to the 
 Syracuse of Xenophon's day, and told us how that 
 author in his '' Symjjosium " makes a famous 
 Syracusan puppet player say that he esteems fools 
 above other men because they are those who go 
 to see his puppets {vn'poanmTTn). My own reeoUec- 
 172
 
 TlIK PUPPETS 
 
 tions connect Xcnophon with purasiungs rather than 
 puppets, but I am glad to be made aware of this 
 honourable pedigree, though I strongly resent the 
 Syracusan's remark about the amateurs of puppets. 
 I share the taste of Partridge, who " loved a puppet 
 show of all the pastimes uj)on earth,"' and I sympa- 
 thize with the showman in " Tom Jones ' who could 
 tolerate all religions save that of the Presbyterians, 
 " because they were enemies to jnippet shows." And 
 so I lingired with the children at the corner of the 
 liloomsbury s(}uare. 
 
 Puppets, someone has said, have this advantage 
 over actors : they are made for what they do, their 
 nature conforms exactly to their destiny. I have 
 seen them in Italy performing romantic drama with 
 a dash and a panaclie that no English actor in my 
 recollection (save, perhaps, the late Mr. Lewis 
 Waller) could rival. Actors, being men as well as 
 actors, and therefore condenuied to effort in acting, 
 if only the effort of keeping down tiuir consciousness 
 of their real, total self, cannot attain to this clear-cut 
 definiteness and purity of performance. Piit the 
 wire-puller nuist be a true artist, his finger-tips 
 responsive to every emotional tlirill of the character 
 and every nuance of the drama ; iiuketl, the ideal 
 wire-puller is the poet himself, exi^ressing himself 
 through the motions of his puppets and declaiming 
 his own words for them. 
 
 It was witli this thoughl in iii\ niiiui thai I 
 ventured, when Mr. Hardy (irst ])ublisli("<l The 
 178
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 Dynasts, to suj,'gest that the perfect performance of 
 
 that work would be as a ])upi)ct show, with Mr. 
 
 Hardy reading out his own blank verse. I pointed 
 
 out the suggestive reference to puppets in the text. 
 
 One of the Spirits describes the human protagonists 
 
 as " mere marionettes," and elsewhere you read : — 
 
 Forgetting the Prime Mover of the gear 
 
 As puppet-watchers him who moves the strings. 
 
 Further, at the very core of Mr. Hardy's drama is 
 the idea that tliese Napoleons and Pitts and Nelsons 
 are puppets of the Immanent Will. If ever there 
 was a case for raising a puppet show to the highest 
 literary dignity, this was one. 
 
 But it was all in vain. Eitiier Mr. Hardy was 
 too modest to declaim his own verse in public, or 
 else the actors pushed in, as they will wherever they 
 can, and laid hands on as much of his work as they 
 could manage. And so vie had Mr. Granville 
 Barker's version early in the war and only the other 
 day the performance at Oxford, and I have nothing 
 to say against either, save that they were, and could 
 only be, extracts, episodes, fragments, instead of the 
 great epic-drama in its panoramic entirety. A 
 puppet show could embrace the whole, and one voice 
 declaiming the poem would to be sure not give the 
 necessary unity of impression — that singleness must 
 be first of all in the work itself — but would 
 incidentally emphasize it. 
 
 The ])tippet presentation would, however, do 
 inurh niorc tlian this. It would clarify, simplify, 
 174
 
 THE PUPPETS 
 
 attenuate the mcdiiiin through which the pocru 
 reaches the audience. The poet and his pubhe 
 would be in close contact. It is, of course, for many 
 minds, especially for those peculiarly susceptible to 
 poetry, a perpetual grievance against the actors that 
 these living, bustling, solid pcoi)lc get between them 
 and I he })oet and substitute fact, realism, flesh-and- 
 blood for what these minds prefer to embody only 
 in their imagination. There is the notorious instance 
 of Charles Lamb, with his objection to seeing 
 Shakespeare's tragedies acted. He complained that 
 the gay and witty Richard HI. was inevitably 
 materialized and vulgarized by the actor. Lamb, as 
 we all know, was capricious, and indeed made a 
 virtue of caprice, but what do you say to so serious 
 and weighty a critic as Professor Raleigh ? Talking 
 abotit tiie Siiakespearean boy-aetors of women, he 
 commits himself to this : — " It may be doubted 
 whether Shakesj)eare has not sufhrcd more than he 
 has gained by the genius of later-day actresses, who 
 bring into the plays a realism and a robust emotion 
 which sometimes obscure the sheer })oetie value of 
 the author's conception. Tiie boys were no doubt 
 very highly trained, and amenable to instruction ; 
 so that the parts of Rosalind and Desdemona may 
 well have been rendered witli a clarity and siniplieity 
 which served as a transparent medium for the 
 author's wit and pathos. Poetry, like religion, is 
 outraged when it is made a j)latform for the exhi- 
 bition of their own talent and passions by those who 
 
 17.5
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 arc its ministers. Witli tlit- disappearance oi" the 
 boy-players the })oetie drama died in Enghind, and 
 it has had no second hfe."' 
 
 A little " steep," is it not ? Logically it is an 
 objection to all acting of poetic drama. Boy- 
 players of girls are only a half-way house. The 
 transparent medium for the author's wit and pathos 
 would be still more transparent if it were merely the 
 medium of the ])rinted page. Now this much is 
 certain. Shakespeare conceived his plays, whatever 
 poetry or wit or pathos he put into them, in terms 
 of men and women (not boy-women). The ideal 
 ])erformanec of Shakespeare would be by the men 
 and women who grew in Shakespeare's imagination. 
 But they, unfortunately, do not exist in (lesh and 
 blood, but only in that imagination, and, to bring 
 them on the stage, you have to employ ready-made 
 men and women, who at the very best can only be 
 rough approximations to the imaginary figures. In 
 this sense it is not a paradox but a simple common- 
 place to say that no one has ever seen Shakespeare's 
 Hamlet on the stage, or ever will sec. And the 
 greater the '' genius " of the actor, the more potent 
 his personality — though he will be the darling of 
 the majority, thirsting for realism, the immediate 
 sense of life — the more will he get between the poet 
 and imaginative students like Lamb and Professor 
 Rideigh, who want their poetry inviolate. 
 
 This seems like a digression, but is really to my 
 purpose. Flesh-and-blood actors we sliall always 
 
 176
 
 THE PUPPETS 
 
 iuivc with us ; they will take good care of that 
 themselves. But for the imaginative souls who arc 
 for compromise, who are for halfway houses and 
 look back fondly to the boy-j^laycrs, I would say : 
 Why not try the puppets ? These also present a 
 " transparent medium " for the author's expression. 
 And, further, the purely " lyrical "' passages in which 
 Shakespeare abounds and which seem so odd in the 
 realism of the human actors {e.g., the Queen's 
 description of Ophelia's death) would gain immensely 
 by being recited by the jioet (or wire-puller). A 
 puppet-show Hamlet might be an exquisite experi- 
 ment in that highest art whose secret is suggestion. 
 
 177
 
 VICISSITUDES OF CLASSICS 
 
 Of Webster's Dtichess of Malfi, revived by the 
 Phoenix Society, I said that it was a hve classic no 
 longer, but a museum-classic, a curio for connois- 
 seurs. Its multiplication of violent deaths in the 
 last act (four men stabbed and one courtesan 
 poisoned) could no longer be taken seriously, and, in 
 fact, provoked a titter in the audience. This sudden 
 change of tragic into comic effect was fatal to that 
 iniity of impression without which not merely a 
 tragedy but any work of art ceases to be an organic 
 whole. The change was less the fault of Webster 
 than of the Time Spirit. Apparently the early 
 Jacobeans could accept a piled heap of corpses at the 
 end of a play without a smile, as " all wcrry capital." 
 Violent death was not so exceptional a thing in their 
 own experience as it is in ours. They had more 
 simplicity of mind than we have, a more childlike 
 docility in swallowing whole what the playwright 
 offered them. But Webster was not without fault. 
 One assassination treads so hastily upon the heels of 
 the other, the slaughter is so wholesale. Hamlet 
 closes with several violent deaths, yet Shakespeare 
 managed to avt>id this pell-mell wholesale effect. 
 178
 
 VICISSITUDES OF CLASSICS 
 
 But there is another element in Webster's work- 
 manship which, I think, has helped to deprive the 
 play of life. I mean his obtrusive ingenuity. I am 
 not referring to the ingenuity of the tortures prac- 
 tised upon the unhappy Duchess — the severed hand 
 thrust into hers, the wax figure purporting to be her 
 slain husband, and so forth. This fiendish ingenuity 
 is proper to the character of the tyrant Ferdinand, 
 and its exercise does add a grisly horror to the play. 
 I mean the ingenuity of Webster himself, a per- 
 verted, wasted ingenuity, in his play-construction. 
 He seems to have ransacked his fancy in devising 
 scenic experiments. There is the " echo " scene. It 
 is theatrically ineffective. It gives you no tragic 
 emotion, but only a sense of amused interest in the 
 author's ingenuity, and you say, "How quaint!" 
 Then there is the little device for giving a touch of 
 irony to the Cardinal's murder. He has warned the 
 courtiers, for purposes of his own, that if they hear 
 him cry for help in the night they are to take no 
 notice ; he will be only pretending. And so, when 
 he cries for help in real earnest, he is hoist with his 
 own petard, and the courtiers only cry, " Fie upon his 
 counterfeiting." Again the theatrical effect is small ; 
 you are merely distracted from tiie tragic business in 
 hand by the author's curious ingenuity. For any one 
 interested in the theatrical cwi.vi;je these experiments 
 of course, have their piquancy. Webster seems to 
 have been perpetually seeking for " new thrills " — 
 like the Grand (iuigmil peopK in our own day. He 
 
 179 N2
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 had some lucky finds. Tlic masque of madmen, lor 
 instance, is a tremendous thrill, one of the biggest, I 
 daresay, in the history of tragedy. But there were 
 exjuriments that didnt eonie off. 
 
 At any rate they fail with us. Webster, no doubt, 
 liad his true " posterity '' (was it iX'rchancc contem- 
 porary with Pepys ?), but we arc his post-posterity. 
 In a sense every masterpiece is in advance of its 
 time, " The reason," says Marcel Proust (*' A 
 I'ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs ") — 
 
 " The reason why a work of genius is admired 
 with difliculty at once is that the author is extra- 
 ordinary, that few people resemble him. It is his 
 work itself that in fertilizing the rare minds capable 
 of comprehending it makes them grow and nudtiply. 
 Beethoven's quartets (XII., XIII., XIV., and XV.) 
 have taken fifty }cars lo give birtii and growth to the 
 Beethoven quartet public, thus realizing like every 
 masterpiece a progress in the society of minds, 
 largely composed to-day of what was not to be found 
 when the masterpiece api)eared, that is to say, of 
 beings capable of loving it. What we call j)ostcrity 
 is the j)ostcrity of the work itself. The work must 
 create its own posterity.'' 
 
 Assuredly we of to-day can sec more in Hamlet 
 than its first audience could. But tiie curve of 
 " posterity " is really a zig-zag. Each generation 
 selects from a classic what suits it. Few of the 
 original colours arc '' fast " ; some fade, others grow 
 more vivid and then fade in their turn. The 
 ISO
 
 VICISSITUDES OF CLASSICS 
 
 Jacobean playgoer was impressed by Webster's 
 heaped corpses, and we titter. He probably revelled 
 in the mad scene of the " lycanthropic " Ferdinand, 
 where we are bored. (The taste for mad scenes was 
 long lived ; it lasted from the Elizabethans, on 
 through Betterton's time — see Valentine in Love for 
 Love — and Garrick's time, as we know from Bos- 
 well's anecdote about Irene, down to the moment 
 when Tilburina went mad in white satin.) On the 
 other hand, a scene which has possibly gained in 
 piquancy for us of to-day, the j)roud contemporaries 
 of Mr. Shaw, is that wherein the Duchess woos the 
 coy Antonio and weds him out of hand. When we 
 chance upon a thing like this in a classic we are apt, 
 fatuously enough, t(j exclaim, " IIow modern ! " 
 
 No one is likely to make that exclamation over 
 another classic of momentary revival, Le Malade 
 Imaginaxre. There is not a vestige of " modernity " 
 in Molieres play. It is absolutely j^rimitive. Or 
 rather it seems, in all essentials, to stand outside time, 
 to exhibit nothing of any consequence that " dates." 
 It has suffered no such mishap as has befallen 
 Webster's tragedy — a change of mental attitude in 
 the audience which has turned the author's desired 
 effect upside down. At no point at which Molidre 
 made a bid for our laughter arc we provoked, con- 
 trariwise, to frown. You cannot, by the way, say 
 this about all Moliere. Much, e.g., of th<^ fim in 
 George Datulin strikes a modern audience as uk rely 
 cruel. Bntli in Alccsic and Tarhiffc there lias been 
 
 181
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 a certain alteration of " values " in the progress of 
 the centuries. But Le Malade Imaginaire is un- 
 touched. We can enjoy it, I imagine, with precisely 
 the same delight as its first audience felt. Some 
 items of it, to be sure, were actual facts for them 
 which are only history for us ; the subservience of 
 children to parents, for instance, and (though Mr. 
 Shaw will not agree) the pedantic humbug of the 
 faculty. But the point is, that the things laughed 
 at, though they may have ceased to exist in fact, 
 are as ridiculous as ever. And note that our 
 laughter is not a whit affected by childisli absurdities 
 in the |)lot. Argan's little girl shams dead and he 
 immediately assumes she is dead. Argan shams 
 dead and neither his wife nor his elder daughter for 
 a moment questions the reality of his death. His 
 own serving-wench puts on a doctor's gown and he 
 is at once deceived by the disguise. These little 
 things do not matter in the least. We are willing 
 to go all lengths in make-believe so long as we get our 
 laughter. 
 
 Here, then, is a classic which seems to be outside 
 the general rule. It has not had to make, in M. 
 Proust's phrase, its own posterity. It has cscaj)ed 
 those vicissitudes of aj)})reciation which classics are 
 apt to suffer from changes in the general condition of 
 the public mind. . . . But stay ! If it has always 
 been greeted with the same abundance of laughter, 
 has the quality of that laughter been invariable ? 
 Clearly not, for Molidrc is at pains to apologize in his 
 
 182
 
 VICISSITUDES OF CLASSICS 
 
 play for seeming to laugh at the faculty, whereas, he 
 says, he has only in view " le ridicule dv la nicdeeine." 
 Between half-resentful, half-fearful laughter at a 
 Purgon or Diafoirus who may be at your bedside next 
 week and ligiit-hcartcd laughter at figures that have 
 become merely fantastic pantaloons there is consider- 
 able difference. And so we re-establish our general 
 rule. 
 
 188
 
 PERVERTED REPUTATIONS 
 
 Sir Henry Irving used to tell how he and Toole 
 had gone together to Stratford, and fallen into talk 
 with one of its inhabitants about his great towns- 
 man. After many cross-questions and crooked 
 answers, they arrived at the fact that the man knew 
 that Shakespeare had " ^\Titten for sunmiat." " For 
 what ? " they enquired. " Well," replied the man, 
 " I do think he wrote for the Bible." 
 
 This story illustrates a general law which one 
 might, perhaps, if one were inclined to pseudo- 
 scientific categories, call the law of perverted reputa- 
 tions. I am thinking more particidarly of literary 
 reputations, which are those I happen chiefly to 
 care about. And literary reputations j)robably get 
 perverted more fre(juently than others, for the simple 
 reason that literature always has been and (despite 
 the cheap manuals. Board schools, and the modern 
 improvements) still is an unfathomable mystery to 
 the outer busy world. But, to get perverted, the 
 rejjutations must be big enough to have reached the 
 cars of that outer world. What happens, thereafter, 
 seems to be something like this. The man in the 
 back street understands vaguely that so-and-so is 
 
 184
 
 P E R ^' E R T E D REPUTATIONS 
 
 esteemed a great man. Temperamentally and eul- 
 turally incapable of appreciating the works of 
 literary art, for which so-and-so is esteemed great, 
 the back-streeter is driven to account for his great- 
 ness to himself on grounds suitable to his owti com- 
 prehension, which grounds in the nature of the case 
 have nothing to do with the fine art of literature. 
 The general tendency is to place these grounds in 
 the region of the marvellous. For the capacity for 
 wonder is as universal as the capacity for literature 
 is strictly limited. 
 
 Thus you have the notorious instance of Virgil 
 figuring to the majority of men in the middle ages 
 not as a poet but as a magician. Appreciation of 
 his poetry was for the " happy few " ; by the rest 
 his reputation was too great to be ignored, so they 
 gave it a twist to accommodate it to the nature of 
 their own imaginations. In more recent times, 
 indeed in our own day, there is the ecpially notorious 
 instance of Shakespeare. The Stratford rustic knew 
 nothing of Shakespeare's plays, but did know (1) that 
 there was a great man called Shakespeare, and (2) 
 that there was a great book called the Bible. He 
 concluded that Shakespeare must have written for the 
 IJible. Hut I am thinking of a ^■ery diffircnt jx-rver- 
 sion of Shakespeare's reputation. I am thinking of 
 the strange people, e\j)onents of the back-street mind, 
 who, being incapable of appreciating Shakespeare's 
 poetry and dramatic genius — having in fact no taste 
 for literature as such — have assigned his greatness 
 
 185
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 to somethinfT compatible with their own j)rosaic 
 pedestrian taste and turned him into a contriver of 
 cryptograms. Again you see the old appetite for 
 wonder reappearing. The imputed reputation, as 
 in Virgil's case, is for something abscons, as Rabelais 
 would have said, something occult. 
 
 It is the old story. Superstition comes easier 
 to the human mind than artistic appreciation. But 
 superstition has played an odd freak in the case 
 of Shakespeare, It is actually found side by side 
 >vith artistic appreciation, of which it presents itself 
 as the superlative, or ecstatic, degree. There is, for 
 instance, an Oxford professor to whom the world is 
 indebted for the most delicate, the most sympa- 
 thetic, as well as the most scholarly appreciation of 
 Shakespeare in existence. Yet this professor is so 
 affronted by the flesh-and-blood domination of the 
 actresses who play Shakespeare's heroines, the dan- 
 gerous competition of their personal charm with the 
 glamour of the text, that he has committed himself 
 to the startling proposition that poetic drama 
 perished with Shakespeare's boy actors ! Jealousy 
 for Shakespeare's individual supremacy in artistic 
 creation, which must " brook no rival near the 
 throne," has turned the professor into a misogynist. 
 This I venture to call Shakespearian superstition. 
 And there is another Oxford i)rofcssor (oh, home of 
 lost causes and forsaken beliefs !) who assures us 
 that we can unravel all Shakespearian problems by 
 a careful study of the text alone. Don't trouble 
 
 180
 
 PERVERTED REPUTATIONS 
 
 your minds about the actual facts in view of which 
 the text had been written and in wliich it was to be 
 spoken. Dont ask where Shakespeare's theatres 
 were and what the audiences were Hkc and what 
 kind of shows they were used to and continued to 
 expect. Don't bother about the sha))e of the stage 
 or its position in regard to the pubhe. Stick to the 
 text, and nothing but the text, and all shall be made 
 plain luito you. It is this same professor who occa- 
 sionally treats Shakespeare's imaginary characters 
 as though they were real persons, with independent 
 biographies of their own. He obliges us with con- 
 jectural fragments of their biographies. " Doubt- 
 less in happier days he (Hamlet) was a close and 
 constant observer of men and manners." " All his 
 life he had believed in her (Gertrude), we may be 
 sure, as such a son would." Shakespearian supersti- 
 tion again, you see, not merely alongside but aetiuilly 
 growing out of artistic a})preeiation. 
 
 Literary critics, as a rule, have suffered less than 
 so-called literary " creators "' from i)crverted repu- 
 tations. The reason is plain. The man in the back 
 street has never heard of criticism. But what, it will 
 be asked, about the strange case of Aristotle ? Well, 
 I submit that in his case the perversion arose from 
 the second cause I have indicated — not from the 
 ignorance of the multitude but from the supersti- 
 tious veneration of the few. Who was it who began 
 the game by calling Aristotle " the master of those 
 who know " ? A poet who was also a scholar. Who 
 
 187
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 (Jeclarccl Aristotle's authority in philosophy to equal 
 St. Paul's in theology ? Roger Bacon (they say ; I 
 have not myself asked for this author at Mudie's or 
 The Times Book Club). Who said there could be no 
 j)Ossiblc contradiction between the Poetics and Holy 
 Writ ? Dacier, an eminent Hellenist. Who declared 
 the rules of Aristotle to have the same certainty for 
 him as the axioms of Euclid ? Lessing, an esteemed 
 " highbrow." The gradual process, then, by which 
 the real Aristotle, pure thinker, critic investigating 
 and co-ordinating the facts of the actual drama of 
 his time, was perverted into the spurious Aristotle, 
 Mumbo Jumbo of criticism, mysteriarch, deposi- 
 tary of the Tables of the Law, was the same process 
 that we have seen at work in the case of Shakespeare 
 — enthusiastic appreciation toppling over into 
 superstition. 
 
 But none of us can afford to put on airs about it. 
 Mittato nomine de te. For, after all, what are these 
 various cases but extreme instances of the " per- 
 sonal e(iuation " that enters into every, even the 
 sanest opinion ? Can any one of us do anything else 
 towards appreciating a work of art than remake it 
 within himself? So, if we are to avoid these 
 absurd extremes, let us look to ourselves, do our 
 best to get ourselves into harmony \vith the artist, 
 and •' clear our minds of cant." 
 
