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diff --git a/36590.txt b/36590.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b92e175 --- /dev/null +++ b/36590.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8945 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The English Stage, by Augustin Filon + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The English Stage + Being an Account of the Victorian Drama + +Author: Augustin Filon + +Translator: Frederic Whyte + +Release Date: July 3, 2011 [EBook #36590] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ENGLISH STAGE *** + + + + +Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images +generously made available by The Internet Archive.) + + + + + + + + + +THE ENGLISH STAGE + + + + +_WORKS BY THE AUTHOR._ + + PROFILS ANGLAIS. + MERIMEE ET SES AMIS. + VIOLETTE MERIAN. + AMOURS ANGLAIS. + LES CONTES DU CENTENAIRE. + ETC. ETC. + + + + + THE ENGLISH STAGE + + _Being an Account of the Victorian Drama by Augustin Filon_ + + Translated from the French by Frederic Whyte with + an Introduction by Henry Arthur Jones + + + JOHN MILNE + 12 NORFOLK STREET, STRAND, LONDON + + NEW YORK + DODD, MEAD, & COMPANY + MDCCCXCVII + + + + +_All Rights Reserved_ + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE + + Introduction by Mr. Henry Arthur Jones 9 + + Author's Preface 31 + + + CHAPTER I + + A Glance back--From 1820 to 1830--Kean and Macready--The + Strolling Player--The Critics--Sheridan Knowles and + _Virginius_--Douglas Jerrold--His Comedies--_The Rent + Day_--_The Prisoner of War_--_Black-Eyed Susan_--Collapse of + the Privileged Theatres--Men of Letters come to the Rescue of + the Drama--Bulwer Lytton--_The Lady of Lyons_--_Richelieu_-- + _Money_ 39 + + + CHAPTER II + + Macready's Withdrawal from the Stage--The Enemies of the + Drama in 1850: Puritanism; the Opera; the Pantomime; the + "Hippodrama"--French Plays and French Players in England-- + Actors of the Period--The Censorship--The Critics--The + Historical Plays of Tom Taylor and the Irish Plays of Dion + Boucicault 73 + + + CHAPTER III + + The Vogue of Burlesque--Burnand's _Ixion_--H. J. Byron--The + Influence of Burlesque upon the Moral Tone of the Stage--Marie + Wilton's Debut--A Letter from Dickens--Founding of the Prince + of Wales's--Tom Robertson, his Life as Actor and Author--His + Journalistic Career--London Bohemia in 1865--Sothern 93 + + + CHAPTER IV + + First Performance of _Society_--Success of _Ours_, _Caste_, + and _School_--How Robertson turned to account the Talent of + his Actors, John Hare, Bancroft, and Mrs. Bancroft--Progress + in the Matter of Scenery--Dialogue and Character-drawing-- + Robertson as a Humorist: a Scene from _School_--As a Realist: + a Scene from _Caste_--The Comedian of the Upper Middle + Classes--Robertson's Marriage, Illness, and Death--The "Cup + and Saucer" Comedy--The Improvement in Actors' Salaries--The + Bancrofts at the Haymarket--Farewell Performance--My + Pilgrimage to Tottenham Street 114 + + + CHAPTER V + + Gilbert: compared with Robertson--His First Literary Efforts-- + The _Bab Ballads_--_Sweethearts_--A Series of Experiments-- + Gilbert's Psychology and Methods of Work--_Dan'l Druce_, + _Engaged_, _The Palace of Truth_, _The Wicked World_, + _Pygmalion and Galatea_--The Gilbert and Sullivan Operas 138 + + + CHAPTER VI + + Shakespeare again--From Macready to Irving; Phelps, Fechter, + Ryder, Adelaide Neilson--Irving's Debut--His Career in the + Provinces, and Visit to Paris--The role of Digby Grand--The + role of Matthias--The Production of _Hamlet_--Successive + Triumphs--Irving as Stage Manager--as an Editor of + Shakespeare--His Defects as an Actor--Too great for some of + his Parts--As a Writer and Lecturer; his Theory of Art--Sir + Henry Irving, Head of his Profession 156 + + + CHAPTER VII + + Is it well to imitate Shakespeare?--The Death of the Classical + Drama--Herman Merivale and the _White Pilgrim_--Wills and his + Plays: _Charles the First_, _Claudian_--Tennyson as a + Dramatist; he comes too soon and too late--Tennyson and the + Critics--_The Falcon_, _The Promise of May_, _The Cup_, + _Becket_, _Queen Mary_, _Harold_ 174 + + + CHAPTER VIII + + The Three Publics--The Disappearance of Burlesque and Decadence + of Pantomime--Increasing Vogue of Farce and Melodrama-- + Improvement in Acting--The Influence of our French Actors--The + "Old" Critics and the "New"--James Mortimer and his Two + "Almavivas"--Mr. William Archer's Ideas and Role--The + Vicissitudes of Adaptation 193 + + + CHAPTER IX + + The Three Principal Dramatists of To-day--Sydney Grundy; his + First Efforts--Adaptations: _The Snowball_, _In Honour Bound_, + _A Pair of Spectacles_, _The Bunch of Violets_--His Original + Plays--His Style--His Humour--His