 Ib8
 
 THE SECRET OF GREEK ART 
 
 Mathematics may be great fun. Even simple 
 arithmetic is not without its comic side, as when it 
 enables you to find, with a little management, the 
 Number of the Beast in the name of any one you 
 dislike. Then there is " the low cunning of algebra."' 
 It became low cunning indeed when Eulcr drove 
 (so tlie anecdotist relates) Diderot out of Russia with 
 a sham algebraical fornuda. " Monsieur,'' said 
 
 liiuler gravclv, = x, done Uieu existe ; 
 
 repondezy Diderot, no algebraist, could not answer, 
 and left. 
 
 But geometry furnishes the best sport. Here is a 
 learned American archicologist, Mr. .Jay Hambidge, 
 lecturing to that august body the Hellenic Society 
 and revealing to them his discovery that the secret 
 of classic Greek art (of the best period) is a matter 
 of two magic rectangles. I understand tliat the 
 learned gentleman himself did not make this extreme 
 claim about the " secret " of " Art," but it was at any 
 rate so described in the report on which my remarks 
 arc based. Mr. Hambidge appears to have devoted 
 years of labour and ingenuity to his researches. 
 The result is in any case of curious interest. But 
 
 189
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 liow that result can be said to be *' the secret of 
 Greek art revealed " I \vholly fail to sec. 
 
 Let us look lirst at his reetan<3des. His first is 
 2 X \ 5. It is said that these figures represent the 
 ratio of a man's hcifrht to the full si)an of his out- 
 stretched fingers. But what man ? Of what race 
 and age ? Well, let us say an average Greek of the 
 best period, and pass on. Mr. Hambidge has found 
 this rectangle over and over again in the design of 
 the Parthenon. " Closely akin "' to it, says the 
 report, is another fundamental rectangle, of which 
 the two dimensions arc in tlic ratio of Leonardo's 
 famous " golden section." That ratio is obtained 
 by dividing a straight line so that its greater is to 
 its lesser part as the whole is to the greater. Let us 
 give a mathematical meaning to the " closely akin.' 
 Calling the lesser part 1 and the greater a\ then — 
 
 X X + 1 
 
 f = — - — or ci'2 — .T — 1 = 
 
 1 X 
 
 which gives you 
 
 V 5 + 1 
 x = 2 
 
 Tiie square roots will not trouble you when you 
 
 come to constructing your rectangles, for the 
 
 diagonal of tiie lirst is ^(5 + 4), or 3. If AH is 
 
 your side 2, draw a perpendicular to it through B, 
 
 and with A as centre describe the arc of a circle of 
 
 radius 3 ; the point of intersection will give C, the 
 
 other end of the diagonal. The second rectangle 
 
 maintains AB, and simply prolongs BC by half of 
 
 190
 
 THE SECRET OF GREEK ART 
 
 AB or 1. Just as the dimensions of the first rect- 
 angle are related to those of (selected) man, and to 
 the plan of the Parthenon, so those of the second are 
 related, it seems, to the arrangement of seeds in the 
 sunflower and to the plan of some of the Pyramids. 
 Sir Theodore Cook writes to The Times to say that 
 both the sunflower and the Pyramid discoveries are 
 by no means new. 
 
 The fact is the theory of " beautiful " rectangles 
 is not new. The classic exponent of it is Fechner, 
 who essayed to base it on actual experiment. He 
 placed a number of rectangular cards of various 
 dimensions before his friends, and asked them to 
 select the one they thought most beautiful. Appa- 
 rently the "golden section" rectangle got most 
 votes. But " most of the persons began by saying 
 that it all depended on the application to be made 
 of the figure, and on being told to disregard this, 
 showed much hesitation in choosing." (Bosanquet : 
 "History of Esthetic," p. 382.) If they had been 
 Greeks of the best period, they would have all gone 
 with one accord for the " golden section '' rectangle. 
 Nor have the geometers of beauty restricted their 
 favours to the rectangle. Some have favoured the 
 eirele, some the square, others the ellipse. And 
 what about Hogarth's " line of beauty " ? 1 last 
 saw it affectionately alluded to in the advertisement 
 of a corset manufacturer. So, evidently, Hogarth's 
 idea has not been wasted. 
 
 One sympathizes with Fechner's fri« luls who said 
 
 MM
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 it all depended upon the application to he made of 
 the figure. The " art " in a picture is generally to 
 be looked for inside the frame. The Parthenon may 
 
 \/5 
 have been planned on the — — rectangle, but you 
 
 cannot evolve the Parthenon itself out of that vulgar 
 fraction. Feehner proceeded on the assumption 
 that art is a physical fact and that its " secret " 
 could be wriuig out of it, as in any other physical 
 inquiry, by observation and experiment, by induc- 
 tion from a sufficient number of facts. But when 
 he came to have a theory of it he found, like anybody 
 else, that introspection was the only way. 
 
 And whatever rectangles Mr. Hambidgc may 
 discover in Greek works of art, he will not thereby 
 have revealed the secret of Greek art. For rectangles 
 are physical facts (when they arc not mere abstrac- 
 tions), and art is not a physical fact, but a spiritual 
 activity. It is in the mind of the artist, it is his 
 vision, the expression of his intuition, and beauty 
 is only another name for perfect expression. That, 
 at any rate, is the famous " intuition-expression " 
 theory of Benedetto Croce, which at present holds 
 the field. It is a theory which, of course, presents 
 many difficulties to the popular mind — what aesthetic 
 theory does not ? — but it covers the ground, as none 
 other does, and comprehends all arts, painting, 
 poetry, music, sculpture, and the rest, in one. Its 
 main difficulty is its distinction between the jcsthetic 
 fact, the artists expression, and the physical fact, the 
 192
 
 THE SECRET OF GREEK ART 
 
 externalization of the artist's expression, the so- 
 called " work " of art. Dr. BosaiKiuct has objected 
 that this seems to leave out of account the influence 
 on the artist's expression of his material, his medium, 
 but Crocc, I think, has not overlooked that objection 
 C'Estetica," Ch. XIII., end), though many of us would 
 be glad if he could devote some future paper in the 
 Critica to meeting it fairly and squarely. Anyhow, 
 aesthetics is not a branch of physics, and the " secret " 
 of art is not to be " revealed " by a whole Euclidful 
 of rectangles. 
 
 But it is, of course, an interesting fact that 
 certain Greeks, and before them certain Egyptians, 
 took certain rectangles as the basis of their designs 
 — rectangles which are also related to the average 
 proportions of the human body and to certain 
 botanical types. If Mr. Hambidge — or his prede- 
 cessors, of whom Sir Theodore Cook speaks — have 
 established this tiicy have certainly put their fingers 
 on an engaging convention. \Yho would have 
 thought that the " golden section " that very ugly- 
 
 a/5 -4-1 
 looking — — — — could iiavc had so much in it ? Tiie 
 
 builder of the Great Pyramid of Ciliizcli knew all 
 about it in 4700 B.C. and the Greeks of the age of 
 Pericles, and then Leonardo da Vinci toyed with it 
 — " que de choses dans un inenuet ! " It is really 
 rather cavalier of Croce to dismiss this golden section 
 along with Michael Angelo's serpentine lines of 
 beauty as the astrology of ^^sthetic. 
 p.p. 103 o
 
 A POINT OF CROCE'S 
 
 Advkkting to Mr. Jay Hanibidgc's rectangles of 
 beauty I had occasion to cite Croce and his distinc- 
 tion between the aesthetic fact of expression and the 
 practical fact of externalization, to which distinction, 
 1 said, Dr. liosanqnet had objected that it ignored 
 the influence upon the artist of his medium. Dr. 
 Bosanquet has courteously sent mc a copy of a 
 communication, " Crocc's iEsthetic," which he has 
 made to the British Academy, and which deals not 
 only with this point, but with his general objecUons 
 to the Croccan philosoj)hy of art. It is not all objec- 
 tion, far from it ; much of it is highly laudatory, and 
 all of it is manifestly WTittcn in a sj^irit of candour 
 and simple desire to arrive at the truth. But 1 have 
 neither the space nor the competence to review the 
 whole pamphlet, and I will confine myself to the 
 particular point with which I began. ^Vhilc suggest- 
 ing, however, some criticisms of Dr. Bosanquct's 
 contentions, I admit the susj)icion that I may 
 resemble one of those disputants who, as Renan once 
 said, at the bottom of their minds are a little of the 
 opinion of the other side. That, indeed, was why I 
 said that many of us would be glad to hear further on 
 194
 
 A POINT OF CROCE'S 
 
 the point from Croce himself. But witli Dr. Bosaii- 
 quet's pamphlet before me I cannot afford to " wait 
 and see." I must say, with all diffidence, what I 
 can. 
 
 Dr. Bosanqiict describes the Crocean view quite 
 fairly. " The ' work of art,' then, picture, statue, 
 musical pcrformauee, printed or sjwken poem, is 
 called so only by a metaphor. It belongs to the 
 practical (economic) and not to the festhetic phase 
 of the spirit, and consists merely of expedients 
 adopted by the artist as a practical man, to ensure 
 preservation and a permanent ]iossibility of repro- 
 duction for his imaginative intuition. The art and 
 beauty lie primarily in his imagination, and secon- 
 darily in the imagination of those to whom his own 
 may commimieate its experience. The picture and 
 the music are by themselves neither art nor beauty 
 nor intuition-expression." 
 
 But when Dr. Bosanquet goes on to make his 
 inferences, I suggest that he infers too much. 
 " Thus," he says, " all embodiment in special kinds 
 of physical objects by help of special media and 
 special processes is wholly foreign to the nature of 
 art and beauty . . . There is nothing to l)e learned 
 from the practical means by help of which intuitions 
 of beauty receive permanence and conuniniieability." 
 " Wholly foreign " and " nothing to he learned " 
 arc, I think, too strong. Thougli I lu- practical means 
 arc distinct from art, they are |)art of the artist's 
 experience. The artist is not working //j i'rt«/o. He 
 195 02
 
 PASTICHE AND P 11 E J T 1) I C E 
 
 is a certain man, with a certain nature and experi- 
 ence, at a certain moment of time. His joy, say, in 
 handling and modcUinfr chiy (I take this example 
 from an old lecture of Dr. Bosanquet's) will be one 
 of the factors in his experience. In that sense it will 
 not be " wholly foreign " to his art, and he will have 
 " learned " something from it. It is not itself the 
 art-impulse, the expressive activity, but it is, what 
 Croce calls it, a point (Vappui for a new one. 
 
 For let us hear what Croce himself says on this 
 point (" Estetica," Ch. XIH.). " To the explana- 
 tion of physical beauty as a mere aid for the repro- 
 duction of internal beauty, or expression, it might be 
 objected, that the artist creates his expressions in the 
 act of painting or carving, writing or composing ; 
 and that therefore physical beauty, instead of 
 following, sometimes precedes aesthetic beauty. This 
 would be a very superficial way of understanding the 
 procedure of the artist, who, in reality, makes no 
 stroke of the brush without having first seen it in his 
 imagination ; and, if he has not yet seen it, will make 
 it, not to externalize his expression (wiiieh at that 
 moment does not exist), but as it were on trial and to 
 have a mere jjoini cVappui for further meditation and 
 internal concentration. The physical j^oint d'appui 
 is not physical beauty, instrument of reproduction, 
 but a means that might be called j^^^dagugic, like 
 retiring to solitude or the many other expedients, 
 often (jueer enough, adopted l)y artists and men of 
 science and varying according to their various 
 196
 
 A POINT OF CROCK'S 
 
 idiosyncrasies."' Can wt- not put it more generally 
 and say that the artist's historic situation is changing 
 at every moment and his experience with his medium 
 is part of that situation (just as is the date of his 
 birth, his country, or the state of his digestion), or in 
 other words, one of the influences that make him 
 what he is and not some one else ? But to admit 
 that, it seems to me, is not at all to deny the inde- 
 pendence of his spiritual activity in expression any 
 more than the freedom of the Avill is denied by the 
 admission that will must always be exercised in a 
 definite historical situation. 
 
 What Dr. Bosanquet cannot abide is Croec's great 
 principle that in aesthetic philosophy there are no arts 
 but only art. He says this " offers to destroy our 
 medium of intercourse through the body and through 
 natural objects." Why " destroy " ? Surely it is 
 not a case of destruction but of removal ; removal 
 from the philosophy of art to that of practice. Croce 
 is not (piite so foolish as to offer to destroy things 
 indestructible ; he is only trying to put them in 
 their place. 
 
 " The truth is, surely, that different inclinations 
 of the spirit have affinities with different qualities 
 and actions of body— meaning by body that which a 
 sane philosoi)hy accepts as concretely and completely 
 actual in the world of sense-perception. The 
 imagination of the particular artist is 
 
 like the dyi-r'a hand, 
 Subdufd to what it works in. 
 
 197
 
 PASTTCTTE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 and its intuit ion and expression assume a speeial 
 type in accordance with the medium it dehyhts 
 in, and necessarily develop certain capacities and 
 aeknowledfje, however tacitly, certain limitations." 
 Who denies anything so obvious ? Certainly not 
 Croce. What he denies, I take it, is that these 
 considerations, however valuable in their right 
 place, are proper to a philosophy of art. They are 
 classifications and generalizations, he would say, and 
 philosophy deals not with goicrnlia but with univer- 
 sals. To say that art is one is not to say tiuit Raphael 
 and Mozart arc one. There are no duplicates in 
 human life and no two artists have tiie same activity 
 of intuition-expression. You may classify tluin in 
 all sorts of ways ; those who express themselves in 
 paint, those who express themselves in sounds, and 
 so forth ; or sub-classify them into landseapists, 
 portraitists, etc., etc. ; or sub-sub-classify them into 
 " school " of Constable, " school " of Reynolds, 
 etc., etc. But you arc only getting further and 
 further away from anything like a philosophy of art, 
 and will have achieved at best a maiuial or history of 
 technique. In a philosophic theory Dr. Rosanquet's 
 " aflinities of the spirit " are a will-o'-the-wisp. 
 Thereupon he says, crushingly, " if you insist on 
 neglecting these affinities of the spirit, your theory 
 remains abstract, and has no illuminating ))ower." 
 Well, Croee's theory is certainly " up there," it 
 inhabits the cold air of pure ideas ; it will not be of 
 the least practical use at the Academy Schools or the 
 198
 
 A POINT OF CROCE'S 
 
 Royal College of Music ; but wlien a philosopher like 
 Dr. Bosanquet finds no illumination in a theory which 
 unifies the arts, gives a comprehensible definition of 
 beauty and, incidentally, constructs, to say the least 
 of it, a plausible " cycle of reality," I can but 
 respectfully wonder. 
 
 1 IH)
 
 W-ILLIAM HAZLITT 
 
 I WAS, perhaps rather naively, surprised the other 
 day to hear an actor asking for Ilazlitt's " View of 
 the English Stage." Actors in general, whether 
 correctly or incorrectly I cannot say, are reputed 
 to be not enthusiastically given to reading. On the 
 face of it, the thing seems likely enough. Their busi- 
 ness is to be men of action and talk and the busy 
 world — not sedentary contemplative, cloistered stu- 
 dents. Your bookworm is as a rule a shy, retiring 
 solitary ; the very opposite of your actor who must 
 not only boldly show himself but take a pride in 
 being stared at. Logically, then, I ought not to 
 have been as shocked as I was when the late Henry 
 Neville some years ago roundly declared to me that 
 an actor " should never read." Yet the thought of 
 a life without literature seemed so ajjpalling ! It is 
 possible, however, to be a reader, and a voracious 
 reader, yet not to read Hazlitt's stage criticisms. 
 The epoch is gone. Kcan is long since dead. Our 
 theatrical interests to-day are widely different from 
 those of our ancestors a century ago. And Ilazlitt's 
 criticisms have not the loose, discursive, impres- 
 sionistic, personal, intimate charm of his other 
 200
 
 WILLIAM IIAZLITT 
 
 essays, his " Table Talk," his " Round Table," or 
 his " Plain Speaker." The}' simply show him in the 
 " dry light " of the specialist, the closet-student 
 turned playgoer, but these give a warm, coloured, 
 speaking hkeness of the whole man. I was surprised, 
 then, to hear my friend the actor asking for Ha/litt's 
 stage criticisms. I venture to inquire what, i)arti- 
 cularly, he wanted them for. " Oh, ' he said, " I like 
 to read about Kean." 
 
 And certainly iC you want to read about Kean, 
 Ilazlitt is your man. It has been said, over and 
 over again, that it was good luck for both actor and 
 critic that Hazlitt had just begun his theatrical work 
 on the Morning Chroniclt when Kean made his first 
 appearance as Shyloek at Drury Lane. Hazlitt 
 helped to make Kcan's reputation and Kean's 
 acting was an invaluable stimulant to Ila/litt's 
 critical faculties. It is said, by the way, that Kean 
 was originally recommended to Hazlitts notice by 
 his editor. Perry. Things of this sort may have 
 happened in that weird time of a century ago, but 
 the age of miracles is passed. Editors of daily news- 
 papers in our time are not on the look-out for un- 
 revealcd histrionic genius. They have other fish to 
 fry. But Perry seems to have been a most inter- 
 fering editor. He plagued his critic with his own 
 critical opinions. IlazIiLts first " notice " in the 
 Chronicle was about Miss Stephens as Polly in The 
 Beggar s Opera. " When I got back, after the play " 
 (note th;it he had meditated in .■uhanee his " next 
 
 201
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 day's criticism, trviii*,' to do all the justice I could 
 to so intcrestiuff ;i subject. I was not a little proud 
 of it by anticipation *" — happy Hazlitt !) " Perry 
 called out, with his cordial, grating voice, ' Well, 
 how did she do ? ' and on my speaking in high 
 terms, answered that ' he had been to dine with his 
 friend the Duke, that some conversation had passed 
 on the subject, he was afraid it was not the thing, 
 it was not the true sostetmio style ; but as I had 
 written the article ' (holding my peroration on The 
 Beggar .s Opera carelessly in his hand), ' it might 
 pass/ ... I had the satisfaction the next day to 
 meet Miss Stephens coming out of the Editor's 
 room, who had been to thank him for his very 
 flattering account of her.' That " carelessly " is a 
 delicious touch, which will come home to every 
 scribbler. But Perry and his friend the Duke and 
 that glimpse of a petticoat whisking out of the 
 editors room ! What a queer, delightful, vanished 
 newspaper-world ! There were, however, even in 
 those days, editors who did not interfere. Hazlitt 
 was, for a brief period, dramatic critic of The Times 
 (his most notable contribution was his notice of 
 Kemble's retirement in Coriolanus, June 25th, 1817), 
 and was evidently well treated, for in his preface to 
 the '' View " (1818) he advises " any one who has 
 an ambition to write, and to write his best in the 
 periodical Press, to get, if he can, a position in The 
 Times newspaper, the editor of wiiieh is a man of 
 business and not a man of letters. He may write 
 
 202
 
 WILLIAM IIAZLITT 
 
 there as long and as good articles as he can, without 
 being turned out for it." One can only account for 
 Hazlitfs singular ideal of an editor as Johnson 
 accounted for an obscure passage in Pope, " Depend 
 upon it, Sir, he wished to vex somebody." Ilazlitt 
 only wanted to be disagreeable to Perry. 
 
 Nevertheless, the Chronicle had had the best of 
 Hazlitt"s stage criticisms, his papers on Kean. 
 Kean's acting, as I have said, was invaluable to 
 Hazlitt as a stimulus. It stimulated him to a sort 
 of rivalry in Shakespearian interpretation, the actor 
 fairly setting his own conception of the part against 
 the actor's rendering of it, giving him magnificent 
 praise when the two agreed, and often linding care- 
 fully pondered reasons for disagreement. Hazlitt 
 might have said of Kean what Johnson said of 
 Burke: "This fellow calls forth all my powers." 
 The result is twofold. You get vivid descriptions 
 of Kean's acting, his voice, his figure, his gestures, 
 his perpetual passionateness, in season and out of 
 season (misrepresenting — e.g., Shakespeare's Richard 
 II., as Ilazlitt said, as a character of passion instead 
 of as a character of pathos). And at the same time 
 you get the " psychology ' (an inevitable cliche, 
 cast since Ilazlitt's day) of the chief Shakespearian 
 tragic ciiaractcrs, cart-lully " documented " by tiie 
 text and elaborated and coloured by Ilazlitt's sym- 
 pathetic vision. You see the same i)roccss at work 
 in llie criticisms of Keml)le and Mrs. Siddons and 
 Macrcady, but (remember llu- grcal Sarah had iiad
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 her day before Hazlitt began to write) with a milder 
 stiniuhmt there was a milder response. In any case 
 it was a gallery of portraits — a series of full-length 
 figures partly from life and partly from the Shake- 
 spearean text. There was little background or 
 atmosphere. 
 
 That is what makes Hazlitt's criticism so unlike 
 any modern sort. He WTote in an age of great his- 
 trionics, great interpretative art, but no drama, no 
 creative art. His elaborate studies of dead-and- 
 gone players have (except as illustrating Shake- 
 speare) often a merely antiquarian interest. It is a 
 curious detail that Kean's Richard IH. in early per- 
 formances " stood with his hands stretched out, 
 after his sword was taken from him," and later 
 " actually fought with liis doubled fists like some 
 helpless infant." So it is a curious detail that Napo- 
 leon I. wore a green coat and clasped his hands 
 behind his back. But compare this dwelling on the 
 minutifc of an actor's business or, to take a fairer 
 example, compare Hazlitt's analysis of the character 
 of lago (as a test of Kean's presentation) — one of 
 his acutest things — with the range and variety and 
 philosophic depth of a criticism by Jules Lemaitre. 
 You are in a different world. Instead of the niggling 
 details of how this man raised his arm at a given 
 moment or delivered a classic speech in a certain 
 way you get a criticism of life, all life, qidcquid agiini 
 homines. It is interesting, mildly interesting, to 
 know that Kean's Richard was (for Hazlitt) too 
 204
 
 WILLIAM HAZLITT 
 
 grave and his lago too gay, but after all we cannot 
 be perpetuall}^ contemplating these particular per- 
 sonages of Shakespeare. We need fresh ideas, fresh 
 creations, new views of society, anything for a 
 change, so long as it is a thing " to break our minds 
 upon." We have no " great" Shakespearean actors 
 now, but even if we had, should we care to devote 
 to them the minute, elaborate attention paid by 
 Hazlitt ? One thinks of that time, a hundred years 
 ago, of the great tragedy kings and queens as rather 
 a stuffy world. Playgoing must have been a formid- 
 able enterprise . . . but yet, you never can tell. 
 There were frolicsome compensations. You might 
 come back from the play to the ofiicc to learn your 
 editor had been dining with a duke. And with luck 
 next morning you might find a pretty actress at his 
 door. 
 
 205
 
 TALK AT THE MARTELLO TOWER 
 
 Our boatman with blue eyes and red cheeks is not 
 more skilful with the oar than any of his fellows or 
 more ready to give you change out of a shilling when 
 he has rowed you across the harbour, though the 
 notice board says the fare is twopence. But the 
 ladies love primary colours, and we had to have him. 
 We all three had our novels, and the blue cj^es glanced 
 at them, especially the yellow-baek, with disfavour. 
 lie is a Swcdcnborgian — our little port, like most, is 
 rich in out-of-the-way religions — and presumably 
 regards all modern literature as on the wrong tack. 
 It was not until we had parted with him at the 
 Martello tower that we dared open our books. 
 
 Selina had grabbed Patty's, the yellow-back, but 
 she soon laid it down, and made a face. " My dear 
 Patty," she said wearily, " how can you go on reading 
 Gyp ? Don't you sec that tiic silly woman doesn't 
 even know how to tell her own silly stories ? " 
 
 Patty slightly flushed. She knew Gyp was a 
 countess and great-granddaughter of Mirabeau- 
 Tonneau, and felt it was almost Bolshevist manners 
 to call so well-born a woman silly. Nothing could 
 have been more frigid than her " What on earth do 
 you mean, Selina ? " 
 
 206
 
 TALK AT MARTELLO TOWER 
 
 " I mean," said Selina, " that the poor woman is 
 dreadfully vieiix jeu. Vn\ not thinkin<f of her social 
 puppets, her vicious clubmen, her languid swells, 
 her anti-Semite Hebrews, her fashionable ladies who 
 are no better than they should be thoutrh, goodness 
 knows, these are old-fashioned enough. She began 
 making them before I was born." (Selina is no 
 chicken, but it was horrid of Patty to raise her 
 eyebrows.) " ^^'hat I mean is, that she is at the 
 old worn-out game of playing the omniscient author. 
 Here she is telling you not only what Josette said and 
 did when La Rcole attacked her, but what La Rcole 
 said and did when Josette had left him, and so on. 
 She ' goes behind ' everybody, tells you what is 
 inside everybody's head. Why cant she take her 
 point of view, and stick to it. Wasn't her obvious 
 point of view Joscttes ? Then she should have told 
 us nothing about the other people but what Josette 
 could know or divine about them." 
 
 " Ah, Selina, ' I interrupted, " your ' goes behind ' 
 gives you away. You've been reading Henry 
 James's letters.'' 
 
 " Like everybody else," she snapped. 
 
 " Why, to be sure, oh Jacobite Selina, but one may 
 read them without taking their asthetics for law 
 and gospel. 1 know that the dear man lectured 
 Mrs. Humphry Ward about the ' |)()int of view,' 
 when she was writing ' Klinor,' and got, I fancy, 
 ratluT a tart answer for his pains. Hut you are 
 morr iiitr;insig(iif than the master. For he a(hnit ted 
 
 207
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 that tlic point of view was -all according to cir- 
 cumstances, and that some circumstances — for 
 instance, a big canvas — made ' omniscience ' in- 
 evitable. What about Balzac and Tolstoy ? Both 
 took tlie omniscient line, and, as novelists, are not 
 exactly to be sneezed at." 
 
 " Yes, but Gyp's isn't a big canvas," said Selina 
 " and it seems to me nen dcplaise a voire seigneurie, 
 that this precious story of hers called aloud for 
 Josette's point of ^ iew, and nothing but Josette's. 
 She is the one decent woman in the book, according 
 to Gyp's queer standards of decency * (Patty 
 sniffed), " and the whole point, so far as I can make 
 out, is the contrast of her decent mind with the 
 liiijhly indecent people round her. She is as innocent 
 as Maisie, but a Maisie grown up and married. What 
 a chance for another ' What Maisie knew ' 1 " 
 
 " I only wish I knew what you two are talking 
 about," pouted Patty. 
 
 " That is not necessary, dear cliild," I said, in my 
 best avuncular manner. " You are a Maisie your- 
 self — a Maisie who reads French novels. But, 
 Selina, dear, look at your own Henry Janies's own 
 practice. He didn't always choose liis point of view 
 and stick to it. He chose two in ' The Golden 
 Bowl,' and three in ' The Wings of the Dove," and 
 I'm hanged if I know whether he took several, or 
 none at all, in ' The Awkward Age.' " 
 
 " Well," rejoined Selina, " and isn't that just why 
 those books don't quite come off ? Don't you feel 
 
 208
 
 TALK AT MARTELLO TOWER 
 
 that ' The Golden Bowl ' is not one book but two, 
 and that ' The Wings ' is almost as kaleidoscopic " 
 (Patty gasped) " as ' The Ring and the Book ' ? I 
 mentioned ' Maisie,' but after all that was a tour de 
 force, it seemed to have been done for a wager. 
 If you challenge me to give you real perfection, 
 why, take ' The Ambassadors ' and ' The Spoils of 
 Poynton,' Was ever the point of view held more 
 tight ? Everything seen through Strether's eyes, 
 everything through Fleda's 1 " 
 
 " Oh, I grant you the success of the method there, 
 but, dear Selina " (I had lit my pipe and felt equal to 
 out-arguing a non-smoker in the long run), " let us 
 distinguish." (Patty strolled away with her Gyp 
 while we distinguished.) " The method of Henry 
 James was good for Henry James. What was the 
 ruling motive of his people ? Curiosity about one 
 another's minds. Now, if he had just told us their 
 minds, straightway, by ' getting behind ' each of 
 them in turn, in the ' omniscient ' style, there 
 would have been no play of curiosity, no chance for 
 it even to begin, the cat would have been out of the 
 bag. By putting his point of view inside one of his 
 people and steadily keeping it fixed there, he turns 
 all the other people into mere appearances — just as 
 other people are for each one of us in real life. We 
 have to guess and to infer what is in their minds, we 
 make mistakes and correct them ; sometimes they 
 purposely mislead us. This is rather a nuisance, 
 perhaps, in the real world of action, where our 
 
 r.p. 209 P
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 curiosity must have a ' business end ' to it ; hut it 
 is (for those who like it, as you and I do, SeHna) 
 immense fun in the world of fiction." 
 
 " Now," interjected Selina, " you are talking ! 
 That is precisely my case." 
 
 " Stop a minute, Selina. I said the method was 
 good for the writer whose temperament it suited. 
 But so are other methods for other temperaments. 
 You may tell your story all in letters, if you are a 
 Richardson, or with perpetual digressions and state- 
 ments that you arc telling a story, if you are a 
 Fielding or a Thackeray, or autobiographically, if 
 your autobiography is a ' Copperfield ' or a ' Kid- 
 napped.' Every author, I suggest, is a law to him- 
 self. And I see no reason why we should l)ar 
 ' omniscience,' as you apparently want to. Why 
 forbid the novelist the historian's ])ri\ilege ? Why 
 rule out tiie novel which is a history of imaginary 
 facts ? " 
 
 " I can't (piitc see Gyp as a historian," said 
 Selina. 
 
 " No more can I, thank goodness," said Patty. 
 
 And so we were rowed back to the jetty, and the 
 blue eyes didn't blink over half-a-erown under the 
 very notice board. 
 
 210
 
 AGAIN AT THE MARTELLO TOWER 
 
 Now that regattas are over and oysters have come 
 in again, our little port has returned to its normal 
 or W. W. Jacobs demeanour. The bathers on the 
 sand-spit have struck their tents. The Salvation 
 Army band is practising its winter repertory. When 
 our blue-eyed boatman rowed us over to the Martello 
 tower again the other day, he almost looked as 
 though he expected little more than his legal fare. 
 Selina, who has the gift of management, suggested 
 that Patty should try it on with him, on the ground, 
 first, that women always do these things better than 
 men, and, second, that Patty was blue-eyes' favourite. 
 I acquiesced, and Patty borrowed half-a-crown of me, 
 so as to be prepared when the time came. 
 
 Meanwhile Selina began to read us extracts from 
 Professor Henri IJcrgson on " Laughter." Selina is 
 a serious person without, so far as I have ever dis- 
 covered, a grain of Immour in her composition. 
 These are just tljc people who read theories of laughter. 
 It is a mystery to them, and they desire to have 
 it explained. "' A laughable expression of the face," 
 began Selina, "is one that will make us think of 
 something rigid and, so to speak, coagulated, in the 
 wonted mobility of the face. What we shall see will 
 be an ingrained twitching uv a lixcd grimace. One 
 I'll I'-'
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 would say that the person's whole moral life has 
 crystallized into this particular cast of features." 
 
 " I wonder whether Mr. George Robey's whole 
 moral life has,'' dropped Patty, innocently. 
 
 " And who, pray,"' said Selina, with her heavy 
 eyebrows making semi-circles of indignant surprise, 
 " is Mr. George Robey ? " 
 
 I sat silent. I had just brought my niece back 
 from a short but variegated stay in town. I knew, 
 but I would not tell. 
 
 " Why, Selina, dear," answered Patty, " you are 
 the very image of him with your eyebrows rounded 
 like that. He is always glaring at the audience that 
 way." 
 
 " Will you, Patty," said Selina, now thoroughly 
 roused, " be good enough to tell me who he is ? " 
 
 " Well, he's an actor, who makes the very faces 
 your Bergson describes. Uncle took me to see him 
 in a " (catching my warning eye) — " in a sort of 
 historical play. He was Louis XV., at Versailles, you 
 know." 
 
 " H'm," said Selina, " it's rather a doubtful 
 period ; and the very best historical plays do make 
 such a hash of history. Was it in blank verse ? 
 Blank verse will do nmch to mitigate the worst 
 period." 
 
 " N-no," answered Patty, " I don't think it was 
 in blank verse. I didn't notice ; did you. Uncle ? " 
 
 I tried to prevaricate. " Well, you never know 
 about Ijlank verse on the stage nowadays, nearly all 
 
 212
 
 AGAIN AT MARTELLO TOWER 
 
 the actors turn it into prose. Mr. Robey may have 
 been speaking blank verse, as though it were prose. 
 The best artists cannot escape the fashion of the 
 moment, you know." 
 
 " But what did he do ? " insisted Selina, " What 
 was the action of the play ? " 
 
 Patty considered. " I don't remember his doing 
 anything, Selina, dear, but chuck the ladies of the 
 Court under the chin. Oh, yes, and he made eyes at 
 them affectionately." 
 
 " A pretty sort of historical play, on my word ! " 
 exclaimed Selina. 
 
 " Oh, it wasn't all historical, Selina, dear," said 
 Patty, sweetly. " A lot of it was thoroughly modern, 
 and Mr. Robey wore a frock coat, and such a funny 
 little bowler hat, and another time he was a street 
 musician in Venice with a stuffed monkey pinned to 
 his coat-tails." 
 
 Selina looked at me. There was a silent pause that 
 would have made anybody else feel uncomfortable, 
 but I was equal to the occasion. I snatched Selina's 
 book out of her hand, and said, cheerfully, " You see, 
 Selina, it's all explained here. \V'onderful fellow, 
 Bergson. ' Something mechanical encrusted upon 
 the living,' that s the secret of the comic. Depend 
 upon it, he had seen George Robey and tiic stuffed 
 monkey. And if Hcrgson, who's a tremendous swell, 
 member of the institute, and all that, wiiy not Patty 
 and I ? " 
 
 " And where," asked Seliiui, with a rueful glance 
 
 2ia
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 at the Berpson book, as thoufrh she began to distrust 
 theories of the comic, " where was this jirecious per- 
 formance ? " 
 
 " At the Alhambra," answered Patty, simply. 
 
 " The Alliambra ! I remember Chateaubriand 
 once visited it," said Selina, who is nothing if not 
 literary, " but I didn't know it was the haunt of 
 philosophers." 
 
 I looked as though it was, but Patty tactlessly 
 broke in, " Oh, I wish you two wouldn't talk about 
 philosophers. Can't one laugh at Mr. Robey without 
 having him explained by Bergson ? Anyhow, I 
 don't believe he can explain Mr. Nelson Keys."' 
 
 " Another of your historical actors ? " inquired 
 Selina with some bitterness. 
 
 " Yes, Selina, dear, and much more historical than 
 Mr. Robey. He played Beau lirummell and they 
 were all there, Fox and Sheridan and the Prince of 
 Wales, you know, all out of your favourite Crecvey, 
 and they said ' egad ' and ' la ' and ' monstrous i'lnc,' 
 and bowed and congee'd like anything — oh, it was 
 awfully historical." 
 
 Selina, a great reader of memoirs, was a little molli- 
 fied. " Come," she said, " this is better — though the 
 Regency is another dangerous period. I'm glad, 
 however, that Londoners seem to be looking to the 
 theatre for a little historical instruction.'' 
 
 " Yes, Selina," I said, feeling that it would be 
 dangerous to let Patty speak just at that moment, 
 " and there is a certain type of contemporary i>lay, 
 
 2U
 
 AGAIN AT MART EL LO TOWER 
 
 called reinie, which recojTiiizcs that demand and 
 seldom, if ever, fails to cater for it. In revues I have 
 renewed acquaintance with the heroes of classical 
 antiquity, witli prominent crusaders, with Queen 
 Elizabeth, with the Grand Monarque — a whole 
 course of history, in fact. Let Bergson explain that, 
 if he can. And, what is more wonderful still, our 
 revue artists, whose talent is usually devoted to pro- 
 voking laughter, seem willingly to forgo it for the 
 honour of appearing as an historical personage. Mr. 
 Robey and Mr. Keys, I should tell you, are both 
 professional laughter-provokers, indeed are the heads 
 of their profession, yet one is content to posture as 
 Louis Quinze and the other as Beau Brummell with- 
 out any real chance of being funny. So the past ever 
 exerts its prestige over us. So the muse of history 
 still weaves her spell." 
 
 " Which was the muse of history, Patty, dear ? " said 
 Selina, whose equanimity was now happily restored. 
 
 " Oh, bother, I forget," said Patty, " and, anyhow, 
 I don't think she has as much to do with revues as 
 uncle pretends. Give mc the real muse of revue who 
 inspired .Mr. Keys with his German waiter and his 
 Spanish mandolinist and his Japanese juggler 
 and " 
 
 " This," I said, to put an end to Patty's indiscreet 
 prattle, " must be the muse of geography." 
 
 Patty gave me no change out of my half-crown. 
 The boatman said he didn't happen to have any. 
 So mur'h for Sclina's m.-niagcnK-iil ! 
 
 215
 
 THE SILENT STAGE 
 
 The spoken drama and the silent stage. I came 
 across this dichotomy in The Times the other day, 
 not without a pang, for it was a day too late. It is 
 not a true dichotomy. It does not distinguish 
 accurately between the story told by living actors 
 to our faces and the story told by successive photo- 
 graphs of such actors. For the " silent stage " 
 would cover pantomime, a form of drama, and a very 
 ancient form, acted by living actors. It is not true, 
 but it is for practical uses true enough. In life we 
 have to make the best of rough approximations. I 
 would have used this one gratefully had it occurred 
 to me in my moment of need. But it did not. 
 
 Let me explain. One of our more notable come- 
 dians (I purposely put it thus vaguely, partly out of 
 discretion, partly with a bid for that interest which 
 the mystery of anonymity is apt to confer upon an 
 otherwise matter-of-fact narrative, as George Borrow 
 well knew) — one of our most notable comedians, 
 then, had asked me to accompany him to a 
 '' cinema " rehearsal wherein he was cast for the 
 principal part. I eagerly accepted, because the art 
 of the " cinema " is becoming so important in our 
 daily life that one really ought to learn something 
 216
 
 THE SILENT STAGE 
 
 about it, and, moreover, because the cuisine of any 
 art (see the Diary of the De Goncourts passim) is a 
 fascinating thing in itself. Our rehearsal was to be 
 miles away, in the far East of London, and the mere 
 journey was a geographical adventure. The scene 
 was a disused factory, and a disused factory has 
 something of the romantic melancholy of a dis- 
 affected cathedral — not the romance of ruins, but the 
 romance of a fabric still standing and valid, but 
 converted to alien uses. 
 
 Our first question on arrival was, were we late ? 
 This question seems to be a common form of polite- 
 ness with notable comedians, and is probably 
 designed to take the wind out of the sails of possible 
 criticism. No, we were not late — though everybody 
 seemed to be suspiciously ready and, one feared, 
 waiting. They were a crowd of ladies and gentle- 
 men in elaborate evening dress, all with faces painted 
 a rich cafe au lait or else salmon-colour, and very odd 
 such a crowd looked against the whitewashed walls 
 and bare beams of the disused factory. The 
 scenery looked even more odd. It presented the 
 middle fragments of everytiiing without any edges. 
 There was a vast baronial hall, decorated with suits 
 of armour and the heaviest furniture, but without 
 either ceiling or walls. There was a staircase hung, 
 so to speak, in the air, leading to a doorway, which 
 was just the framework of a door, standing alone, 
 let into nothing. It seemed uncanny, until you 
 remembered the simple fact that llic camera can 
 
 217
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 cover just as much, or as little, of a scene as it 
 chooses. Great fjlaring " cinema " lights — I had not 
 seen them since the Beckett-Carpentier fight — cast 
 an unearthly pallor upon the few unpainted faces. 
 The crowd of pi^inted ladies and gentlemen hung 
 about, waiting for their scene with what seemed to 
 me astonishing jiatience. ]iut patience, I suspect, is 
 a necessary virtue at all rehearsals, whether 
 " spoken " or " silent." 
 
 And that distinction brings me to the producer. 
 It was for him that I should have liked to have 
 thought of it. For he fell to talking to me about his 
 art, the art of production, and of cinematography in 
 general, and I found myself forced to make some 
 comparisons with what I had, up to that moment, 
 always thought of as the " regular '' stage. Hut 
 evidently, as Jeffery said of Wordsworth's poem, 
 this would never do. The producer might have 
 thought I was reilectiiig upon his art, about which he 
 was so enthusiastic, as something " irregular." At 
 last, after deplorable hesitation, I found my phrase — 
 the " other " stage. Dreadfully tame, I admit, but 
 safe : it hurt nobody. Even now, however, I have 
 an uneasy feeling that the producer was not quite 
 satisfied with it. I ought perhaps to have accom- 
 panied it with a shrug, some sign of apology for so 
 much as recognizing the existence of " other " stages 
 of anything else, in short, than what was, at that 
 moment and on that spot, the stage, the " silent " 
 stage, the stage of moving pictiirrs. It was like 
 2 IS
 
 THE SILENT STAGE 
 
 speaking of P'ritli's " Derby Day " in the presence 
 of a Cubist. Artistic enthusiasts must be allowed 
 their little exclusions. 
 
 If the producer was an enthusiast, there was 
 certainly a method in his enthusiasm. His table was 
 covered with elaborate geometrical drawings, which, 
 I was told, were first sketches for successive scenes. 
 On pegs hung little schedules of the artists required 
 for each scene, and of the scenes wherein each of 
 the principals was concerned. Innumerable photo- 
 graphs, of course — photographs of scenes actually 
 represented on the " film," and of others not repre- 
 sented, experiments for the actual, final thing. For 
 it is to l)c remembered that the producer of a " film '" 
 is relatively more important than the producer of a 
 " spoken drama."" He is always part, and sometimes 
 whole, author of the play. He has to conceive the 
 successive phases of the action in detail, and to con- 
 ceive them in terms of photography. Even with 
 some one elses j)lay as a datum he has, I take it, to 
 in vent a good deal. For while the " spoken drama " 
 can only show selected, critical moments of life, the 
 " silent stage "" aims at contiiuiity and gives you the 
 intervening moments. On the one stage, when a 
 lady makes an afternoon call, you see her hostess's 
 drawing-room, and she walks in ; on the other stage 
 you see her starting from home, jumjiing into her 
 Rolls-Royce, dashing through the crowded streets, 
 knocking at the front door, being relieved of her 
 cloak by the flunkey, mounting the stiiirs to the 
 
 21U
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 drawing-room, etc., etc. Indeed, this mania for 
 continuity is a besetting sin of the " silent stage " ; 
 it leads to sheer irrelevance and the ruin of all 
 proportion. My enthusiastic producer, it is only 
 fair to say, was far too good an artist to approve 
 it. 
 