Ethical Ideal--_An Old + Jew_--_The New Woman_--A Talent which has not done growing 212 + + + CHAPTER X + + Henry Arthur Jones; his First Works--His Melodramas--_Saints + and Sinners_--The Puritans and the Theatre--The Two Deacons: + the Character of Fletcher--_Judah_--_The Crusaders_: Character + of Palsam; the Conclusion of the Piece--_The Case of Rebellious + Susan_--_The Masqueraders_--Return to Melodrama--Theories + expounded by Mr. Jones in his Book: _The Renascence of the + Drama_ 234 + + + CHAPTER XI + + Two Portraits--Mr. Pinero's Career as an Actor--His Early + Works--_The Squire, Lords and Commons_--The Pieces which + followed, Half-Comedy, Half-Farce--_The Profligate_; its + Success and Defects: _Lady Bountiful_--_The Second Mrs. + Tanqueray_: Character of Paula--Mrs. Patrick Campbell--_The + Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith_ 254 + + + CHAPTER XII + + Ibsen made known to the English Public by Mr. Edmund Gosse-- + The First Translations--Ibsen acted in London--The Performers + and the Public--Encounters between the Critics--Mr. Archer + once more--Affinity between the Norwegian Character and the + English--Ibsen's Realism suited to English Taste, his + Characters adaptable to English Life--The Women in his Plays-- + Ibsen and Mr. Jones--Present and Future Influence of Ibsen-- + Objections and Obstacles 277 + + + CHAPTER XIII + + G. R. Sims--R. C. Carton--Haddon Chambers--The Independent + Theatre and Matinee Performance--The Drama of To-morrow--A + "Report of Progress"--The Public and the Actors-- + Actor-Managers--The Forces that have given Birth to the + Contemporary English Drama--Disappearance of the Obstacles to + its becoming Modern and National--Conclusion 300 + + + + +INTRODUCTION + +BY HENRY ARTHUR JONES + + +I have rarely had a more welcome task than that of saying a few words of +introduction to the following essays, and of heartily commending them to +the English reading public. I am not called upon, nor would it become me, +to recriticise the criticism of the English drama they contain, to reargue +any of the issues raised, or to vent my own opinions of the persons and +plays hereafter dealt with. My business is to thank M. Filon for bringing +us before the notice of the French public, to speak of his work as a whole +rather than to discuss it in detail, and to define his position in +relation to the recent dramatic movement in our country. + +But before addressing myself to these main ends, I may perhaps be allowed +to call attention to one or two striking passages and individual +judgments. The picture in the first chapter of the old actor's life on +circuit is capitally done. I do not know where to look for so animated and +succinct a rendering of that phase of past theatrical life. And the +pilgrimage to the deserted Prince of Wales's Theatre also left a vivid +impression on me, perhaps quickened by my own early memories. In all that +relates to the early Victorian drama M. Filon seems to me a sure and +penetrating guide. All lovers of the English drama, as distinguished from +that totally different and in many ways antagonistic institution, the +English theatre, must be pleased to see M. Filon stripping the spangles +from Bulwer Lytton. To this day Lytton remains an idol of English +playgoers and actors, a lasting proof of their inability to distinguish +what is dramatic truth. _The Lady of Lyons_ and _Richelieu_ still rank in +many theatrical circles with _Hamlet_ as masterpieces of the "legitimate," +and _Money_ is still bracketed with _The School for Scandal_. It is +benevolent of M. Filon to write dramatic criticism about a nation where +such notions have prevailed for half a century. + +The criticism on Tennyson as a playwright seems to me equally admirable +with the criticism on Bulwer Lytton, and all the more admirable when the +two are read in conjunction. Doubtless Tennyson will never be so +successful on the boards as Lytton has been. _Becket_ is a loose and +ill-made play in many respects, and succeeded with the public only because +Irving was able to pull it into some kind of unity by buckling it round +his great impersonation of the archbishop. But _Becket_ contains great +things, and is a real addition to our dramatic literature. It would have +been a thousand pities if it had failed. On the other hand, the success of +Lytton's plays has been a real misfortune to our drama. You cannot have +two standards of taste in dramatic poetry. Just as surely as the +circulation of bad money in a country drives out all the good, so surely +does a base and counterfeit currency in art drive out all finer and higher +things that contend with it. In his measurement of those two ancient +enemies, Tennyson and Lytton, M. Filon has shown a rare power of +understanding us and of entering into the spirit of our nineteenth-century +poetic drama. + +If I may be allowed a word of partial dissent from M. Filon, I would say +that he assigns too much space and influence to Robertson. Robertson did +one great thing: he drew the great and vital tragi-comic figure of Eccles. +He drew many other pleasing characters and scenes, most of them as +essentially false as the falsities and theatricalities he supposed himself +to be superseding. I shall be reminded that in the volume before us M. +Filon says that all reforms of the drama pretend to be a return to nature +and to truth. I have elsewhere shown that there is no such thing as being +consistently and realistically "true to nature" on the stage. _Hamlet_ in +many respects is farther away from real life than the shallowest and +emptiest farce. It is in the seizure and presentation of the essential and +distinguishing marks of a character, of a scene, of a passion, of a +society, of a phase of life, of a movement of national thought--it is in +the seizure and vivid treatment of some of these, to the exclusion or +falsification of non-essentials, that the dramatist must lay his claim to +sincerity and being "true to nature." And it seems to me that one has +only to compare _Caste_, the typical comedy of an English _mesalliance_, +with _Le Gendre de M. Poirier_, the typical comedy of a French +_mesalliance_, to come to the conclusion that in the foundation and +conduct of his story Robertson was false and theatrical--theatrical, that +is, in the employment of a social contrast that was effective on the +stage, but well-nigh, if not quite, impossible in life. + +It is of the smallest moment to be "true to nature" in such mint and +cummin of the stage as the shutting of a door with a real lock, in the +observation of niceties of expression and behaviour, in the careful +copying of little fleeting modes and gestures, in the introduction of +certain realistic bits of business--it is, I say, of the smallest moment +to be "true to nature" in these, if the playwright is false to nature in +all the great verities of the heart and spirit of man, if his work as a +whole leaves the final impression that the vast, unimaginable drama of +human life is as petty and meaningless and empty as our own English +theatre. A fair way to measure any dramatist is to ask this question of +his work: "Does he make human life as small as his own theatre, so that +there is nothing more to be said about either; or does he hint that human +life so far transcends any theatre that all attempts to deal with it on +the boards, even the highest, even Hamlet, even OEdipus, even Faust, are +but shadows and guesses and perishable toys of the stage?" + +Robertson has nothing to say to us in 1896. He drew one great character +and many pleasing ones in puerile, impossible schemes, without relation to +any larger world than the very narrow English theatrical world of 1865-70. + +In his analysis of the influence of Ibsen in England and France, M. Filon +seems to touch the right note. I may perhaps be permitted a word of +personal explanation in this connection. When I came up to London sixteen +years ago, to try for a place among English playwrights, a rough +translation from the German version of _The Dolls' House_ was put into my +hands, and I was told that if it could be turned into a sympathetic play, +a ready opening would be found for it on the London boards. I knew nothing +of Ibsen, but I knew a great deal of Robertson and H. J. Byron. From these +circumstances came the adaptation called _Breaking a Butterfly_. I pray it +may be forgotten from this time, or remembered only with leniency amongst +other transgressions of my dramatic youth and ignorance. + +I pass on to speak of M. Filon's work as a whole. For a generation or two +past France has held the lead, and rightly held the lead, in the European +theatre. She has done this by virtue of a peculiar innate dramatic +instinct in her people; by virtue of great traditions and thorough methods +of training; by virtue of national recognition of her dramatists and +actors, and national pride in them; and by virtue of the freedom she has +allowed to her playwrights. So far as they have abused that freedom, so +far as they have become the mere purveyors of sexual eccentricity and +perversity, so far the French drama has declined. So cunningly economic is +Nature, she will slip in her moral by hook or by crook. There cannot be an +intellectual effort in any province of art without a moral implication. + +But France, though her great band of playwrights is broken up, still lords +it over the European drama, or rather, over the European theatre. There is +still a feeling among our upper-class English audiences that a play, an +author, an actor and actress, are good _because_ they are French. There +is, or has been, a sound reason for that feeling. And there is still, as +M. Filon says in his Preface, a corresponding feeling in France that +"there is no such thing as an English drama." There has been an equally +sound reason for that feeling. M. Filon has done us the great kindness of +trying to remove it. We still feel very shy in coming before our French +neighbours, like humble, honest, poor relations who are getting on a +little in the world, and would like to have a nod from our aristocratic +kinsfolk. We are uneasy about the reception we shall meet, and nervous and +diffident in making our bow to the French public. A nod from our +aristocratic relations, a recognition from France, might be of so much use +in our parish here at home. For in all matters of the modern drama England +is no better than a parish, with "porochial" judgments, "porochial" +instincts, and "porochial" ways of looking at things. There is not a +breath of national sentiment, a breath of national feeling, of width of +view, in the way English playgoers regard their drama. + +M. Filon has sketched in the following pages the history of the recent +dramatic movement in England. If I were asked what was the distinguishing +mark of that movement, I should say that during the years when it was in +progress there was a steadfast and growing attempt to treat the great +realities of our modern life upon our stage, to bring our drama into +relation with our literature, our religion, our art, and our science, and +to make it reflect the main movements of our national thought and +character. That anything great or permanent was accomplished I am the last +to claim; all was crude, confused, tentative, aspiring. But there was +_life_ in it. Again I shall be reminded that dramatic reformers always +pretend that they return to nature and truth, and are generally found out +by the next generation to be stale and theatrical impostors. But if anyone +will take the trouble to examine the leading English plays of the last ten +years, and will compare them with the _serious_ plays of our country +during the last three centuries, I shall be mistaken if he will not find +evidence of the beginnings, the first shoots of an English drama of +greater import and vitality and of wider aim than any school of drama the +English theatre has known since the Elizabethans. The brilliant +Restoration comedy makes no pretence to be a national drama: neither do +the comedies of Sheridan and Goldsmith. There was no possibility of a +great national English drama between Milton and the French Revolution, any +more than there was the possibility of a great school of English poetry. +And the feelings that were let loose after the convulsions of 1793 did not +in England run in the direction of the drama. It is only within the +present generation that great masses of Englishmen have begun to frequent +the theatre. And as our vast city population began to get into a habit of +playgoing, and our theatres became more crowded, it seemed not too much to +hope that a school of English drama might be developed amongst us, and +that we might induce more and more of our theatre-goers to find their +pleasure in seeing their lives portrayed at the theatre, rather than in +running to the theatre to escape from their lives. + +After considerable advances had been made in this direction, the movement +became obscured and burlesqued, and finally the British public fell into +what Macaulay calls one of its periodical panics of morality. In that +panic the English drama disappeared for the time, and at the moment of +writing it does not exist. There are many excellent entertainments at our +different theatres, and most of them are deservedly successful. But in the +very height of this theatrical season there is not a single London theatre +that is giving a play that so much as pretends to picture our modern +English life,--I might almost say that pretends to picture human life at +all. I have not a word to say against these various entertainments. I +have been delighted with some of them, and heartily welcome their success. +But what has become of the English drama that M. Filon has given so many +of the following pages to discuss and dissect? I wish M. Filon would +devote another article in the _Revue des deux Mondes_ to explain to his +countrymen what has taken place in the English theatre since his articles +were written. It needs a Frenchman to explain, and a French audience to +understand, the full comedy of the situation. + +For ten years the English theatre-going public had been led to take an +increasing interest in their national drama,--I mean the drama as a +picture of life in opposition to a funny