 " At the first whistle, get ready," shouted the 
 producer, " at the second, slow waltz, please." And 
 then the baronial hall was filled by the crowd of 
 exemplary patience and they danced with unaffected 
 enjoyment, these gay people, just as though no 
 camera were directed on them. The heroine 
 appeared (she was the daughter of the house, and this 
 was her first ball — indicated by a stray curl down her 
 back), and her ravishing pink gown, evidently a 
 choice product of the West-end, looked strange in a 
 disused East-end factory. Of course she had 
 adopted the inexorable " cinema " convention of a 
 '* Cupid's bow " mouth. Here is the youngest of the 
 arts already fast breeding its own conventions. 
 Surely the variety of female lips might be recognized ! 
 Women's own mouths are generally prettier, and 
 certainly more suitable to their faces, than some 
 rigidly fixed type. It would be ungallant to say 
 that the leading lady's " Cupid's bow " did not 
 become her, but the shape of her own mouth, I 
 venture to suggest, would have been better still. 
 And where was my friend the notable comedian all 
 this time ? Rigging himself out in evening clerical 
 dress for the ball (he was the vicar of the parish), and 
 
 220
 
 THE SILENT STAGE 
 
 evidently regarding his momentary deviation into 
 " film " work (for the beneht of a theatrical charity) 
 as great fun. Will the heroes of the " silent stage," 
 I wonder, ever deviate into " spoken drama " ? It 
 would be startling to hear Charlie Chaplin speak. 
 
 '221
 
 THE MOVIES 
 
 All is dark and an excellent orchestra is playing 
 a Beethoven symphony. The attendant flashes you 
 to your seat with licr torch, you tumble over a 
 subaltern, and murnuir to yourself, with Musset's 
 Fantasio, " Quelles solitudes que tons ces corps 
 humains ! " For that is the first odd thinfj that 
 strikes you about the movies ; the psychology of 
 the audience is not collective, but individual. You 
 are not aware of yoin- neighbour, who is shrouded 
 from your gaze, aiul you take your pleasure alone. 
 Thus you are rid of the " contagion of the crowd," 
 the claims of human sympathy, the imitative 
 impulse, and thrown in upon yourself, a hermit at 
 the mercy of the hallucinations that beset the soli- 
 tary. You never applaud, for that is a collective 
 action. What with the soothing How of the nmsic, 
 the darkness, and the fact that your eye is fixed on 
 one bright spot, you are in the ideal condition for 
 hypnotism, lint the suspected presence of others, 
 vague shadows hovering near you, give your mood 
 the last touch of the imeanny. You are a prisoner 
 in Plato's cave or in some crepusciUar solitude of 
 Maeterlinck. Anything might happen. 
 
 According to the progranune what Iiappens is 
 222
 
 THE MOVIES 
 
 called The Prodigal Wife. Her iiusband is a doctor 
 and she pines for gaiety while he is busy at the 
 hospital. It is her birthday and he has forgotten 
 to bring her her favourite roses, which are in fact 
 offered to her by another gentleman with more 
 leisure and a better memory. Our own grievance 
 against the husband, perhaps capricious, is his 
 appalling straw hat — but then we equally dislike 
 the lover's tail-coat, so matters are even, and the 
 lady's preference of No. 2 to No. 1 seems merely 
 arbitrary. Anyhow, she goes off with No. 2 in a 
 motor-ear, " all out," leaving the usual explanatory 
 letter behind her, which is thrown on the screen for 
 all of us to gloat over. 
 
 Here let me say that this i)rofuse exhibition 
 on the screen of all tlie correspondence in the case, 
 letters, telegrams, copies of verses, last wills and 
 testaments, the whole dossier, strikes me as a mistake. 
 It under-values the intelligence of the audience, 
 which is quite capable of guessing what people are 
 likely to write in the gi\'en eireumstanees without 
 being put to the indelicacy of reading it. As it is, 
 you no sooner see some one handling a scrap of paper 
 than )'ou kiujw you are going to have the wretched 
 scrawl thrust under your nose. As if we didn't 
 know all about these things ! As if it wouldn't be 
 pleasanter to leave the actual text to conjecture ! I 
 remember in Juhellious Susan there is a packet of 
 eom[)romising letters shown to interesleel parties, 
 whose vague comments, " Well, after that,'' etc., 
 223
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 sufficiently cnliglitcn us without anything further. 
 But now, when Lady Macbeth reads her lord's letter, 
 up it goes on the screen, blots and all. This is an 
 abuse of the film, which finds it easier to exhibit a 
 letter than to explain why it came to be written. 
 As things are, the lady seems to have eloped in a 
 hurry withovit sufficient grounds. No. 2 presents 
 his roses, and, hey presto ! the car is round the 
 corner. No. 1 takes it very nobly, hugs his aban- 
 doned babe to his bosom, and pulls long faces 
 (obligingly brought nearer the camera to show the 
 furrows). The mother's sin shall ever be hidden 
 from the innocent child, and to see the innocent 
 child innocently asking, " Where's muvver ? " and 
 being answered ^vith sad headshakes from the 
 bereaved parent (now bang against the camera) is 
 to bathe in sentimental photography up to the neck. 
 Thereafter the innocent child grows like (and 
 actually inside) a rosebud till, as the petals fall off, 
 she is revealed as a buxom young woman — the 
 familiar photographic trick of showing one thing 
 through another being here turned to something like 
 poetic advantage. But then the film again bolts 
 with the theme. There is ruiming water and a boat, 
 things which no film can resist. Away go the girl 
 and her sweetheart on a river excursion, loosening 
 the painter, jumping in, shoving off, performing, in 
 short, every antic which in photography can be 
 compassed with a stream and a boat. We have 
 forgotten all about the prodigal wife. But here she 
 224
 
 THE MOVIES 
 
 is again, her hair in grey bandeaux and her hps, as 
 the relentless camera shows you at short range, 
 rouged with a hard outline. She has returned to 
 her old home as the family nurse. For there is now 
 another innocent babe, the doctor's grandchild, to 
 wax and wane with the advancing and receding 
 camera, and to have its little " nightie " blown 
 realistically by the usual wind as it stands on the 
 stair-head. The doctor himself is as busy as ever, 
 making wonderful pharmacological discoveries (news- 
 paper extracts exhibited on the screen) in a labora- 
 tory blouse and dictating the results (notes shown 
 on the screen) to an enterprising reporter. 
 
 And here there is another " rushed " elopement. 
 " The art of drama," said Dumas, " is the art of 
 preparations." But nothing has prepared us (save, 
 perhaps, heredity) for the sudden freak of the 
 prodigal wife's daughter in running away with a 
 lover so vague that you see only his hat (another 
 hideous straw — il ne manquait que ca !) and the glow 
 of his cigarette-end. Family nurse to the rescue ! 
 Tender expostulations, reminders about the innocent 
 babe, and niek-of-timc salvation of the " intending " 
 runaway. Ultimate meeting of nurse and doctor ; 
 he is all forgiveness, but prodigal wives are not to be 
 forgiven like that. No, she nuist go ojit into the 
 snow, and you see her walking down the long path, 
 dwindling, dwindling, from a full-sized nurse into a 
 Euclidean point. 
 
 To simi up. The camera would do Ixltcr if it 
 p.p. 22.")
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 would learn self-denial and observe the law of 
 artistic economy, keep its people consistently in one 
 plane and out of boats and motor cars, soigner its 
 crises a little more, and avoid publishing correspon- 
 dence. And it should slacken its pace a bit. You 
 may take the Heraclitean philosophy — Traiaa x^P" 
 — a little too literally. The movies would be all 
 the more moving for moving slower. 
 
 For the real fun of rapid motion, appropriately 
 used, give me Mutt and Jeff. Mutt, buried in the 
 sand, with a head like an egg, prompts an ostrich 
 to lay another egg, from which emerges a brood of 
 little ostriches. Jeff goes out to shoot them, but 
 his shots glance off in harmless ^v^eaths of smoke. 
 When Mutt and Jeff exchange ideas you see them 
 actually travelling like an electric spark along the 
 wire, from brain to brain. The ostrich hoists Mutt 
 out of the sand by the breeches. Collapse of Jeff. 
 It suggests a drawing by Caran d'Ache in epileptic 
 jerks. The natural history pictures, too, the deer 
 and the birds, strike one as admirable examples of 
 what animated photography can do for us in the 
 way of instruction as well as amusement. . . . And 
 the orchestra has been playing all this time, 
 Beethoven and Mozart, a " separate ecstasy." And 
 again I stiunblc over the subaltern, and wonder to 
 find people moving so slowly in Piccadilly Circus. 
 
 226
 
 TIME AND THE FILM 
 
 There was a gentleman in Molicre, frequently 
 mentioned since and now for my need to be un- 
 blushingly mentioned again, who said to another 
 gentleman, about never mind what, that le temps ne 
 fait rien a Vaffaire. But Molicre belonged to that 
 effete art tlie " spoken drama, ' which we learn, 
 from America, has sunk to be used mainly as an 
 advertisement of the play which is subsequently to 
 be filmed out of it. He wrote in the dark or pre- 
 film ages, and could not know what an all-important 
 part le temps was to play in Vaffnire of the film. 
 Among its innumerable and magnificent activities 
 the film is an instructor of youth, and it seems, from 
 a letter which the Rev. Dr. Lyttelton has written to 
 TJie Times, it instructs at a pace which is a little 
 too quick for the soaring human boy. " Elephants," 
 the reverend Doctor pathetically complains, " arc 
 shown scuttling about like antelopes," and so the 
 poor boy mixes up antelopes and elephants and gets 
 his zoology all wrong. I should myself have inno- 
 cently supposed that this magical acceleration of 
 pace is one of the great charms of the Him for the 
 boy. It not only provides him with half-a-dozen 
 pictures in the time it would have taken him to read 
 227 Q i
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 one of them in print (to say nothing of his being 
 saved the trouble of reading, learning the alphabet, 
 and other pedagogic nuisances altogether), but it 
 offers him something much more exciting and 
 romantic than his ordinary experience. He knows 
 that at the Zoo elephants move slowly, but here on 
 the film they arc taught, in the American phrase, 
 to " step lively," and are shown scuttling about like 
 antelopes, A world wherein the ponderous and slow 
 elephant is suddenly endowed by the magician's 
 wand with the lightness and rapidity of the antelope 
 — what entrancemcnt for boys, aye, and for grown- 
 ups too ! 
 
 Indeed, it seems to me that the greatest achieve- 
 ment of the film is its triumph over time. Some 
 amateurs may find its chief charm in the perfect 
 " Cupid's bow "' of its heroines' mouths ; others in 
 the remarkable English prose of its explanatory 
 accompaniments ; others, again, in its exquisite 
 humour of protagonists smothered in flour or soap- 
 lather or flattened under runaway motor-cars. I 
 admit the irresistible fascination of these delights 
 and can quite tuidcrstand how they come to be pre- 
 ferred to the high-class opera company which has 
 been introduced at the Capitol, New York, to enter- 
 tain " between pictures." But I still think the 
 prime merit of the lilm — the real reason for which 
 last year more than enough picture films to encircle 
 the earth at the Equator left the United States of 
 America for foreign countries — lies in its ability to 
 
 228
 
 TIME AND THE FILM 
 
 play as it will with time. The mere acceleration of 
 pace (which is the ordinary game it plays) — the 
 fierce galloping of horses across prairies, the miracu- 
 lous speed of motor-cars, elephants scuttling about 
 like antelopes — gives a sharp sense of exhilaration, 
 of victory over sluggish nature. And even here 
 there is an educational result that ought to console 
 Dr. Lyttelton. The rate of plant growth is multi- 
 plied thousands of times so that we are enabled 
 actually to see the plants growing, expanding from 
 bud to flower under our eyes. But there is also the 
 retardation of pace, which is even more wonderful. 
 A diver is shown plunging into the water and 
 swimming at a rate which allows the minutest move- 
 ment of the smallest muscle to be clearly seen. This 
 is an entirely beautiful thing ; but I should suppose 
 that the film, by its power of exhibiting movements 
 naturally too quick for the eye at whatever slower 
 rate is desired, must have extraordinary use for 
 scicntilic investigations. This, at any rate, is a 
 better use for the film than that sometimes claimed 
 for it in the field of morality. I look with suspicion 
 on those films, as I do on those " spoken " plays, 
 that propose to do us good by exhibiting the details 
 of this or that " social evil." Some philanthropic 
 societies, I believe, have introduced such pictures in 
 all good faith. But many of their producers are, 
 like the others, merely out to make money, and in 
 every case I imagine their patrons to be drawn to 
 them not by any moral impulse, but by a prurient
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 curiosity — the desire to have a peep into the for- 
 bidden. 
 
 But to return to the question of time. It has its 
 importance, too, in the " spoken drama," but it 
 ceases to be a question of visible pace. You cannot 
 make real men and women scuttle about like ante- 
 lopes. You can only play tricks ^vith the clock. The 
 act-drop is invaluable for getting your imaginary 
 time outstripping your real time : — 
 
 jumping oer times, 
 Turning the accomplishment of many years 
 Into an hour-glass. 
 
 In a moment it bridges over for you the gap between 
 youth and age, as in Sweethearts. But there is 
 another way of playing tricks with the clock, by 
 making it stand still for some of your personages, 
 while it ticks regularly for the rest. A. E. W. Mason, 
 in one of his stories, gave an extra quarter of an 
 hour now and then to one of the characters — that is 
 to say, the clock stopped for them during that 
 period, but not for him — and while outside time, so 
 to speak, he could do all sorts of things (if I re- 
 member rightly he committed a murder) without 
 risk of detection. But the great magician of this 
 kind is Barric. The heroine of his Truth about the 
 Russian Dancers had a sudden desire for an infant, 
 and within a half-hour was delivered of one ; a re- 
 markably rapid case of parthenogenesis. The infant 
 was carried out and returned the next moment a 
 child of ten. " He grows apace," said somebody. 
 280
 
 TIME AND THE FILM 
 
 These were cases of the clock galloping. With the 
 heroine of Mary Ruse on the island it stands still, 
 so that she returns twenty-five years later to her 
 family precisely the same girl as she left them. We 
 all know what pathetic effects Barrie gets out of 
 this trick with the clock. But he has, of course, to 
 assume supernatural intervention to warrant them. 
 And there you have the contrast with the film. In 
 the " spoken drama," poor, decrepit old thing, they 
 appeal to that silly faculty, the human imagination ; 
 whereas the film has only to turn some wheels 
 quicker or slower and it is all done for you, under 
 your nose, without any imagination at all. Ele- 
 phants are scuttling about like antelopes and divers 
 plunging into the water at a snail's pace. No wonder 
 that, according to our New York advices, " film 
 magnates have made so much money that they have 
 been able to buy chains of theatres throughout the 
 country," and that " everybody talks films in the 
 United States." 
 
 2a 1
 
 FUTURIST DANCING 
 
 That amazing propagandist, Signer Marinctti, of 
 Milan, who favours me from time to time witli his 
 manifestos, now sends " La Uanse Futuriste." I 
 confess that I have not a ha'porth of Futurism in my 
 composition. I am what Signor Marinetti would 
 himself call a Passeiste, a mere Pastist. Hence I 
 have generally failed to discover any meaning in 
 these manifestos, and have thrown them into the 
 waste-paper basket. But as the present one 
 hajipcns to arrive at the same time as another 
 Futurist tract — Signor Ardcngo Soffici's " Estetica 
 Futurista " — I have read the two together, to see 
 if one throws any light on the other. It is right to 
 say that " the " Soffici (to adopt an Italianism) 
 disclaims any connexion with " the " Marinetti, 
 explaining that he puts forward a doctrine, whereas 
 oflieial Futurism has no doctrine, but only mani- 
 festos. It couldn't have, he rather unkindly adds, 
 seeing that its very nature is " anticultural and 
 instinctolatrous." (Rather jolly, don't you think, 
 the rich and varied vocabulary of these Ralian 
 gentlemen ?) Nevertheless, I have ventured to 
 study one document by the light of the other ; and, 
 if the result is only to make darkness visible, it is a 
 282
 
 FUTURIST DANCING 
 
 certain gain, after ail, to get any tiling visible in such 
 a matter. 
 
 And first for the Marinetti. His manifesto begins 
 by taking an historical survey of dancing through 
 the ages. The earliest dances, he points out, 
 reflected the terror of humanity at the unknown 
 and the incomprehensible in the Cosmos. Thus 
 round dances were rhythmical pantomimes repro- 
 ducing tlie rotatory movement of the stars. The 
 gestures of the Catholic priest in the celebration of 
 Mass imitate these early dances and contain the 
 same astronomical symbol — a statement calculated 
 to provoke devout Catholics to fury. (I should like 
 to hear the learned author of " The Golden Bough " 
 on the anthropological side of it.) Then came the 
 lascivious dances of the East, and their modern 
 Parisian counterpart — or sham imitation. For this 
 he gives a quasi-mathematical lornuda in the 
 familiar Futurist style. " Parisian red pepper + 
 buckler + lance + ecstasy before idols signifying 
 nothing + nothing + undulation of Montmartre hips 
 = erotic Pastist anachronism for tourists." Golly, 
 what a formula ! 
 
 Before the war Paris went crazy over dances from 
 South America : the Argentine fango, the Chilean 
 zamacucca, the Brazilian incuiixc, tiie Paraguayan 
 santafi. Compliments to Uiaghileff, Nijinsky (" the 
 pure geometry "' of dancing), and Isadora Duueaii, 
 " whose art has many points of eontaet with impres- 
 sionism in painting, just as Nijinsky *s has witji the 
 
 L'.'i.'i
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 forms and masses of Cezanne." Under the influence 
 of Cubist experiments, and particularly imder the 
 influence of Picasso, dancing became an autonomous 
 art. It was no longer subject to music, but took its 
 place. Kind words for Dalcroze ; but " we Futurists 
 prefer Loie Fuller and the nigger cake-walk (utiliza- 
 tion of electric light and machinery)." Machinery's 
 the thing ! " We must have gestures imitating the 
 movements of motors, pay assiduous court to wings, 
 wheels, pistons, prepare the fusion of man and 
 machine, and so arrive at the metallism of Futurist 
 dancing. Music is fundamentally nostalgic, and on 
 that account rarely of any use in Futurist dancing. 
 Noise, caused by friction and shock of solid bodies, 
 liquids, or high-pressure gases, has become one of 
 the most dynamic elements of Futurist poesy. 
 Noise is the language of the new human-mechanical 
 life." So Futurist dancing will be accompanied by 
 " organized noises " and the orchestra of " noise- 
 makers " invented by Luigi Russolo. Finally, 
 Futurist dancing will be : — 
 
 Inharmonious — Ungraceful — Asymmetrical — 
 
 Dy nami c — Moilihriste. 
 All this, of course, is as plain as a pikestaff. The 
 Futurist aim is simply to run counter to tradition, 
 to go by rule of contrary, to say No when every- 
 body for centuries has been saying Yes, and Yes 
 when everybody has been saying No. But when it 
 comes to putting this principle into practice we see 
 at once there are limitations. Thus, take the 
 
 284
 
 FUTURIST DANCING 
 
 Mariiietti's lirst example, the " Aviation " dance. 
 The dancer \\all dance on a big map (which would 
 have pleased the late Lord Salisbury). She must 
 be a continual palpitation of azure veils. On her 
 breast she will wear a (celluloid) screw, and for her 
 hat a model monoplane. She will dance before a 
 succession of screens, bearing the announcements 
 300 metres, 500 metres, etc. She will leap over a 
 heap of green stuffs (indicating a mountain), 
 " Organized noises " will imitate rain and wind and 
 continual intcrrujitions of the electric light will 
 simulate ligiitning, while the dancer will jump 
 through hoops of pink paper (sunset) and blue paper 
 (night). And so forth. 
 
 Was there ever such a lame and impotent conclu- 
 sion ? The new dancing, so pompously announced, 
 proves to be nothing but the crude symbolism to be 
 seen already in every Christmas pantomime — nay, 
 in every village entertainment or " vicar's treat." 
 And we never guessed, when our aunts took us to see 
 the good old fun, that we were witnessing something 
 dynamic and motlibriste ! 
 
 I turn to the Sofhci. lie finds the philosophy of 
 Futurism in the clown, because the clown's supreme 
 wisdom is to run coimtcr to common sense. " The 
 universe has no meaning outside the fireworks of 
 phenomena — say the tricks and acts and jokes of 
 the clown. Your i)roblcms, your systems, are 
 absurd, dear sirs ; all's one and nothing counts save 
 the sport of the imagination. Let us away with 
 
 2»5
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 our ergotism, with the hire of reason, let us abandon 
 ourselves entirely to the frenzy of innovations that 
 provoke wonder." It is this emaneipation, adds 
 the Sofllei, this artifieial creation of a lyric reality 
 independent of the nexus of natural manifestations 
 and appearances, this gay symbolism, that our 
 ffisthctie jjuts forward as the aim for the new artist. 
 Well, we have seen how gay was the symbolism 
 devised by the Marinetti. And how inadequate, 
 how poor in invention. Dancing that has to be eked 
 out by labelled screens and paper hoops and pyramids 
 of stuffs ! That is what we get from the new artist. 
 The old artists had a different way ; when they had 
 to symbolize, they did it by dancing, without 
 extraneous aid. When Karsavina symbolized golf, 
 she required no " property '' but a golf-ball. All 
 the rest was the light fantastic toe. When Genee 
 symbolized Cinderella's kitchen drudgerj', she just 
 seized a broom and danced, di\'inely, with it. But 
 that was before the Marinetti made his grand 
 discovery that music is too nostalgic for dancing 
 purposes and that the one thing needful is organized 
 noise — as organized by Luigi Russolo. . . . No, it 
 is no use trying ; I remain an incorrigible Pastist. 
 