theatrical entertainment,--and +during those ten years that drama had grown in strength of purpose, in +largeness of aim, in vividness of character-painting, in every quality +that promised England a living school of drama. It began to deal with the +great realities of modern English life. It was pressing on to be a real +force in the spiritual and intellectual life of the nation. It began to +attract the attention of Europe. But it became entangled with another +movement, got caught in the skirts of the sexual-pessimistic blizzard +sweeping over North Europe, was confounded with it, and was execrated and +condemned without examination. I say without examination. Let anyone turn +to the _Times_ of November 1894, and read the correspondence which began +the assault on the modern school of English drama. Let him discover, if +he can, in the letters of those who attacked it, what notions they had as +to the relations of morality to the drama. It will interest M. Filon's +countrymen to know that British playwrights were condemned in the +interests of British morality. And when one tried to find out what +particular sort of morality the English public was trying to teach its +dramatists, one discovered at last that it was precisely that system of +morality which is practised amongst wax dolls. Not the broad, genial, +worldly morality of Shakespeare; not the deep, devious, confused, but most +human morality of the Bible; not a high, severe, ascetic morality; not +even a sour, grim, puritanic morality. No! let any candid inquirer search +into this matter and try to get at the truth of it, and ask what has been +the recent demand of the English public in this matter, and he will find +it is for a wax-doll morality. + +Now, there is much to be said for the establishment of a system of +wax-doll morality, not only on the English stage, but also in the world at +large. And all of us who have properly-regulated minds must regret that, +through some unaccountable oversight, it did not occur to Providence to +carry on the due progress and succession of the human species by means of +some such system. + +I say it must have been an oversight. For can we doubt that, had this +excellent method suggested itself, it would have been instantly adopted? +Can we suppose that Providence would have deliberately rejected so sweetly +pretty and simple an expedient for putting a stop to immorality, not only +on the English stage to-day, but everywhere and always? + +I know there is a real dilemma. But surely those of us who are truly +reverent will suspect Providence of a little nodding and negligence in +this matter, rather than of virtual complicity with immorality--for that +is what the alternate hypothesis amounts to. + +But seeing that, by reason of this lamentable oversight of Providence, +English life is not sustained and renewed by means of wax-doll morality, +what is a poor playwright to do? I am quite aware that what is going on in +English life has nothing whatever to do with what is going on at the +English theatres in the autumn of 1896. Still, like Caleb Plummer, in a +matter of this kind one would like to get "as near natur' as possible," +or, at least, not to falsify and improve her beyond all chance of +recognition. I hope I shall not be accused of any feeling of enmity +against wax-doll morality in the abstract. I think it a most excellent, +nay, a perfect theory of morals. The more I consider it, the more eloquent +I could grow in its favour. I do not mean to practise it myself, but I do +most cordially recommend it to all my neighbours. + +To return. The correspondence in the _Times_ showed scarcely a suspicion +that morality on the stage meant anything else than shutting one's eyes +alike to facts and to truth, and making one's characters behave like wax +dolls. As to the bent and purpose of the dramatist, there was so little +of the dramatic sense abroad, that an act of a play which was written to +ridicule the detestable, cheap, paradoxical affectations of vice and +immorality current among a certain section of society was censured as +being an attempt to _copy_ the thing it was _satirising_! So impossible is +it to get the average Englishman to distinguish for a moment between the +dramatist and his characters. The one notion that the public got into its +head was that we were a set of gloomy corrupters of youth, and it hooted +accordingly. Now, I do not deny that many undesirable things, many things +to regret, many extreme things, and some few unclean things, fastened upon +the recent dramatic movement. And so far as it had morbid issues, so far +as it tended merely to distress and confuse, so far as it painted vice and +ugliness for their own sakes, so far it was rightly and inevitably +condemned, nay, so