 23G
 
 HROSWITHA 
 
 Whitixg about Hroswitha's CallimachuSy as 
 performed by the Art Theatre, I touched upon the 
 unintentionally comic aspect of a tenth-century 
 miracle play to a twentieth-century audience. 
 Naturally this is not an aspect of the matter which 
 recommends itself to a lady who is about to publish 
 a translation of Hroswitha's plays with a preface 
 by a cardinal, and in a published letter she protests 
 that the fun which the Art Theatre got out of 
 Callimachus was not justified by the text. Let me 
 hasten to acquit the Art Theatre of the mis- 
 demeanour attributed to it by Miss Christopher St. 
 John. There was nothing intentionally funny in its 
 performance. The players acted their parts with 
 all possible simplicity and sincerity. The smiling 
 was all on our side of the footlights. But I said 
 that the smile was " reverent,'' because of the sacred 
 nature of the subject-matter. 
 
 This opens up the question of the frame of mind 
 in which we moderns ought to approach works of 
 " early " art. The first effort of a critic — we must 
 all be agreed about that- should be to put himself, 
 imaginatively, in the artist's place. He has to try 
 to fhink himself l)aok into the time, the place, the 
 
 237
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 circumstances of the work, and into the artist's 
 temperament, intentions, and means of execution. 
 We look at the Madonna of Cimabue in the church 
 of Santa Maria Novella, and our first impulse is 
 to find her ungainly, uncouth, without spiritual 
 significance. It is only by thinking ourselves back 
 among the Florentines of the thirteenth century 
 that we can understand and appreciate Cimabue's 
 appeal. But consider how dillicult — or, rather, 
 impossible — that thinking-back process is. Consider 
 what we have to unlearn. We have to make our- 
 selves as though we had never seen the Sistine 
 Madonna of Raphael ; mueii more than that, we 
 have mentally to wipe out six centuries of human 
 history. Manifestly it cannot be done ; we can 
 never see the Cimabue picture as Cimabue himself 
 saw it or as his Florentine contemporaries saw it. 
 We have to try ; but what we shall at best succeed 
 in attaining is a palimpsest, the superimposition of 
 new artistic interpretation on the old. And when 
 we say that classics are immortal, we only mean that 
 they are capable of yielding a perpetual series of 
 fresh palimpsests, of being perpetually " hatched 
 again and hatched different.'' We cannot see 
 Dante's Cummedia as Dante or Dante's first readers 
 saw it. For us its politics are dead and its theology 
 grotesque ; it lives for us now by its spirituality, its 
 majesty, and the beauty of its form. But with 
 works that are not classics, works that are not 
 susceptible of a perpetual rebirth, the ease is even 
 
 238
 
 HROSWITHA 
 
 harder. They are inscriptions that we can no 
 longer decipher ; we cannot think ourselves, for a 
 moment, back in the mind of the author. They 
 have become for us curios. 
 
 And that is what ITroswitha's Callimachus has 
 become : a curio. How can we put ourselves back 
 in the mind of a nun in the Convent of Gandersheim 
 in the age of Otho the Great ? I say " we." For 
 nuns perhaps (having, I assume, a mentality nearer 
 the tenth century than the rest of us) may take a 
 fair shot at it. So, too, may cardinals, whose august 
 mentality I do not presume to fathom. But it is 
 certain that common worldly men, mere average 
 playgoers, cannot do it. 
 
 But, it will be objected, arc we not, or most of us, 
 still Christians ? Are we not still capable of under- 
 standing prayers, miracles, saintliness, raising from 
 the dead, " conversion," and all the other subject- 
 matter of Callimachns ? To be sure we are ; hence 
 my " reverent ' smile. If Christianity were dead 
 (or, as in Swift's ironical pamphlet, abolished by Act 
 of Parliament) Callimachus would be simply mean- 
 ingless for us, a nothing, mere mummery. It is 
 not the matter of the play that provokes our smile ; 
 but its form. Tiic " fun," says Miss St. John, is 
 " not justified by the text." She is thinking of the 
 matter, abounding in piety and tending to edifica- 
 tion ; but in point of fact the language, the " text " 
 — at any rate in theatrical representation (far be it 
 from_mc to prejudice her forthcoming book) — has 
 
 239
 
 PASTICHK AND PREJUDICE 
 
 its comic side. Callimachus's abrupt declaration of 
 his passion to Drusiana and the terms of her rejection 
 of him are botli, to a modern audience, irresistibly 
 comic. They are not meaningless, but they are 
 delightfully impossible : they are love-making as 
 imagined by a nun, the very person who ex hypotJiesi 
 knows nothing about it. You have, in fact, precisely 
 the same delicious absurdity, proceeding from an 
 imagination necessarily uninstructed by experience, 
 as you get in Miss Daisy Ashford's book. (Several 
 critics have made this comparison. I am really 
 chagrined not to have thought of it myself. But it 
 should show Miss St. John that I am, at any rate, 
 not the only one who found CaUimachus comic.) 
 
 Further, and quite apart from the exquisite 
 naiveties of its text, the form of the play is so 
 childlike and bland as to be really funny. The 
 players, when not engaged in the action, stand 
 motionless in a semi-circle. Changes of scene are 
 indicated by two performers crossing the stage in 
 opposite directions — a genuine cricket " over." 
 Characters are understood to be stricken with death 
 when they composcdlj^ lie down on their backs. 
 Others trot in pairs round Drusiana's prostrate form 
 and you understand they are journeying to her 
 tomb. All this, of course, is merely primitive 
 " convention." Could we put ourselves back into 
 Hroswitha's time, it would pass unnoticed. In our 
 own time, with a different set of " conventions," that 
 make some attempt at imitation of reality, we 
 240
 
 HROSWITHA 
 
 naturally laugh at these old conventions. We 
 laugh, but we are interested ; our curiosity is being 
 catered for, we like to see what the old conventions 
 were. The curio, in short, is amusing in the fullest 
 sense of the term. 
 
 And it leaves us with a desire to know more about 
 Hroswitha, the " white rose " of the tenth century 
 (if that be really the meaning of her name). Perhaps 
 the Cardinals preface will tell us more. One 
 remark occurs. It seems a little significant that a 
 nun should have written all her plays on the one 
 theme of chastity. It must have been an obsession 
 with her, this virtue to which, as Renan said, 
 nature attaches so little importance. And, in 
 hunting her theme, this nun does not scruple to 
 pursue it to the strangest places. She even puts 
 courtesans upon the stage and houses of ill-fame. 
 How on earth did the good lady imagine these un- 
 conventual topics ? The question suggests some 
 puzzles about the psychology of nuns. But one 
 only has to see CaUimachtis to know that Hroswitha 
 must have been as pure as snow, or as a white rose, 
 as innocently ignorant, in fact, of what she was 
 writing ;il)out as Miss Daisy Asiiford when she 
 described an elopement. 
 
 211
 
 PAGELLO 
 
 Long before Madame Sand was produced at the 
 Duke of York's Theatre more had been \vritten all 
 the world over about the trip of George Sand and 
 Alfred de Musset to Venice in 1833-4 than about 
 the decline and fall of the Roman Empire or the 
 campaigns of the Great War. A heavy fine should 
 be imposed on any one who needlessly adds a drop of 
 ink to the vast mass of controversy that has raged 
 round that subject, and I promise to leave the main 
 story, which must be known to every adult man and 
 woman in the two hemispheres, severely alone. But 
 there is a subordinate actor in the story, to whom 
 injustice, I think, has been done on all hands, and 
 whose ease it would be an act of the merest decency 
 to reconsider. I mean Pietro Pagello. 
 
 His case was prejudiced from the first by the dis- 
 semination of an atrocious libel. When a patient 
 alleges scandalous behaviour between doctor and 
 nurse, it is well to be sure of the witness's mental 
 condition. Now Musset was suffering, not, as Pagello 
 politely put it, from typhoid fever, but from delirium 
 tremens. This would at once disqualify him as an 
 eye-witness. But the fact is Musset himself never 
 made the allegation ; the story was spread about by 
 242
 
 PAGELLO 
 
 brother Paul, a terrible liar. Pagcllo had been called 
 in first to attend not Alfred, but George herself, for 
 severe headache. Half a century later he remem- 
 bered that her lips were thick and ugly, and her teeth 
 discoloured by the cigarettes she was perpetually 
 smoking ; but she charmed him by her wonderfid 
 eyes : per gli occhi stupendi. After they had both 
 nursed Alfred to convalescence the occhi stupendi 
 made short work with the young doctor. In the 
 common phrase, George threw herself at him. 
 People who don't study the facts talk of the new 
 arrangement as though it were a betrayal ; but 
 observe that it was of the highest convenience not 
 only to George, but to Alfred. It enabled the poet 
 to get away alone to Paris with an easier conscience ; 
 it provided George, compelled to stay on in Venice 
 to complete her tale of " copy,"' with a protector. 
 But we are in 183i, with romanticism at its most 
 ecstatic and " sublime." So the convenience of the 
 situation is draped in phrases and bedewed with 
 tears. Alfred shed tlurn with enthusiasm, while 
 Pagello swore to him to look alter the happiness of 
 George. " II nostro amore {)er Alfredo " was 
 Pagello's delightful way of putting it. A singular 
 trio ! Evidently poor Pagello was George's slave. 
 \Vhat was a poor young Venetian medical gentleman 
 to do ? A foreign lady with occhi stupendi (and a 
 habit of writing eight or nine hours a day on end) 
 handed over to him, with tears of enthusiasm, by a 
 grateful patient ! Anyhow, I'agello showed his sense 
 248 R ^
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 by removing the lady to cheaper lodgings. When 
 Venice grew a little too hot he escorted her on a trip 
 to Tirol, taking her on the way (such were the pleas- 
 ing manners of the time) to see his father ! He was a 
 little short wth mc, says the son, but he received 
 her with cortesi ospitaUta, and the pair discussed 
 French literature. Mr. Max Becrbohm should draw 
 the picture. 
 
 It has been the fashion to dismiss Pagello as a mere 
 nincompoop. But if he had been that, a George 
 Sand would not have cared a rap for him, and he 
 would have been terrified by George. As it was, 
 when she asked him to take her back to Paris he 
 " chucked " his practice and cheerfully parted with 
 his pictures and plate to provide funds for the 
 journey. He was, at any rate, a disinterested lover ; 
 but tlie truth seems to be he was not })assionate 
 enough for George. " Pagello is an angel of virtue," 
 she writes to Musset, " he is so full of sensibility and 
 so good ... he surrounds me with care and atten- 
 tion. . . . For the first time in my life I love without 
 passion. . . . Well, for my part, I feel the need to 
 suffer for some one. Oh ! why couldn't I live 
 between the two of you and make you happy without 
 belonging to either ? " But by the time she had 
 reached Paris she was already thinking of belonging 
 to Alfred again, and " door-stepped " Pagello. Her 
 Parisian set, of course, made fun of him. The poor 
 gentleman's situation was, indeed, sutticiently awk- 
 ward. But it is not true, as it is the fashion to say, 
 244
 
 PAGELLO 
 
 that he was " sent straight back." George, who had 
 retreated to Nohant, invited him there, but he had 
 the good sense to dechne. She was afraid he might 
 be in want of monej^ and wrote to a friend, " he will 
 never take it from a woman, even as a loan." She, 
 at any rate, knew he was a gentleman. But the 
 Italians, with all their romantic traditions, are a 
 practical people. Finding himself adrift in Paris, 
 Pagello remembered his profession, and stayed on as 
 long as he could to study surgery, with such sub- 
 stantial result that he subsequently became one of 
 the chief surgeons in Italy, and gained a special 
 reputation, it is said, in lithotomy. Thus may a 
 fantastic love adventure be turned to good account. 
 I take my facts about Pagello from Mme. Wladimir 
 Karenine's " George Sand " (1899-1912), the one 
 authentic and exhaustive work on the subject. He 
 died, over 90 years of age, after the first two of her 
 three volumes were published, and what one likes 
 most of all about him is that, till very near the end 
 of his life, he kept his mouth tight siiut about the 
 great adventure of his youth. A mere nincompoop 
 could not have done that. In 1881 the Italian Press 
 happened to be reviving the story of the Venetian 
 amour, and they succeeded in getting from Pagello 
 a few of George's letters and some modest, manly 
 reminiscences. He had no piquant scandals to dis- 
 close, and merely showed, quite luiconsciously, that 
 he was far the most decent of the strange three 
 involved in the Venetian adventure. 
 
 245
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 As for the Pagello of the new play, tlie American 
 dramatist has made him just a tame, hopelessly 
 bewildered donkey. He is provided with a fierce 
 Italian sweetheart, to bring him buck safe, if scolded, 
 from Paris to Italy. He lives freely on other people's 
 money, George's — when it isn't Alfred's. After all, 
 it doesn't matter, for all the people of the play are 
 mere travesties of the originals, turned (in the pub- 
 lished book of the play, though not at the Duke of. 
 York's) into modern American citizens. Buloz talks 
 of" boosting " his subscriptions. Alfred says George 
 is " like a noisy old clock that won't stop ticking." 
 Oh dear ! 
 
 246
 
 STENDHAL 
 
 In reviewing the perlonnance by the New Shake- 
 speare Company of King Henry V. I was reminded 
 by one of Henrys lines at Agincourt, 
 
 We few, we happy few, we band of brothers, 
 
 to speak, it may have seemed a trifle incongruously, 
 of Stendlial. But it was Stendlial who said, " jc 
 n'ecris que pour les happy few J" No quotation could 
 have been more appropriate. Stcndiial's readers 
 have always been few, but they have been enthusi- 
 astic. In his lifetime he was hardly read at all, 
 though Balzac gave him a magnilicent " puff " — so 
 magnificent that even Stendiuil himself was taken 
 aback by it and infused a little irony into his thanks. 
 He supposed himself to be ahead of his time, and in 
 1840 said he would be understood somewhere about 
 1880. It was rather a good shot, for somewhere 
 about that date there came intobeing the fierce tribe 
 of Stendhalians, who founded the " Stendhal Club " 
 and included in their numl^er no less a man than 
 M. Paul Bourget. But the vicissitudes of literary 
 reputations are as uncertain as anything in this 
 world, and M. Bourget wondered what would be 
 thouglit of Stendhal in another forty years — namely, 
 in 1920. Well, 1920 has arrived, as the years have 
 
 247
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 the habit of doing with abominable rapidity, and 
 any one who likes can seek for an answer to M. 
 Bourget's question. I will hazard a guess. I doubt 
 if in the interval there has been very much change in 
 Stendhal's position. Now, as in 1880, Stendhal is 
 read, and immoderately loved, by the " happy few," 
 and ignored or detested by the rest. But, in enjoying 
 him, the happy few contrive to take him a little 
 less seriously than did the Stendhal Club. That 
 process goes on with even greater reputations. Croce, 
 we are told, takes Dante more lightly than has been 
 the habit of Italian critics in the last half-century. 
 We English are gradually learning to discuss 
 Shakespeare as a human being. And here, pat to the 
 occasion, is a paper on Stendhal in the Revue de Paris 
 by M. Anatole France, which handles its subject 
 with the easy Anatolian grace we all know and does, 
 perhaps, at the same time indicate what the readers 
 of 1920 think of Stendhal, though none of them 
 would express their thought of him \vith the same 
 charm. 
 
 It would probably occur to none of them, for 
 instance, as it docs to Anatole France, to begin an 
 appreciation of Stendhal with the statement that he 
 " had a leg." Modern costume has abolished this 
 advantage, but Stendhal lived, at any rate for the 
 greater part of his life, in the knee-breeches period, 
 when calves were on exhibition. Unluckily, Stend- 
 hal's calves do not appear in the portrait prefixed to 
 the Correspondence, but only the head, which is 
 248
 
 STENDHAL 
 
 rather quaintly ugly. Quaint ugliness in men is not 
 displeasing to women (or where would most of us 
 be ?), but what neer won fair lady is faint heart, and 
 Stendhal was timid. Thus, as a young man Stendhal 
 is said to have loved Mile. Vietorine Monnier for five 
 years before he spoke to her. He was not sure that 
 even then she knew who he was. And this was the 
 man who wrote a treatise " Dc 1 'Amour " (a delight- 
 ful book to skim through, nevertheless), and preaches 
 that every woman can be captured by direct assault ! 
 I remember once talking to the wife of a popular 
 novelist, a great enthusiast for love, about her 
 husband's variety and virtuosity on this subject. 
 She replied without enthusiasm : " Yes, in his books." 
 On the same point, M. France reports a capital sub 
 rosd saying of Renan's : — " Les Europeens font 
 preuve d'unc deplorable ind6cision en tout ce qui 
 concerne la conjonotion dcs sexes." 
 
 As might have been expected from a wTiter for the 
 " happy few," Stendhal did not suffer fools gladly. 
 A man must have the social, tiic gregarious spirit for 
 that, and Stendhal lived much to himself. That 
 being so, he could not hope to escape boredom. An 
 incurable ennui lurks behind many of his pages ; his 
 enemies would say in them. He even got bored with 
 Italy, as so many others of a century ago, who began 
 as enthusiastic lovers, got bored. Byron went to 
 Greece — and Shelley took to yachting with the fatal 
 result we know — because each was bored with Italy. 
 But Stendhal in his later years had to put up with it 
 
 'J 49
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 at Civita Vecchia — which, for a " littery gent " must 
 have been a deadly dull place in 18 10, and would not, 
 I imagine, be very lively even now. Indeed, his 
 existence (after his early experiences with the Grand 
 Army) seems to have been quiet, solitary, and slow. 
 Perhaps that is why his books, his MSS., his letters, 
 are so full of mysterious disguises, initials, pseudo- 
 nyms, codes, erasures, as thougii he were being 
 watched by censors and hunted by spies. It was a 
 way of creating for himself an imaginary atmosphere 
 of adventure. 
 
 M. France has some good things to say about 
 Stendhal's style. M. Bourget calls his prose alge- 
 braic, which is rather hard. But there arc many 
 ways of writing, says M. France, and one can succeed 
 at it perfectly without any art, just as one can be a 
 great writer without correctness, as Henri IV. was in 
 his letters and Saint-Simon in his memoirs. No one 
 would read " Le Rouge et le Noir " or " La Chartreuse 
 de Parme," as the Duchess in a Pinero play said she 
 read her French novel, for the style. xVnatole France 
 commits himself to a very definite statement. No 
 Frenchman, he says, in Stendhals time wrote well, 
 the French language was altogether lost, and every 
 author at the beginning of the nineteenth century 
 wrote ill, with the sole exception of Paul Louis 
 Courier. " The disaster to the language, begun in 
 the youth of Mirabeau, increased under the Revolu- 
 tion, despite those giants of the tribune, Vergniaud, 
 Saint-Just, Robespierre, compared with whom our 
 
 250
 
 STENDHAL 
 
 orators oi' to-day seem noisy children, despite Camille 
 Desmoulins, author of the last well-written pamphlet 
 France was to read ; the evil was aggravated under 
 the Empire and the Restoration ; it became a fright- 
 ful thing in tlie works of Tliicrs and of Guizot." This, 
 from the greatest living master of French, is not 
 without its interest. No one could say the same 
 thing of our English prose in the same period — a 
 period that gave us, to take a few instances at random, 
 Cowper's letters and Byron's, and the Essays of Elia. 
 Stendhal, then, was not remarkable for style. But 
 one gathers that, in the rare occurrence of congenial 
 society, he was a good talker. One would give some- 
 thing to have been a third in the box at La Scala 
 when Stendhal, a young olUcer of Napoleon, met an 
 old, lanky, melancholy general of artillery — no other 
 than Choderlos de Laclos, author, before the Revo- 
 lution, of " Les Liaisons Dangercuses."' Stendiial, 
 as a child, had known the original of Laclos's 
 infamous Mme. dc Mcrtcuil, an original who appears 
 to have been even worse than the copy. Some 
 years later George Sand, on her way to Italy witli 
 Musset, met Stendhal on a Rhone steamer, and he 
 told her a story which, she said, shocked her. She 
 docs not repeat it. One would really rather like to 
 hear a story which could shock George Sand.
 
 JULES LEMAlTRE 
 
 It was in the first week of August, 1914. The 
 crowd on the scafront was outwardly as gay as ever, 
 only buying up the evening papers with a little more 
 eagerness than usual to read the exeiting news from 
 Belgium. We had not had time to realize what war 
 meant. Some one held out a paper to me and said, 
 quite casually, " I see Lemaitre's dead." This event 
 seemed to me for the moment bigger than the war 
 itself. At any rate it came more intimately home to 
 me. The world in an uproar, nations toppling to 
 ruin, millions of men in arms — these are only vague 
 mental pictures. They disquiet the imagination, 
 but are not to be realized by it. The death of your 
 favourite author, the spiritual companion and solace 
 of half a lifetime, is of an infmitcly sharper reality, 
 and you feel it as though it were a physical pang. 
 
 Lcmaitre died where, whenever he could, he had 
 lived, at Tavcrs in the Loiret, the heart of France. 
 He was always writing about Tavcrs, though he 
 never named it by its name. In describing the far- 
 off cruises of Loti and the indefatigable touristry of 
 Bourget he says : — " There is somewhere a big 
 orchard that goes down to a brook edged with 
 willows and poplars. It is for me the most beauti- 
 
 252
 
 JULES LEMAtTRE 
 
 ful landscape in Lhc world, lor i love it, and it knows 
 me." To understand Lemaitre you must keep that 
 little vignette affectionately in your mind, as he did. 
 M. Henry Bordeaux, in his charming little mono- 
 graph " Jules Lemaitre," rightly insists upon 
 Lemaitre's passionate love for his native country- 
 side. But you never can tell ; his insistence seems 
 only to have bored a recent reviewer of the book. 
 " The insistence on Lemaitre's patriotism and on 
 his being ' I'homme de sa terre ' is a little wearying ; 
 of course he was ' I'homme de sa terre,' but he was 
 many other things, or we should never have heard 
 of him." As who should say, of course Cyrano had 
 a nose, but he had many other things, or we should 
 never have heard of him. But Cyrano's nose was 
 a conspicuous feature, and, if we arc not told of it, 
 we shall not fully understand Cyrano. So with 
 Lemaitre's love of his countryside by the Loire. 
 
 It made him, to begin with, an incorrigible stay- 
 at-home. In this, as in so many other things, he 
 was a typical Frenchman. We English, born 
 roaincrs as we are, take for granted the educative 
 influence of travel. Places and people, we know by 
 elementary experience, arc only to be realized by 
 being seen on the sj)ot. Lemaitre thought otherwise. 
 Why, he asked, need I go to England ? I can get all 
 England out of Dickens and George Eliot and my 
 friend Bourget's " Impressions de Voyage." And 
 then he drew a picture of England, as he confidciilly 
 believed it to be, that is about as " like it " as, say, 
 2.'53
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 the average untra veiled Englishman" s notion of 
 Tavers. He was never tired of quoting a passage of 
 the " Imitation '" about the variety of changing sky 
 and scene. But a cloistered monk is not exactly an 
 authority on this subject. 
 
 Again, the fact that Lcmaitrc was " Ihomme de 
 sa terre " is of vital literary importance ; it affected 
 not only the spirit, but the actual direction of his 
 criticism. It inclined him to ignore or to misappre- 
 hend those features in a foreign author that pre- 
 cisely marked how he also, in his turn, was the man 
 of his countryside, and that very different from tiie 
 banks of the Loire. Some of his comments on Shake- 
 speare, for instance, are of a Gallicism almost Vol- 
 tairean. And it fostered illusions like that which 
 possessed him about the " Northern literatures " — 
 Ibsen, Hauptmann, Strindberg, and so forth — that 
 they were mere belated imitators of the French 
 romantics. The fact that Lcmaitrc was essentially 
 a man of his province involved the fact that his 
 criticism now and then was also provincial. 
 
 Indeed, his very provincialism heightened his 
 enjoyment of Paris and sharpened his sense of 
 Parisianism. Things which the born Parisian takes 
 for granted were delightful novelties for him, chal- 
 lenging observation and analysis. " 11 est," said 
 Degas, " toujours bien content d'etre k Paris." He 
 was " bien content " because he was " the young 
 man from the country," the man from Tavers. The 
 phenomenon is familiar all the world over. 
 251
 
 JULES LEMAfTRE 
 
 Further, tlie fact that Lemaitre remained 
 " rhomme de sa terre," still getting his clothes 
 from the village tailor, never so much at home as 
 among the farmers, country schoolmasters, and 
 peasants he had known from his infancy, gives a 
 quite peculiar saAour to his remarks on " Ic monde " 
 — the great fashionable scene, which he describes 
 and analyses, to be sure, as a philosojihcr, but as a 
 philosopher who is, consciously and indeed defiantly, 
 an " outsider." 
 
 These arc all integral parts of Lemaitrc's critical 
 individuality. Without them he would have been 
 another man altogether — a point so obvious to all 
 lovers of Lemaitre that it woidd never have occurred 
 to me to mention it, had it not been for our reviewer's 
 weariness of being reminded that he was " I'hommc 
 de sa terre." Evidently the reviewer cannot for- 
 give Lemaitre for his treatment of the " decadents " 
 and the " symbolistes," and other cranks. " Think 
 of the people Lemaitre missed." The peoi)le in- 
 clude, it seems, Moreas, Laforgue, Samain, and Rim- 
 baud. Well, after thinking of these people, many of 
 us will be resigned to " missing " them with Lemaitre. 
 
 It is odd that the reviewer, while hunting for 
 objections to Lemaitrc's criticism, as criticism, 
 should have " missed " the really valid one — that 
 it is often not so much critical as *' high fantastical." 
 Lemaitre was apt to be carried away by his imagina- 
 tion, and to run through a varied assortment of 
 comparisons, associations, and parallels that coloured 
 
 255
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 rather than cleared the issue. The rigorist Croce 
 has, in passing, hiid his finger upon this. He quotes 
 Lemaitre on Corncille. Polyeucte, says the critic, 
 recalls at once " St. Paul, Huss, Calvin, and Prince 
 Kropotkine," and awakes " the same curiosity as a 
 Russian Nihilist, of the kind to be seen in Paris in 
 bygone years, in some brasserie ... of whom the 
 whisper Avent round that at St. Petersburg he had 
 killed a general or a prefect of police." Croce dis- 
 misses this sort of thing as ncami di fantasia, and 
 certainly, from the point of view of strict criticism, 
 it is a weakness of Lemaitre's. 
 
 After all, however (as the counsel in " Pickwick " 
 pleaded about something else), it is an amiable 
 weakness ; it makes him such incomparably good 
 reading ! Heaven forbid that I should reopen the 
 old stupid, stale controversy about " impressionist " 
 and " judicial " criticism ; but it is obvious that the 
 one sort does explicitly acknowledge and glory in 
 what is implicit in the other — the individual tem- 
 perament and talent of the critic himself. If the 
 " impressionist " who gives free play to his tem- 
 perament is apt sometimes to get out of bounds — 
 to be substituting ricami di fantasia for strict 
 analysis — he may be all the more stinnilating to the 
 reader. He may be giving the reader not scrupu- 
 lous criticism, but something better. It all depends, 
 of course, on the temperament and the talent. 
 Lemaitre's ricami di fantasia are part, if not the 
 best part, of his charm. 
 
 256
 
 JANE AUSTEN 
 
 The amusing parlour-gamc of Jane Austen 
 topography is always being played somewhere. A 
 few years ago there was a correspondence in the 
 Literary Supplement about the precise position of 
 Emma's Highbury on the map. Some Austenites 
 voted for Esher, others for Cobham, others again 
 for Bookham. There has been another corre- 
 spondence about Mansfield Park. Lady Vaux of 
 Harrowden " identifies " it with Easton Neston, 
 near Towcester. Sir Francis Darwin and the 
 Master of Downing arc for Easton in Huntingdon- 
 shire. People liave consulted Paterson's Roads 
 about it. Mr. Mackinnon, K.C., points out that it 
 must have been about four miles north of North- 
 ampton. But I like him liest when he says, " I 
 do not suppose any actual park was in Jane Austen's 
 mind." Brigadier, vous avez raison ! I do not 
 suppose any actual place was in Jane Austen's mind 
 when she assigned her personages a home or a 
 lodging. You might as well try to fix the number 
 of the house in Graccehurch Street where Elizabeth's 
 uncle lived. Arc we not shown the " real " Old 
 Curiosity Shop ? And the " real " Bleak House ? 
 
 rv- 257 s
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 And Juliets tomb at Verona* And the exact 
 point of the Cobb where Louisa Musgrove fell ? 
 
 It is easy to see why Jane Austen lends herself 
 more readily than most \vriters to this topographical 
 pamc. She was very fond of topographical colour, 
 giving not only real place-names to the neighbour- 
 hood of the fictitious homes, but exact distances in 
 miles. It was so many miles from Highbury to 
 Kingston market-place, and so many to Box Hill. 
 Yet she was always vague about the exact spot from 
 which these distances were calculated. For there 
 her imagination had its home, it was her private 
 Paradise of Dainty Devices ; she wanted a free hand 
 there, unhampered by maps, road books, and other 
 intrusions from the actual world. In fact, she did 
 with ical places just what Scott, say, did with 
 historical people, kept them to surround the 
 imaginary centre of the tale. You can " identify " 
 Charles Edward, but not Waverlcy. You can 
 " identify " Nottingham, but not Mansfield Park. 
 
 It is a mercy that Jane Austen never describes 
 houses — never descril^cs them, I mean, with the 
 minute (and tedious) particularity of a Balzac — or 
 the topographical game would have been supple- 
 mented by an architectural one, and we should have 
 had the " real '" Mansfield Park })ointed out to us 
 from its description, like Hawthorne's House of the 
 Seven Gables. Indeed, she never, in the modern 
 sense, describes any tiling, never indulges in descrip- 
 tion lor its own sake. She never even expatiated on 
 258
 
 JANE AUSTEN 
 
 the beauties of nature, taking them for granted and, 
 indeed, on at least one famous occasion — when 
 strawberries were bcinjj picked while the apple trees 
 were still in bloom at DonwcU Abbey — ratiicr mixing 
 them up. Her descriptions always had a practical 
 purpose. If it rained in Bath, it was in order that 
 Anne might, or might not, meet Captain Went worth. 
 We know that Sir Thomas's " own dear room " at 
 Mansfield Park was next to the billiard-room, 
 because the novelist wanted us to know how he 
 came plump upon the ranting Mr. Yates. But that 
 detail, thank goodness, won't enable us to " identify " 
 Mansfield Park. 
 
 Doesn't it argue a rather matter-of-fact frame of 
 mind — I say it with all respect to the correspondents 
 of the Literary Supplement — this persistent tendency 
 to " identify " the imaginary with the actual, the 
 geographical, the historical ? There is a notable 
 instance of it in the Letters of Henry James. The 
 novelist had described in " The Bostonians '' a 
 certain veteran philanthropist, " Miss Birdseye." 
 Forthwith all Boston identified the imaginary Miss 
 Birdseye with a real Miss Peabody. " I am quite 
 appalled," writes Henry James to iiis brother 
 William, " by your note in which you assault me on 
 the subject of my having painted a ' portrait from 
 life ' of Miss Peabody ! I was in some measure 
 prepared for it l)y Lowell's (as I found the other 
 day) taking it for granted that she had been my 
 model, and an allusion to the same effect in a note 
 259 s 2
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 from aunt Kate. Still, I didn't expect the charge 
 to come from you. I hold that I have done nothing 
 to deserve it. . . . Miss Birdseye was conceived 
 entirely from my moral consciousness, like every 
 other person I have ever drawn." It is odd that a 
 man like William James, a professed student of the 
 human mind and its workings, should have made 
 such a mistake. I remember a saying attributed, 
 years ago, to Jowett about the two brothers : 
 one, he remarked, was a writer of fiction and the 
 other a psychologist, and the fiction was all psy- 
 chology and the psychology all fiction. Anyhow, I 
 think if any one had written to Jane Austen to tax 
 her with Highbury being Eshcr or Mansfield Park 
 Easton Ncston, she would have been able to rej)ly 
 that they were conceived entirely from her moral 
 consciousness. And I fancy she would liavc smiled 
 at her little trick of giving the exact mileage from 
 her imaginary centre to real places having " sold " 
 so many worthy people. Very likely she would 
 have brought the topographical game into the 
 Hartfield family circle, as a suitable alternative for 
 Mr. FJton's enigmas, ciiaradcs, conundrums, and 
 polite puzzles, or for Mr. Woodhouscs " Kitty, a 
 fair but frozen maid," which made him think of 
 poor Isabella — who was very near being christened 
 Catherine, after her grandmanuna. 
 
 The truth, surely, is that this place-hunting, this 
 seeking to " identify " the imaginary with the actual 
 map-marked spot, is only n part of the larger 
 260
 
 JANE AUSTEN 
 
 misconception of imaginative work — the miscon- 
 ception which leads to a perpetual search for the 
 " originals " of an author's personages, especially 
 when these personages have a full, vivid life of their 
 own. Jane Austen has often been compared to 
 Shakesj^care, ever since Macaulay set the fashion. 
 Well, it is naturally upon ShakesiDcare that this 
 misconception has wreaked its worst. Commen- 
 tators have gravely presented us with the " original " 
 of Falstaff, of Sir Toby Belch, of Dogberry — nay, 
 of lago. Surely, the only " originals " of these 
 people were Shakespeare himself ? What were they 
 but certain Shakespearean moods, humours, intimate 
 experiences, temptations felt, but resisted, impulses 
 controlled in actual life but allowed free play in 
 imaginative reverie ? No one that I know of has 
 been foolish enough to charge Jane Austen with 
 '' copying "' any of her characters from actual 
 individuals, but, if you are in quest of " identifica- 
 tions," is it not possible to " identify " many of 
 them, the women at any rate — for, of course, her 
 women bear the stamp of authentic reality much 
 more plainly than her men — is it not possible to 
 identify them with sides, tendencies, moods of Jane 
 Austen herself ? Here, I know, I am at variance 
 with a distinguished authority, from whom it is 
 always rash to differ. Professor Raleigh says : — 
 " Sympathy with her characters she frequently 
 has, identity never. Not in the high-spirited Eliza- 
 beth Bennet, iiol in that sturdy young patrician 
 261
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 Emma, not even in Anne Elliot of ' Persuasion,' is 
 the real Jane Austen to be found. She stands for 
 ever aloof." Pass, for Emma and Elizabeth ! But 
 the " even " in the case of Anne gives me courage. 
 We are not, of course, talking of identity in regard 
 to external circumstances. Jane Austen was not 
 the daughter of a Somersetshire baronet and did not 
 marry a captain in the navy. But that Jane only 
 " sympathized " -svith the heart and mind of Anne 
 Elliot is to my thinking absurdly short of the truth. 
 That the adventures of Aime's soul, her heart- 
 beatings, misgivings and intimate reassurances about 
 Wentworth's feeling for her had been Jane Austen's 
 own is to me as certain as though we had the con- 
 fession under her own hand and seal. The woman 
 who drew Anne's timid, doubting, wondering love 
 must have been in love herself and in that way. 
 One short sentence settles that for me. The con- 
 sciousness of love disposes Anne '' to pity every one, 
 as being less happy than herself." What lover does 
 not know that secret feeling ? And if he had never 
 loved, would he have guessed it by " sympathy " ? 
 (You will lind, by the way, the very same secret 
 divulged by Balzac in one of his love-letters to 
 Mme. Hanska — among the feelings she inspires him 
 with is " I know not what disdain in contemplating 
 other men.") In the face of this, what need to go 
 ransacking Jane Austen's Letters or Memoir for 
 evidence that she had a love affair ? No, it is 
 because there is most of Jane Austen's spiritual 
 
 2G2
 
 JANE AUSTEN 
 
 " identity " in Anne that " Persuasion " is the 
 sweetest, tendercst, and truest of her books. I 
 apolof^ize for having wandered from Mansfield Park 
 and Easton Neston and the other engaging futihties 
 of the parlour game. 
 
 208
 
 T. W. ROBERTSON 
 
 Fifty years ago to-morrow (February 3rd, 1871) 
 died Thomas William Robertson, a great reformer of 
 the English drama in liis day, but now, like so many 
 other reformers, little more than a name. His plays 
 have ceased to hold the stage. Very few of them 
 still allow themselves to be read. To-day their matter 
 seems, for the most part, poor, thin, trivial, and their 
 form somewhat naive. " Robertsonian'" has become 
 for the present generation a meaningless epithet, and 
 " teacup and saucer school " an empty gibe. Even 
 within a few years of Robertson's death George 
 Meredith could only say of him : " In a review of 
 our modern comedies, those of the late Mr. Robertson 
 would deserve honourable mention." As the old 
 tag says, times change and we in them. Robertson 
 is now a " back number." His comedies are not 
 classics, for classics are live things ; they are merely 
 historical documents. Yet you have only to turn to 
 such a record as '* The Bancrofts' Recollections " to 
 see how live these comedies once were, how stimu- 
 lating to their time, how enthusiastically they were 
 hailed as a new ])irth, a new portent, a new art. 
 Indeed, for my part, when I read the glowing eulogies 
 264
 
 T. W. ROBERTSON 
 
 of John Oxenford and Tom Taylor and the other 
 critics of that time I am hlled with something Uke 
 dismay. All that warm (and rather wordy — it was 
 the way of the "sixties) appreciation gone dead and 
 cold ! I wonder how many of our own judgments 
 will stand the test of fifty years. Br — r — r ! 
 
 Well, to understand Robertson's success, we have 
 to think ourselves back into his time. We have to 
 ignore what followed him and to see what he dis- 
 placed. Up to his date the theatre, under the great 
 French influence of the thirties, still remained 
 romantic. But that influence was wearing out. A 
 new influence was making itself felt in France, 
 through the dialectics of Dumas fits and Augier's 
 commonsense, though the new influence still bore 
 trace of the old romanticism, as we can see at least 
 to-day. La Dame aux Camelias, so romantic to-day, 
 was greeted in 1855 as a masterpiece of realism ! 
 And it wan comparatively realistic, realistic for its 
 time. But the Englisii theatre, a second-hand 
 theatre, still stuck to the old French romantic 
 tradition. It lived largely on adaptations from 
 Scribe. Robertson himself adajjtcd a Scribe play 
 (and not a bad one), Bataille de Dames. lie had, 
 however, come under the newer, the realistic, or 
 romantico-realistic indueiiee. lie a(la|)ted Augier's 
 UAienturii're. Tom Stylus's |)ij)e in the liallroom 
 (in Society) had previously been dr()])ped l)y (iiboyer 
 in Lcs Ejjronies. I cannot help thinking that the 
 new French reaction had a gooil ileal to do with the 
 
 26fi
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 Robertsonian reaction, certainly as mucli as the 
 influence of Thackeray to which Sir Arthur Pinero 
 traces it. 
 
 But I must let Sir Arthur speak for himself. In 
 a letter in which he has been so good as to remind 
 me of to-morrow's date he says : — 
 
 " I look upon Robertson as a genius. Not that 
 he ^vrote anything very profound, or anything very 
 witty, but because, at a time when the English 
 stage had sunk to even a lower ebb than it is usually 
 credited with reaching ; when the theatres stank of 
 stale gas and orange-peel and the higher drama was 
 represented mainly by adaptations from Scribe by 
 Leicester Buckingliam ; lie had the vision to sec that 
 a new public could be created, and an old and jaded 
 one refreshed, by invoking for dramatic purposes the 
 spirit, and using some part of the method, of 
 Thackeray." 
 
 This is admirable, and I only wish our dramatists 
 would more often be tempted into the region of 
 dramatic criticism. ^\11 the same I confess that 
 (after going through all Robertson's plays) it seems 
 to me to overrate the Thackerayan influence. Tiierc 
 is a little sentimental cynicism in Robertson and 
 there is much in Thackeray. There is a tipsy old 
 reprobate in Pendennis and there is another in Caste. 
 Tom Stylus helped to found a newspaper and so did 
 George Warrington. Esther D'Alroy tried vainly 
 to buckle on her husband's sword-belt when he was 
 ordered on service, and Amelia Osborne hovered 
 
 2GG
 
 T. W. ROBERTSON 
 
 helplessly about her husband with his red sash on 
 the eve of Waterloo. But such matters as these 
 are common property, communia, and the artist's 
 business, which Horace said was so difficult, is 
 proprie comiminia dicere, to give them an individual 
 turn. Drunkenness apart I dont think Ecclcs is a 
 bit like Costigan. As to the Thackerayan spirit, 
 would that Robertson had " invoked " it ! His 
 plays might then be classics still, as Thackeray is, 
 instead of merely documents. 
 
 If we are to connect Robertson with some typical 
 Victorian novelist, I would myself, with all deference 
 to Sir Arthur, suggest Trollope. His young women, 
 his Naomi Tighcs and Bellas, his Polly and Esther 
 Eccles, strike me as eminently Trollopean. There 
 are traces of Mrs. Proudie in both Mrs. Sutcliffe and 
 Lady Ptarmigant. But, probably, these also are 
 only instances of communia. Probably the young 
 ladies (and, for all I know, the old ones, too) were 
 real types of the 'sixties, as we see them in Leech's 
 drawings. Bless tiicir sweet baby-faces and their 
 simple hearts and their pork-pie hats ! 
 
 The Robcrtsonian way is often spoken of as a 
 " return to nature." It is, in fact, a common eulogy 
 of most reactions in art. " Don Quixote " was a 
 return to nature, compared with the romances of 
 chivalry, and " Tom Jones "' was a return to nature, 
 compared with " Don Quixote." The world gradually 
 changes its point of view and sees the facts of life 
 in a new light. Artists change with the rest of the 
 'JG7
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 world, and give expression to the new vision. They 
 arc hailed as reformers until the next reformation ; 
 they seem to have returned to nature, until the 
 worlds view of " nature " again changes. I think, 
 as I have said, that Robertson's work is to be related 
 to the general anti-romantic reaction that started 
 in France in mid-nineteenth century. But all 
 reactions keep something of what they react against, 
 and Robertsons reaction retains a good deal of 
 romance. School is as romantic as the German 
 Cinderella-story, on which it was founded. The 
 central situation of Caste — the return home of the 
 iuisband given up for dead — is essentially romantic, 
 not a jot less romantic than in Lajoiefait peur. The 
 scenes at the " Owls Roost " in Society, applauded 
 for their daring realism, are realistic presentations 
 of the last stronghold of the romantic Murger 
 tradition, literary " Bohemia." Robertson's dia- 
 logue was often the high-flown lingo of the old 
 romance. (In dialogue we have " returned to 
 nature " several times over since his day.) But 
 more often it was not. He astonished and delighted 
 his contemporaries by making many of his people 
 speak in the theatre as they spoke out of it. He 
 invented sentimental situations that were charming 
 then and would be charming now — -lovx-passages in 
 London squares and over milk-jugs in the moonlight. 
 He had been an actor and a stage manager and knew 
 how to make the very most of stage resources. Take 
 the scene of Georges return in Caste. There is a 
 208
 
 T. W. ROBERTSON 
 
 cry of " milkaow '" and a knock at the door. " Come 
 in/" cries Polly to the milkman — and in walks with 
 the milk-can one risen from the dead ! This thrilling 
 coitp de theatre is followed, however, by something 
 much better, the pathetic scenes of Polly's hysterical 
 joy and her tender artifice in breaking the news to 
 Esther. I confess that I cannot read these scenes 
 without tears. There was a quality of freshness and 
 delicate simplicity in Robertsons work at its best 
 that was a true " return to nature." No need, is 
 there ? to speak of the luck his work had in finding 
 such interpreters as the Bancrofts and their company 
 or of the luck the actors had in finding the work to 
 interpret — the Bancrofts themselves have already 
 told that tale. But it all happened half a century 
 ago and I suppose we are not to expect a future 
 Robertson re\ival. The ])ast is past. Life is 
 perpetual change. The more reason for not neg- 
 lecting occasions of pious commemoration. Let us, 
 then, give a friendly thought to " Tom " Robertson 
 to-morrow. 
 