far it condemned and destroyed itself. But these, I +maintain, were side-tendencies. They were not the essence of the movement. +They were the extravagances and confusions that always attend a revival, +whether in art or religion. And by the general public, who can never get +but one idea, and never more than one side of that idea, into its head at +a time, these extravagances and side-shoots are taken for the very heart +of the movement. + +Take the Oxford movement. Did the great British public get a glimmer of +Newman's lofty idea of the continual indwelling miraculous spiritual +force of the Church? No. It got a notion into its head that a set of +rabid, dishonest bigots were trying to violate the purity of its +Protestant religion, so it hooted and howled, stamped upon the movement, +and went back to hug the sallow corpse of Evangelicalism for another +quarter of a century. The movement was thought to be killed. But it was +only scotched, and it is the one living force in the English Church +to-day. + +Take, again, the aesthetic movement. Did the great British public get a +glimmer of William Morris's lofty idea of making every home in England +beautiful? No. It got a notion into its head that a set of idiotic fops +had gone crazy in worship of sunflowers; so it giggled and derided, and +went back to its geometric-patterned Brussels carpets, its flock +wall-papers, and all the damnable trumpery of Tottenham Court Road. The +movement was thought to be killed, but it was only scotched; and whatever +beauty there is in English interiors, whatever advance has been made in +decorating our homes, is due to that movement. Again, to compare small +things with great, in the recent attempt to give England a living national +drama, we have been judged not upon the essence of the matter, but upon +certain extravagances and side-tendencies. The great public got a notion +into its head that a set of gloomy, vicious persons had conspired to +corrupt the youth of our nation by writing immoral plays. And the untimely +accident of a notorious prosecution giving some colour to the opinion, no +further examination was made of the matter. A clean sweep was made of the +whole business, and a rigid system of wax-doll morality established +forthwith, so far, that is, as the modern prose drama is concerned. But +this wax-doll morality is only enforced against the serious drama of +modern life. It is not enforced against farce, or musical comedy. It is +only the serious dramatist who has been gagged and handcuffed. Adultery is +still an excellent joke in a farce, provided it is conveyed by winks and +nods. The whole body of a musical entertainment may reek with cockney +indecency and witlessness, and yet no English mother will sniff offence, +provided it is covered up with dances and songs. I repeat that if a +thorough examination is made of the matter, it will be found that the +recent movement has been judged upon a small side-issue. + +We may hope that the English translation of M. Filon's work will do +something to reinstate us in the good opinion of our countrymen. I think, +if his readers will take his cue that during the last few years there has +been an earnest attempt on the part of a few writers to establish a living +English drama, that is, a drama which within necessary limitations and +conventions sets out with a determination to see English life as it really +is and to paint English men and women as they really are--I think if +playgoers will take that cue from M. Filon, they will get a better notion +of the truth of the case than if they still regard us as gloomy and +perverse corrupters of English youth. + +A passage from George Meredith may perhaps serve to indicate the position +of the English drama at the present moment, and to point in what direction +its energies should lie when the gags and handcuffs are removed, and the +stiffness gets out of its joints. At the opening of _Diana of the +Crossways_ these memorable words occur:-- + +"Then, ah! then, moreover, will the novelist's art (and the dramatist's), +now neither blushless infant nor executive man, have attained its +majority. We can then be veraciously historical, honestly transcriptive. +Rose-pink and dirty drab will alike have passed away. Philosophy is the +foe of both, and their silly cancelling contest, perpetually renewed in a +shuffle of extremes, as it always is where a phantasm falseness reigns, +will no longer baffle the contemplation of natural flesh, smother no +longer the soul issuing out of our incessant strife. Philosophy bids us to +see that we are not so pretty as rose-pink, not so repulsive as dirty +drab; and that, instead of everlastingly shifting those barren aspects, +the sight of ourselves is wholesome, bearable, fructifying, finally a +delight. Do but perceive that we are coming to philosophy, the stride +toward it will be a giant's--a century a day. And imagine the celestial +refreshment of having a pure decency in the place of sham; real flesh; a +soul born active, wind-beaten, but ascending. Honourable will fiction (and +the drama) then appear; honourable, a fount of life, an aid to life, quick +with our blood. Why, when you behold it you love it,--and you will not +encourage it?