 •jno
 
 VERSATILITY 
 
 Now that the Literary Supplement costs 6d., one 
 feels entitled to examine one's relation to it with a 
 certain sense of solemnity. But I well know what 
 mine is, before examination. Even when it cost 3rf., 
 my relation to it was always one of weekly disconcert- 
 ment. It revealed to me so many things I didn't 
 know and never should know, yet known presumably 
 to some other reader. Now omniscience is derided 
 as a " foible," but why should one be ashamed to 
 confess it as an ideal ? Frankly, I envy the man 
 who was so various that he seemed to be not one but 
 all mankind's epitome. He must have got more fun 
 out of life than your profound specialist. It is to 
 give this various reader this variety of fun that (I 
 surmise, but the editor will know lor certain) the 
 Supplement exists. But for me, imperfectly various, 
 it means something bordering on despair. I suppose 
 other readers are more sensible, and just take what 
 suits them, leaving the rest. But I simply hate 
 leaving anything. Take the ten columns modestly 
 headed " New Books and Reprints." What a world 
 of imknown topics and alien ideas and unfathomable 
 theories about everything this simple title covers I 
 270
 
 VERSATILITY 
 
 Is there any reader whose intellectual equipment 
 includes at once the biograj^hy of Absalom Watkin, 
 of Manchester, the Indian Trade Inquiry Reports on 
 Hides and Skins, an elementary knowledge of the 
 Bengali language, and the particular philosophy of 
 mysticism entertained by Mr. Watkin (not Absalom, 
 but another) ? Mine doesn't — and there's the pang, 
 for each and all these subjects, simply because they 
 are there, staring me in the face, the face of an abso- 
 lutely blank mind about them, excite my intellectual 
 curiosity. I should like to know all about ergato- 
 cracy — merely on the strength of its alluring name — 
 and the true story, from the Franciscan point of 
 view, of the Franciscans and the Protestant Revolu- 
 tion in England, and Lord Grey's reminiscences of 
 intercourse with Mr. Roosevelt, and the history of 
 the Assyrian " millet " in the great war, and what is 
 meant by the " Free Catholic ' tendency in the 
 Nonconformist Churches. Yet it is fairly certain 
 that I shall have to do without any knowledge of 
 most, if not all, of these matters which presumably 
 engage the enlightened interest of some other 
 readers. 
 
 That is why I say the Supplement disconcerts me 
 every week. It makes me feel ignorant and, what 
 is worse, lonely, cut off from so many lumian 
 sympathies, cold to enthusiasms that arc agitating 
 other breasts, isolated in a crowd who, for all I know, 
 may be banding themselves against mc with the 
 secret password " crgatocracy," an uninitiated 
 271
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 stranger among the friends of Mr. Absalom Watkin 
 of Manchester. Indeed, unHke '' the master of this 
 college," I am so far from feeling that " what I don't 
 know isn't knowledge " as to find it the one sort of 
 knowledge I iteh to ]iossess and suppose myself to 
 have lost a golden opportunity in missing. There 
 are strong men about, I am aware, who say they 
 don't care. They profess themselves content with 
 knowing a few things thoroughly, with their own 
 little set of enthusiasms, and repeat proverbs about 
 jacks of all trades. I respect these sturdy men, but 
 all the time my heart goes out to the other kind, the 
 men of versatility, the men whose aim is to under- 
 stand everything, to sympathize with every human 
 emotion, to k'a\e no corner of experience unexplored. 
 And some such aim as this is indispensable for the 
 critic, whose business is primarily to imderstand. 
 To understand what he criticizes he has to begin by 
 putting himself in its author's place and standing 
 at his point of view — to take on, in short, in turn, 
 innumerable other personalities, temperaments, and 
 tastes than his own. Other men may, but a critic 
 must, be versatile. He must have the faculty of 
 lending himself, with profusion, to other minds and 
 other experiences — lending himself, but not giving, 
 reserving the right of resuming his own individuality 
 and of applying his own standards. 
 
 That resumption of self is easy enough. The true 
 difficulty is in surrendering it, even for a while. One 
 linds the task particularly hard, I think, in lending 
 272
 
 VERSATILITY 
 
 oneself to tastes one has outgrown. Remember your 
 schoolboy enthusiasm over Macaulay's style. You 
 have lost that long ago, and are now, perhaps, a 
 little ashamed of it. Yet you must recapture it, if 
 only for a moment ; that is to say, you must try to 
 reflect in yourself the joy that Maeaulay felt in ^vrit- 
 ing as he did, if you are sitting down to try to criticize 
 hira adequately. This is difficult, this momentary 
 renunciation of your present taste in favour of the 
 taste you have outgrown. Remember your school- 
 boy attitude to Scott ; how you read feverishly for 
 the story and nothing but the story, and simply 
 skipped the long prefaces and introductions and 
 copious historical notes ? To-day your taste has 
 matured, and you see the prefaces and notes as a 
 welcome setting for the story, as completing for you 
 the picture of the author's mind in the act of com- 
 position. But you will have to go back to your dis- 
 carded taste and think only of the story if you are 
 recommending Scott to your youngsters. 
 
 Tliis difficulty is perpetually confronting one in 
 the theatre. I confess, I find the theatre almost as 
 disconcerting as the Literary Supplement for an 
 analogous, though not identical, reason. In that 
 case you have the bewildering spectacle of things 
 unknown ; in lliis, of tastes outgrown. One after- 
 noon I saw a little play translated from the French, 
 limpid in expression, simplicity itself in form, spare 
 almost to austerity in its use of tluMtrical incans. 
 Not a word, not a situation, was empluisizcd. This 
 
 pp. 273 T
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 or that point was ncally, briefly indicated, offered 
 just as a germ which might be safely left to your own 
 intelligence to develop. The action was pure acted 
 irony, but not an ironical word was uttered. This, 
 of course, is the sort of play that refreshes the jaded 
 critic, and he has to resist the temptation to over- 
 praise it. The next evening I saw a play diligently 
 crammed with everything that the other had care- 
 fully left out — emphasis, repetition, six words where 
 one would have sufliccd, " dramatic " situations and 
 suspenses, the gentle humours of life concentrated 
 into eccentricities of stage " character."' There is a 
 numerous, and entirely respectable, public with a 
 taste in this stage ; it likes dots on its i's, things 
 thrust under its nose, so that it can see them, and 
 repeated over and over again, so that it can under- 
 stand them. That is a taste which the jaded critic 
 cannot but have outgrown. Yet the play was good, 
 sound work of its kind, and the critic's first duty was 
 to force himself back into his outgrown taste and see 
 the play with the spirit with which the author ^vrote 
 it and its proper public received it. I say his first 
 duty ; it was open to him afterwards to recover his 
 own personality and make his distinctions. But 
 tliis first duty was hard. It is an ever -recurring trial 
 of critical conscience. " These arc our troubles, Mr. 
 Wesley," as the peevish gentleman said when the 
 footman put too much coal on the fire. 
 
 274
 
 WOMEN'S JOURNALS 
 
 Who was the wit who, to the usual misquotation 
 from Buffon, le style cest Vhomme, rejoined mais ce 
 11 est pas la fenune ? The statement has perhaps as 
 much truth as is required from a wittieism ; it is 
 half true. Woman, unhke man, does not express all 
 of herself. She has her reticences, her euphemisms, 
 and her asterisks. She will on no account name all 
 things by their names. It is one of the childish weak- 
 nesses of men, she holds, to practise veracity to 
 excess. Like children, they cannot help blurting out 
 the truth. But she, from diligent experiments on her 
 own person, has learnt that truth looks all the better 
 for having its nose powdered and its cheeks discreetly 
 rouged. Readers of George Sand's " Histoire de ma 
 Vie " are often baflled in tracing the fine distinction 
 between the woman and the make-up. Therein the 
 work is typical, illustrating as it docs the general 
 desire of women in literature to look pretty — to look 
 pretty in their mirror, for themselves, for their own 
 pleasure. Not, as is sometimes erroneously asserted, 
 to look pretty in the eyes of men or of a particular 
 man. So one is amused but scarcely convinced by 
 Heine's well-known remark that every woman who 
 writes has one eye on lur pap( r and the other on 
 
 275 T 2
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 some man — except the Countess Hahn-Hahn, who 
 had only one eye. Evidently the generalization was 
 invented just to spite the countess. Mme. de 
 Sevigne's letters to her daughter are far better than 
 those to Bussy-Rabutin. George Eliot may have had 
 one eye on Lewes when she did her best to spoil her 
 novels by scientific pedantry — which was sheer 
 waste (let alone the damage to the novels), as Lewes 
 was, by all accounts, the ugliest man in London. 
 But on Avhat man had Jane Austen an eye ? One 
 might ask the question about our thousands of women 
 novelists to-day, and at once see the refutation of 
 Heine in simple arithmetic ; there would not be 
 enough men to go round. There is clearly no rule. 
 Heine may have been thinking of George Sand, 
 already mentioned, whose eye — her " glad eye," I 
 fear it must be called — revolved as she wrote upon a 
 round dozen of men in turn. 
 
 But there is one department of women's literature 
 wherein the element of doubt altogether vanishes. 
 I mean the journals they publisli, or get published, 
 for themselves. They cannot write here with their 
 eye on some man. Indeed, men, nice men (" nice " 
 in the strict sense, approved in a certain talk between 
 Catherine Morland and Henry Tilney), are rather 
 chary of even approaching such journals. They 
 exhibit advertisements of " undies,"' corsets, and 
 other things that used to be called feminine mysteries, 
 but are now entitled perhaps to the rank of notorieties 
 which make one instinctively stammer, " Oh, I beg 
 276
 
 WOMEN'S JOURNALS 
 
 your pardon," and beat a hasty retreat. So, it will 
 at once be said, do all newspapers nowadays, and 
 that is true. Yet, somehow, one feels more indiscreet 
 in lighting upon them in the women's journals than 
 in the others. For one thing, they seem to be more 
 dainty and alluring by reason of more artistic execu- 
 tion and glazed paper, so that they may satisfy the 
 critical eye of their proper wearers. And, for • 
 another, there is a difference between the highroad 
 of the newspaper, whereon a man willy-nilly must 
 travel, and the by-path of the women's journal, 
 where he is at best a privileged intruder. If you 
 ask, " Goosey, goosey, gander, whither sluiil I 
 wander ? " there is a distinct difference between 
 answering, " Upstairs and downstairs," and " in my 
 lady's chamber." 
 
 All this, of course, as the judicious will have 
 perceived, really means that I am as interested as, I 
 suppose, are most of my fellow-men in all these 
 curiously dainty and elegant ingenuities of women's 
 apparel, and that I am only pretending to be shocked. 
 (After all, in his pursuit of veracity, even a man may 
 occasionally powder his nose.) The advertisers, 
 bless them, know all about that. They know that 
 the natural man shares the naive admiration which 
 Pcpys once expressed on seeing I.ady C'astlomaine's 
 wonderful lingerie and laces hanging out to dry on a 
 clothes-line in Whitehall. But the natural man 
 generally finds it convenient to Ije more reticent 
 about it than Pepys. 
 
 277
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 The first number of the Woman's Supplement, 
 which has prompted these reflections, suggests 
 another : the perpetual wonder and delight of men 
 at the success with which women accommodate 
 facts to their ideals. We saw tlicm, just now, doing 
 this with their literature ; we saw them determined 
 that, at all costs, this shall be pleasing and them- 
 selves the most pleasing things in it ; we saw the 
 notable success of George Sand in accommodating 
 her historical to her ideal self. But they are as 
 successful with nature as with history. Just now, 
 for example, sloping shoulders are manifestly the 
 ideal — sloping shoulders with the obviously appro- 
 priate balloon sleeves, as in Mr. Bernard Lintott's 
 lady, or else with no sleeves at all, as in M. Jean 
 Doumerguc's. And part of the same ideal is that the 
 " figure " shall be anything but " full." Now are 
 women's shoulders naturally more sloping or their 
 figures less full than they used to be ? These are 
 puzzling questions, but not beyond conjecture, and, 
 for my part, I guess that the answer is No. Yet our 
 women have easily triumphed over nature and slope 
 their shoulders with the uniformity of a regiment 
 sloping arms, while every woman with a full figure 
 has quietly bccoinc a fausse jnaigre. 
 
 While I am about it, let me echo the usual male 
 protest. As the Supplement shows, women have not 
 yet persuaded themselves to abandon their detestable 
 high heels. The consequence is that there tiireatens 
 to be no longer any such thing as a graceful gait. 
 
 278
 
 WOMEN'S JOURNALS 
 
 Incessu patuit dea ^vill soon have become an incom- 
 prehensible allusion. And that hideous square 
 patch which too often peeps above the back of the 
 shoe ? I suppose it is just a practical device to 
 strengthen the stocking in a part of stress ; but I 
 hardly think really " nice "' women can abide it. 
 On the whole, however, I subscribe cheerfully to the 
 current opinion that woman's dress was never so 
 charming as it is at present. That is probably an 
 illusion. The mysterious laws that regulate fashion 
 mercifully regulate also the capacity for enjoying it. 
 And it is a mercy, too, that the beauty of woman can 
 triumph even over " old-fashioned " things. To our 
 modern eyes the fashions of the '70"s and '80"s were 
 far from beautiful in themselves — bunchy, humpy, 
 without " line." Yet, when they were playing Peter 
 Ibhetson, one saw some fair women in them — and 
 was at once reconciled, able in fact to see them with 
 the eye of their period. 
 
 279
 
 PRACTICAL LITERATURE 
 
 " Pray, Sir," a leader-writer is said to have 
 asked Delane, " how do you say ' good fellow ' in 
 print ? " and to have been answered, " Sir, you 
 should not say it at all." There are thousands of 
 ambitious young people to-day who want to know 
 how you say good fellow, or awful snipe, or old 
 bean, or whatever, in print, and that is why there 
 are Schools of Journalism. A paper of instruc- 
 tions from one of these excellent institutions has 
 lately fallen into my hands, and there seems no 
 reason for withholding it from publication. It 
 appears to be in the nature of a preliminary intro- 
 duction to what a distinguished journalist has well 
 called " practical literature." For Journahsts, in 
 Matthew Arnold's quotation, drive at practice, and 
 to be practical you must begin by learning the shib- 
 boleths — that is to say, the turns of phrase and 
 modes of treatment that long experience has 
 approved and constant readers are accustomed to 
 expect. There is no mystery about it ; they are 
 much more simple than a vain people supposeth. 
 But it is all-important to get them right at the out- 
 set — or, as is said in practical literature, from the 
 
 280
 
 PRACTICAL LITERATURE 
 
 \void " go " — and the advice the paper has to give 
 about them is as follows : — 
 
 Descriptive Ariicles on Great Occasions. — The 
 beginner will probably find there is very little to 
 describe. He must learn to invent. Street crowds 
 have a pestilent habit of not cheering at the appro- 
 priate moment ; your first business will be to make 
 them. Celebrities flash by in closed carriages, 
 totally hidden by the police ; you will ruthlessly 
 expose them, bowing to the storm of applause which 
 sweeps across the nniltitude filling the square and 
 lining the classic steps of St. Martin-in-the-Fields. 
 If the Royal Family is present you will need especial 
 tact. Find the golden mean between the familiar 
 and the abject. Be human, like Euripides. Above 
 all, the homely " note " is recommended. You 
 cannot say too often that the King "looked bronzed." 
 Thousands of pallid readers who go to Margate for 
 a week in order to come back looking bronzed will 
 appreciate that. It is loyal, it attests that robust 
 health that we all desire for his Majesty, and at the 
 same time it is homely. " I, too, have been bronzed," 
 the reader says, as the barber at Byron's funeral 
 said, " I, too, have been unhappy." Whatever is 
 offered the Queen, a bouquet, a trowel, a sample of 
 the local product the Queen will " smilingly accept." 
 If she tastes the men's (or boy seouts' or factory 
 girls') soup, she will " pronounce it excellent." 
 Preserve a cheerful tone, especially with contre- 
 temps. If Gold Stick in Waiting droj)s his gold 
 281
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 stick, you will note that " the Royal party were 
 highly amused " and that " the little Princess 
 laughed heartily." 
 
 Politics and International Affairs. — Here prac- 
 tical literature takes a hint from the other sort. Be 
 historical. 13c reminded of the great Westminster 
 Election and the Duchess of Devonshire. Remem- 
 ber Speaker Onslow. Compare whatever you dis- 
 like to the Rump. Magna Charta and Habeas 
 Corpus must now be allowed a rest, but you may 
 still allude to Thermidor and Brumaire, the Moim- 
 tain and the Cordeliers Club. " Mr." Pitt sounds 
 well. Open your leader with " Nothing in the annals 
 of diplomacy since the Treaty of Utrecht (or the 
 Treaty of Vienna, or whatever other treaty you^ can 
 think of) has so disgraced," &c. The second para- 
 graph should begin " Nor is that all." Be slightly 
 archaistic. Words like " caitiff " and " poltroon " 
 may be discreetly used. Books recommended for 
 the course : Gibbon, Junius, early volumes of 
 Punch, Mahan's " Sea Power," and (for quotations) 
 R. L. Stevenson's " Wrong Box." 
 
 Foreign Correspondence. — Remember that the 
 particular capital you happen to be posted at is the 
 real hub of your newspaper, and wonder every 
 morning " what those fellows at the London odice 
 can be about" to printsomuchstuff about their silly 
 local affairs. Practise political divination from the 
 minutest data. If some little actress at the Marigny, 
 or Belasco's, makes you a pied de nez you will say 
 
 282
 
 PRACTICAL LITERATURE 
 
 that " the GaUic temper (or pubHc opinion in the 
 Eastern States) is showing signs of dangerous exas- 
 peration." If you find a junior Attache lunching 
 at the golf club on Sunday, you will say " the poli- 
 tical tension is now at any rate momentarily relaxed." 
 If they charge you a few centimes or cents more for 
 your box of chocolates you will say " the population 
 is now groaning under famine prices, and State inter- 
 vention cannot be much longer delayed." 
 
 Criticism of tJie Arts and the Theatre. — As criti- 
 cism is not practical, it hardly comes within the 
 scope of instructions on practical literature. But 
 newspapers, after all, must be filled, and, if the 
 advertisements permit, room may be found even 
 for criticism. Fortunately, it rc(iuires little if any 
 instruction. The office boy, if he is not proud, may 
 be turned on to it at a pinch. The charwomen, when 
 they can be spared from their more useful work, 
 often prove neat hands at it. Ideas are to be dis- 
 couraged ; a few catchwords are all that is necessary, 
 with one decent hat for Private Views and one ditto 
 dress suit for First Nights. The art critic will do 
 well to find a new and unknown artist and track him 
 down from show to show, cotn[)aring iiim in turn to 
 Tintoretto, the lesser Umbrians, and the Giottos at 
 Padua. (See Vasari passim, a repertory of delight- 
 ful names.) The theatrical critic will make it his 
 chief care to construct a striking sentence which the 
 managers can quote, without excessive garbling, in 
 their advertisements. It can end with " rapturously 
 
 288
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 applauded," with " rocked with laughter," or with 
 " for many a night to come." 
 
 N.B. — Personally conducted parties of students 
 taken to the theatre to see leading actresses " making 
 great strides in their art " and " having the ball at 
 their feet " and to watch Mr. Collins " surpassing 
 himself." They will afterwards be shown cases of 
 type and instructed inthethermometrical testof the 
 temperature at which it becomes " cold print." 
 
 . . . The paper does not end here. In a special 
 section on the language of the poster, it offers a 
 prize for any hitherto undiscovered application of 
 the word " amazing." It goes on to give instruc- 
 tions to writers on cricket, golf, and sport, with a 
 stock selection of anecdotes about " W.G." and 
 " E.M.," and a plan to scale of the Dormy House 
 and Mr. Harry Tate's moustache when he addresses 
 the ball and the audience. But these are a\\'ful 
 mysteries which I dare not follow the paper in 
 profaning. 
 