--or only when presented by dead hands? Worse than that +alternative dirty drab, your recurring rose-pink is rebuked by hideous +revelations of the filthy foul; for nature will force her way, and if you +try to stifle her by drowning she comes up, not the fairest part of her +uppermost! Peruse your Realists--really your castigators, for not having +yet embraced philosophy. As she grows in the flesh when discreetly tended, +nature is unimpeachable, flower-like, yet not too decoratively a flower; +you must have her with the stem, the thorns, the roots, and the fat +bedding of roses. In this fashion she grew, says historical fiction; thus +does she flourish now, would say the modern transcript, reading the inner +as well as exhibiting the outer. + +"And how may you know that you have reached to philosophy? You touch her +skirts when you share her hatred of the sham decent, her derision of +sentimentalism. You are one with her when--but I would not have you a +thousand years older! Get to her, if in no other way, by the sentimental +route:--that very winding path, which again and again brings you round to +the point of original impetus, where you have to be unwound for another +whirl; your point of original impetus being the grossly material, not at +all the spiritual. It is most true that sentimentalism springs from the +former, merely and badly aping the latter;--fine flower, or pinnacle +flame-spire, of sensualism that it is, could it do other?--and +accompanying the former it traverses tracks of desert, here and there +couching in a garden, catching with one hand at fruits, with another at +colours; imagining a secret ahead, and goaded by an appetite sustained by +sheer gratifications. Fiddle in harmonics as it may, it will have these +gratifications at all costs. Should none be discoverable, at once you are +at the Cave of Despair, beneath the funeral orb of Glaucoma, in the thick +midst of poinarded, slit-throat, rope-dependent figures, placarded across +the bosom Disillusioned, Infidel, Agnostic, Miserrimus. That is the +sentimental route to advancement. Spirituality does not light it; +evanescent dreams are its oil-lamps, often with wick askant in the socket. + +"A thousand years! You may count full many a thousand by this route before +you are one with divine philosophy. Whereas a single flight of brains will +reach and embrace her; give you the savour of Truth, the right use of the +senses, REALITY'S INFINITE SWEETNESS; for these things are in philosophy; +and the fiction (and drama) which is the summary of actual Life, the +within and without of us, is, prose or verse, plodding or soaring, +philosophy's elect handmaiden." + +"Dirty drab and rose-pink, with their silly cancelling contest"--does not +that sum up the English drama of the last few years? There was certainly a +shade too much dirty drab outside a while back, but within there was +_life_. What life is there in the drama that has followed? Where does it +paint one living English character? Where does it touch one single +interest of our present life, one single concern of man's body, soul, or +spirit? What have these rose-pink revels of wax dolls to do with the +immense, tragic, incoherent Babel around us, with all its multifold +interests, passions, beliefs, and aspirations? When will philosophy come +to our aid and depose this silly rose-pink wax-doll morality? + +"But," says the British mother, "I must have plays that I can take my +daughters to see." + +"Quite so, my dear ma'am, and so you shall. But do you let your daughters +read the Bible? The great realities of life are there handled in a far +plainer and more outrageous way than they are ever handled on the English +stage, and yet I cannot bring myself to think that the Bible has had a +corrupt influence on the youth of our nation. Do you let them read +Shakespeare? Again there is the freest handling of all these subjects, and +again I cannot think that Shakespeare is a corrupter of English youth." + +The question of verbal indecency or grossness has really very little to do +with the matter. A few centuries ago English gentlewomen habitually used +words and spoke of matters in a way that would be considered disgusting in +a smoking-room to-day. We may be very glad to have outgrown the verbal +coarseness of former generations. But