 284
 
 NINETEENT II-C E N T U R Y W O M A N 
 
 The serious research that some contemporary 
 French students are dev^oting to our English Utera- 
 ture is one of thi; most valuable by-products of the 
 Entente. We have had of recent years remarkable 
 French monographs on Wordsworth, on Co^vper, on 
 Crabbe, on Hazlitt, which are fully as authoritative 
 as any of our native commentaries. And, turning 
 over the new volumes at a French booksellers the 
 other day, I came across another Gallic tribute of 
 this kind, with a rather lengthy title, " La Femme 
 Anglaise au XIX" siccle et son evolution d'aprcs le 
 roman anglais contemporain," by Mme. Leonie 
 Villard. Mnic. Villard seems to have read all 
 our modern English novels, from Richardson's 
 " Pamela " do\vn to the latest piece of propagandism 
 of Mr. H. G. Wells. Of course mere literary 
 curiosity could never have carried any human being 
 through all that ; Mme. Villard is an ardent 
 " feminist," and, like her sisters, capalile of miracu- 
 lous physical endurance for tlie " cause." A mere 
 man may " devour whole libraries," but it takes a 
 fair feminist to swallow the huge mass of English 
 ik'tion. 
 
 285
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 Reading exclusively from a single point of view, 
 Mme. Villard seems to have sometimes sacrificed her 
 critical sense to her principles. Thus, as a type of 
 tiie nineteenth-century " old maid/' so neglected, so 
 ill-used by society, she selects Miss Rachel Wardle ! 
 Dickens, generally " so pitiful to the weak, so gene- 
 rous to the oppressed and the conquered," had no 
 pity for her. But upon us it is incumbent to pity 
 and understand and find excuses for her. " At any 
 rate, her desire to be loved and, above all, to experi- 
 ence in other surroundings a freer and less humiliat- 
 ing life should have nothing surprising for us." 
 Isn't this rather a solemn way of describing the 
 lady's amours with Mr, Tupman and Mr. Jingle ? 
 Is it really the fault of society if an amorous old dame 
 will be silly ? And is she not to be laughed at if she 
 happen to fall into the category " old maid "" ? 
 Mrs. Bardell was amorous too. So was Mr. Tupman. 
 Dickens laughs at these also — but then they were 
 not old maids, they didn't illustrate a " feminine 
 case." Then there was Mrs. Jellyby. She reminded 
 some people of Harriet Martineau. But Dickens had 
 deformed the type (who was intelligent and was not 
 the mother of a family) so as to present the " new 
 woman " in the least favourable light. He " has 
 fixed for half a century the type of the intellectual 
 or enfranchised woman, as conceived by those who 
 trust the judgment of others rather than their own 
 direct observation." The question, surely, is not 
 whether Mrs. Jellyby was unlike Harriet Martineau, 
 286
 
 N I N E T E E N T H-C E N T U R Y W O M A N 
 
 but whether in herself she was a sufficiently comic 
 personage. Most readers of Dickens find her so. 
 What injustice is there in this to the real " new 
 woman," whom, as Mme. Villard has sho^v^^, she 
 did not resemble ? As a matter of fact, when 
 Dickens had a mind to draw a real " strong-minded " 
 woman he drew her most sympathetically. Is there 
 any of his women more delightful than Miss Trot- 
 wood ? " To-day,'" says Mme. Villard, " she appears 
 to us an unconscious feminist whose feminism misses 
 its mark, since it can find no field of action amid 
 narrow, provincial, routine surroundings." Poor 
 Miss Trotwood ! 
 
 We are to understand that it was the domination 
 and the selfishness of man that created the lament- 
 able type of nineteenth-century " old maid." But 
 who were unkindest to Miss Wardle ? Her nieces, 
 members of her own sex. Who created the typical 
 " old maid " and terrible l)ore. Miss Bates ? Another 
 " old maid," Jane Austen. The fact is, old maids 
 like other human beings have their foibles. Are 
 these never to be put into a book ? Feminism 
 seems to make its disciples terribly serious. Miss 
 La Creevy is Dickens's example of ihc femme artiste. 
 See, says Mme. Villard, how types of " indepen- 
 dent women " are caricatured ! She cannot laugh 
 at Sairey Gamp and Betsy Prig, because they testify 
 to the social contempt attaching to the nursing 
 profession at their date ! Has it never occurred to 
 her that novels are sometimes written merely as 
 287
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 novels and not as dossiers in a " case " for the 
 " evolution " of woman ? 
 
 After all, however, there are plenty of serious 
 novelists who do supply good evidence — more par- 
 ticularly the quasi-propagandists like Mrs. Gaskell 
 (when she chose) and Mrs. Humphry Ward (some- 
 times), and (nearly always) Mr. Galsworthy and 
 Mr. Wells. Mme. Villard makes effective play with 
 these. She has no difficulty, for instance, in showing 
 the immense economic advance of the woman-worker 
 during the last century, though even here her eye 
 seems too exclusively fixed on her own sex. True, 
 women were the chief victims of the old " factory " 
 and " sweating " systems, but the amelioration of 
 their condition, if I am not mistaken, came only as 
 part of the general amelioration in the condition of 
 " labour," without sex-distinction. 
 
 It is when she comes to the sentimental side of her 
 subject, the relation of woman to man whether in 
 marriage or " free love," that Mme. Villard finds her 
 material a little too much for her. Naturally, for 
 our novelists and playwTights can never let the too 
 fascinating subject alone and seem to go on saying 
 the same things about it over and over again — con 
 variazioni. You have, for example, Mrs. Gaskell, 
 so far back as 1850, dealing with the same theme as 
 Mr. Stanley Houghton dealt with in " Ilindle 
 Wakes " (1910) — the refusal of the seduced woman 
 'o accept the regularization of her position by 
 marriage. Then there are the free-lovers " on 
 288
 
 NINETEENTH-CENTURY WOMAN 
 
 principle," who end by conceding marriage to social 
 prejudice — like Mr. Wells's Ann Veronica. There 
 must be English novels where the " free lovers " 
 maintain their principle triumphantly to the end, 
 though I haven't read them ; but I seem to remem- 
 ber several in the French language. It is all very 
 confusing. Perhaps — I only say perhaps — those are 
 wisest who leave " principle " in these matters to 
 the heroes and heroines of the novelists and are 
 content to live ordinary lives in an ordinary jog-trot 
 way, \\'ithout too much thinking about it. There is 
 this comfort for the old-fashioned commonplace 
 people among us, at any rate, that whatever " evolu- 
 tion " of woman there may have been in the nine- 
 teenth century, she remains in all essentials very 
 much what she used to be. I can find it as easy 
 to-day to be in love with Emma and Elizabeth and 
 Anne — I needn't mention their surnames — who are 
 more than a century old, bless them, as with (not to 
 compromise myself with any contemporary Englisli 
 heroine) M. Barres's Berenice, or with one of 
 M. Marcel Proust's " Jeunes filles en Fleurs." 
 
 289
 
 PICKLES AND PICARDS 
 
 A WRITER in the Nouvelle Revue Francaise drops a 
 remark which it does one good to read. He says 
 that in the old Freneh villages on the Picardy front 
 all that the English have taught the countryfolk in 
 five years of cohabitation is to eat pickles with their 
 boiled beef. Very likely this is a humorous perver- 
 sion of the truth ; but I should like to believe it. 
 Not from any personal interest in pickles, though 
 that will seem odd, and perhaps incredible, to my 
 French friends, who seem to think that every 
 Englishman must be a pickle-cater — ^just as we 
 English used to think every Frenchman ate frogs. 
 No doubt, however, this French generalization is 
 fairly accurate ; we are a nation of pickle-eaters, 
 and if any one asks why, I guess the answer is cold 
 beef. Anyhow, the idea has fascinated the French 
 mind. Among the English characteristics of which 
 Jules Lcniaitre once gave a list (from hearsay, which 
 he thought, good, easy man, as authentic evidence 
 as coming to see England for himself) I remember 
 he mentions " Les pickles.^^ And it is the one English 
 characteristic that has infected the Pieards ! 
 
 My reason for rejoicing is that they have not been 
 infected by more than one, that in spite of all 
 290
 
 PICKLES AND PICARDS 
 
 temptations, etc., they remain (pickles excepted) 
 true Picards. There have been times (particularly 
 in mid-cifrhtecnth eent\iry) when the French have 
 shown a tendency to Anglomania. Let us be glad 
 that these arc over. Probably the French Revolu- 
 tion settled that point, as it settled so many others, 
 by isolating France for the time being, and making 
 her the common enemy. More than one of the 
 Terrorists were Picards by race, but you may be 
 sure they never ate pickles. But cohabitation may 
 bring about the same result as isolation, in a different 
 way. Our armies have lived for five years with the 
 French ; both natives and visitors have had ample 
 opportunities for observing each other's charac- 
 teristics ; and I like to think that both have 
 parted with the profound conviction that, on cither 
 side, these arc inimitable. Condiments, of course, 
 excepted. They have adoj)tcd our pickles, and we 
 have taken their sauce higarade, which is excellent 
 with wild duck. Condiments, by the way, include 
 the linguistic sort. We have seen the delight with 
 which Lemaitrc wrote down that strange, abrupt, 
 tart Englisji word " j)iekles " in his French text. So 
 some of our own scribblers wantonly and wickedly 
 flavour their writings with an occasional French 
 phrase, because it seems to tlieni lo give a |)i<[uaney, 
 a zest. These apart, let us by all means admire one 
 another's qualities without seeking to interchange 
 them. Let us jealously preserve oiir own charac- 
 teristics, our own type, like the Picardy villagers. 
 
 291 U3
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 National peculiarities arc the perpetual joy of travel 
 (except when one side wants the wndow down and 
 the other up), the bouquet of literature, the salt of life. 
 Talkiuf,' of travel, we have been having a corre- 
 spondence in 2'he Times on the lavatories and the 
 closed windows on the P.L.M. I am not using that 
 railway myself just now, and I confess I like to see 
 that here again the French remain obstinately 
 French. France is endeared to us, like any other 
 friend, by its weaknesses as well as its virtues ; it 
 would, for many of us, not be the old friend that we 
 know and love without its occasional stuUincss and 
 its occasional smells. Louis Veuillot once >vrote a 
 book called " Les Odours do Paris." We have all 
 smelt them, and should hardly recognize our Paris 
 without them — though they must have had more 
 pungency, a more racy, romantic flavour in Ualzac's 
 Paris, the Paris of our dreams. Nowadays for the 
 rich Balzacian smells you will have to \'isit some of 
 the provincial towns of his novels, and so your 
 pilgrimage will combine a literary with all factory 
 interest. I know of one old Burgimdian town — I 
 will not name it, for obvious reasons— not men- 
 tioned, I fancy, by Balzac, quite untouched by time, 
 with pepi)er-pot towers, a river in a deep ravine, and 
 well worth a literary pilgrimage if only for its asso- 
 ciations with Mme. do Sevigne and the President de 
 Brosses, where you have the added delight of the 
 richest medieval odours powerfully assisted by a 
 tannery — an unrivalled combination ! Why do so 
 292
 
 PICKLES AND PICARDS 
 
 many Englishmen gnimblc at these things instead of 
 appreciating them aesthetically, as accompaniments 
 of the French scene, as part of that varied experience 
 which we call " abroad " ? Or why do they explain 
 them on the illiberal assumption of some inherent 
 inferiority in the French character ? 
 
 I find a typical specimen of this kind of explana- 
 tion in Hazlitt's " Notes of a Journey through 
 France and Italy,*' made about a century ago, when 
 France was the very France (think of it !) that was 
 being observed, and about to be described, by 
 Balzac. One would have thought that the Londoner 
 of 1824. (who must have been pretty well \ised to 
 smells at home) would have fomid some other 
 explanation than the physiological and psychological 
 inferiority of the French. But hear him. " A 
 Frenchman's senses and understanding are alike 
 insensible to pain — he recognizes (happily for him- 
 self) the exis-tence only of that which adds to his 
 importance or his satisfaction. He is deliglited with 
 perfumes, but passes over the most offensive smells 
 and will not lift up his little finger to remove a general 
 nuisance, for it is none to him."' To which he appends 
 a note : — " One woidd think that a people so 
 devoted to perfumes, who deal in essences and 
 scents, and iiave fifty different sorts of snuffs, would 
 be eciualiy nice, and offended at the approach of 
 every disagreeable odour. Not so. They seem to 
 have no sense of the disagreeable in smells or tastes, 
 as if their heads were stuffed with a cold, and hang 
 298
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 over a dunghill, as if it were a bed of roses, or swallow 
 the most detestable dishes with the greatest relish. 
 Tlic nerve of their sensibility is bound up at the 
 point of pain. . . They make the best of everything 
 (whieh is a virtue) — ^and treat the worst with levity 
 or complaisance (which is a vice)." 
 
 Well, well. When this was written French and 
 English had not long ceased to be at war, and Hazlitt 
 was never a sweet-tempered man. But you can still 
 find the censorious Englishman who is ready deci- 
 sively to mark off French characteristics into 
 " virtues " and " vices," according to his own 
 English standard. There may, for all I know, be 
 some Frenchman who gives us tit for tat. Tliis type 
 of critic is tiresome enough ; but there is another 
 that seems to me quite intolerable, the critic who 
 detests all national peculiarities as sucli, and would 
 level down all humanity to one monotonous level of 
 sameness. As though uniformity were not already 
 the plague of the modern world ! \Ve men all wear 
 the same hat (despite the efforts of the Daily Mail), 
 women all powder their noses in the same way, and 
 the " cinema palaces " all show the same films, with 
 the same '' Mary " and the same " Dug." For 
 heaven's sake, let us cling to our national peculiari- 
 ties ! 
 
 And that is why I welcome the intelligence that 
 the Picards have taken ov^er nothing from us but our 
 pickles, and that the French travellers on the P.L.M. 
 still insist on keeping the window up. Let our 
 
 294
 
 PICKLES AND PICARDS 
 
 enthusiasts for a uniform world ponder these facts. 
 And it is a rcUef to think that they can never unify 
 national landscapes. The village green, the cottage 
 gardens, the chalk downs, the chines, the red coombs 
 will always be English. The long straight route 
 nationale and the skinny fowls that are always stray- 
 ing across it, the poplar-bordered streams, the trim 
 vines ranked along the hill-side, the heavily- 
 accoutred gendarme and the fat farmer in the stiff 
 indigo blouse hobnobbing at the esiaminet, these will 
 always be French. Oh, but I would give something 
 to see that indigo blouse again, and have a morning 
 chat with the farmer ! " He ! pere Martin, 9a va 
 toujours bien ? Pas mal, m'sieu. Et la recolte ? 
 Dame ! je ne m'en plains pas ... a la votre, 
 m'sieu ! " They may take our pickles, if they will, 
 but let them remain themselves, our old French 
 friends. 
 
 2l>5
 
 THE BUSINESS MAN 
 
 It is not easy for the slave of " eopy," sedentary 
 and shy, to know that triumphant figure of the aetive, 
 bustling world, the business man. The business 
 man is too busy, and can only be seen in offiee hours, 
 when the scribe is correcting proofs or, perhaps, not 
 yet up. Nevertheless, I once nearly saw the 
 Governor of the Bank of England. I hold the 
 Governor to be the archetype of the business man. 
 In my green luiknowing youth I used to take the 
 gentleman in cocked hat and picturesque robe at 
 the Threadneedle Street entrance for the Governor, 
 but now know better. Well, I once nearly saw the 
 Governor. It was on the stage. Mr. Gerald du 
 Maurier was in the bank-})arlour when a servant 
 entered and said : " The Governor of the Bank of 
 England to call on you, sir." " Show him in," said 
 Mr, du Maurier with the easy nonchalance of which 
 only actors have the secret. It was a tremendous 
 moment. I seemed to hear harps in the air. And 
 just then, do\\Ti came the curtain ! It was felt, no 
 doubt, that the Governor of the Bank of England 
 ought not to be made a motley to the view. But I 
 was inconsolable. I had been robbed of my one 
 chance of seeing the siipreme business man. 
 29G
 
 THE BUSINESS MAN 
 
 Of late, however, the veil that shrouds the business 
 man from the non-business eye has been partly 
 lifted. The pictorial advertisement people have got 
 hold of him and give brief, tantalizing glimpses of his 
 daily life. Maeterlinck speaks of " Tauguste vie 
 quotidicnne " of Hamlet. That only shows that 
 Hamlet (it is indeed his prime characteristic) was not 
 a business man. For the business mans daily life, 
 if the advertisements are to be trusted, is not so much 
 august as alert, strenuous, and, above all, devoted to 
 the pleasures of tiie toilet. And his toilet seems, for 
 the most part, to centre in or near his chin. Indeed, 
 it is by his chin that you identify the business man. 
 You know what Pascal said of Cleopatra's nose : 
 how, if it had been an inch shorter, the whole history 
 of the world would have been different. Much the 
 same thing may be said about the Ijusiness man's 
 chin. Had it been receding or pointed or dimpled or 
 double, there would have been no business man and 
 consequently no business. But things, as Bishop 
 Butler said, are what they are and their consequences 
 will be what they will be. The business man's chin 
 is j)rominent, square, firm, and (unless he deals in 
 rubber tires — the sole exception to the ruK) smooth. 
 It is as smooth as Spedding's forehead, celebrated by 
 Thackeray and Edward Fitzgerald. It is, indeed, 
 like that forehead, a kind of landmark, a public nioiui- 
 ment. Even the rich, velvety lather, which docs 
 not dry on the face and leaves behind a feeling of 
 complete comfort and well-grooming, cannot dis- 
 297
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 guise it. No wonder the business man is so particu- 
 lar about shaving it ! It is a kind of religious rite, 
 an Early Matins, with him. 
 
 Outside the bank-parlour the mart and the ex- 
 change the business man takes no risks, and at his 
 toilet-table he prefers safety razors. Indeed, he 
 collects them. Sometimes he favours the sort that 
 can be stropped in a moment with one turn of the 
 wrist ; sometimes the sort that needs no stropping 
 at all. But, like all collectors, he is never so happy as 
 when handling, or rather caressing the objects of his 
 collection. Mark liow his eyes dance with delight and 
 his smile sweetens as the razor courses over his chin. 
 Evidently life at this moment is burning for him 
 with a hard gem-like flame. Call it not shaving ! 
 Say, rather, he is ministering to the symbolic element 
 in him, daintily smoothing the proud emblem of his 
 power — to which he will add the finishing touch of 
 pearl-powder, whose constant use produces a delicate 
 bloom, tones up the complexion, and protects the 
 skin against the ravages of time. 
 
 When the chin has been prepared for the business 
 day he tries and contrasts the several effects of it 
 over a variety of collars. For the business man 
 collects collars, too. His chin protrudes with quiet 
 but firm insistence over some of them, nestles coyly 
 in others, or it may be emerges with ease from the 
 sort designed to give ample throat room and espe- 
 cially favoured by men who seek considerable freedom 
 but at the same time a collar of character and dis- 
 298
 
 THE BUSINESS MAN 
 
 tinction. Nor has he any false shame about being 
 seen in his shirt-sleeves. In fact, he seems to be in 
 the habit, when half-dressed, of calling in his friends 
 (evidentl}', from their chins, fellow business men) to 
 see how perfectly his shirt fits at the neck and how 
 its thoroughly shrunk material is none the worse for 
 repeated visits to the laundry. 
 
 Once dressed — and I pass over his interviews witli 
 his tailor (he collects overcoats), because that would 
 lead us far and might land us, unawares, among 
 sportsmen, or airmen, or other non-business men — 
 once dressed, he is to be seen at his office. That does 
 not mean that he is to be seen at work. No, it is 
 a somewhat sinister fact that the advertisements 
 hardly ever show the business man engaged in busi- 
 ness. You may find him at an enormous desk 
 bristling with patent devices and honeycombed witli 
 pigeon-holes, where he sees himself invested with 
 perfect control and rid of all petty routine anomalies, 
 with a mind free to consider questions of policy 
 and the higher aspirations of his house. IJut not, 
 in bhuit English, working, oh dear no ! He is 
 pleasantly gossiping with another business man, who 
 is loUing over the edge of the desk smoking a cigar- 
 ette. Now and then, it is true, you may get a 
 glimpse of liiin at the tekplione. Jiut then his 
 tender smile gives him away. It is obviously no 
 business conversation hut an appointment for lunch 
 with his fianci'-e. 
 
 Only one advertisement artist has ever " spotted " 
 299
 
 PASTICHE AND PREJUDICE 
 
 him at work. He was addressing the board. The 
 board all wore white waistcoats, the same business 
 chin, and the same dry smile as the orator, who with 
 clenched fist and flashing eye assured them of his 
 conviction that increased production results from 
 the bond of mutual goodwill created between 
 employer and employee by the board's system of 
 life assurance. Altogether, a very jolly party. But 
 outside the world of business men it wouldn't be 
 considered work. Really, for work it looks as though 
 you would have to go to the non-business man. 
 Think of Balzac's eighteen hours a day ! 
 
 But the business man, I daresay, will reply, as 
 they said to the sonneteer in Molierc, that " Le 
 temps ne fait rien a I'affaire." Certainly, the busi- 
 ness man's time doesn't — for you next find him, in 
 spick and span evening dress, at the dinner-table, 
 beaming at the waiter who has brought him his 
 favourite sauce. The business man collects sauces, 
 but prefers the sauce that goes with everything. 
 After dinner you may see him, before a roaring fire, 
 holding up his glass of port to the light and telling 
 another business man who the shipper is. Last 
 scene of all, a night-piece, you have a glimpse of him 
 in his pyjamas merrily discoursing with several 
 other business men (in different patterns of the same 
 unshrinkal)lc fabric) all sitting cross-legged and 
 smoking enormous cigars. This is the end of a 
 perfect business day. And you conclude that busi- 
 ness men sleep in dormitories. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 Tlir WMITtntlAliS rilKRH, LTD., I^Mx^K AND TONBKIDliK.
 
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