we are not on that account to plume +ourselves on being the more moral. It is a matter of taste and custom, not +of morality. + +The real knot of the question is in the method of treating the great +passions of humanity. If the English public sticks to its present decision +that these passions are not to be handled at all, then no drama is +possible. We shall continue our revels of wax dolls, and our theatres will +provide entertainments, not drama. I do not shut my eyes to the fact that +many of the greatest concerns of human life lie, to a great extent, +outside the sexual question; and many great plays have been, and can be, +written without touching upon these matters at all. But the general public +will have none of them. The general public demands a love-story, and +insists that it shall be the main interest of the play. And every English +playwright knows that to offer the public a pure love-story is the surest +way of winning a popular success. He knows that if he treats of unlawful +love he imperils his chances and tends to drive away whole classes--one +may say, the great majority of playgoers. + +"Then why be so foolish as to do it?" is the obvious reply. + +The dramatist has no choice. He is as helpless as Balaam, and can as +little tune his prophesying to a foregone pleasing issue. A certain story +presents itself to him, forces itself upon him, takes shape and coherence +in his mind, becomes organic. The story comes automatically, grows +naturally and spontaneously from what he has observed and experienced in +the world around him, and he cannot alter its drift or reverse its +significance without murdering his artistic instincts and impulses, and +making his play a dead, mechanical thing. There are many stories which +treat of pure love thwarted and baffled and at last rewarded. I do not say +that these stories may not be quite as worth telling as the others. But +from the nature of the case, the course of a lawful love, though it may +not run altogether smooth, does not offer the same tremendous +opportunities to the dramatist. In affairs of love, as in those of war, +happy are they who have no history! Almost all the great love-stories of +the world have been stories of unlawful love, and almost all the great +plays of the world are built round stories of unlawful love. David and +Bathsheba, "the tale of Troy divine," Agamemnon, OEdipus, Phaedra, +Tristram and Iseult, Antony and Cleopatra, Hamlet, Abelard and Heloise, +Paolo and Francesca, Faust and Margaret, Burns and his Scotch lassies, +Nelson and Lady Hamilton--what have they to do with wax-doll morality? +What has wax-doll morality to do with them? + +I know the question is a difficult one. Much may be said for the French +custom of keeping young girls altogether away from the theatre. I believe +Dumas _fils_ did not allow his daughter to see any of his plays before she +was married--a fact that reminds one of Mr. Brooke's delightful suggestion +to Casaubon--"Get Dorothea to read you light things--Smollett--_Roderick +Random_, _Humphrey Clinker_. They're a little broad, but _she may read +anything now she's married_, you know." + +But whatever liberty may for the future be allowed to the dramatist or to +his hearers, I am sure that no play which came from any English author of +repute during the years included in M. Filon's survey could work in any +girl's mind so much mischief as must be done by the constant trickle of +little cheap cockney indecencies and suggestions which make the staple of +entertainment at some of our theatres. But, as I have said, it is only the +serious dramatist who in the present state of public feeling can be called +to account for immoral teaching. + +I have strayed far from my immediate subject. But if I have written +anything that cannot be considered appropriate as a preface to M. Filon's +book, I hope it may be accepted as a supplement. At the time M. Filon +wrote, the English drama was a force in the land, and had the promise of a +long and vigorous future. Now those who were leading it stand, for the +moment, defeated and discredited before their countrymen. But the movement +is not killed. It is only scotched. The English drama will always have +immortal longings and aspirations, though we may not be chosen to satisfy +them. + +Meantime, one cannot help casting wishful eyes to France, and thinking in +how different a manner we should have been received by the countrymen of +M. Filon, with their alert dramatic instinct, their cultivated dramatic +intelligence, their responsiveness to the best that the drama has to offer +them. France would not have misunderstood us. France would not have +treated us in the spirit of Bumble. France would not have mistaken the +men who were sweating to put a little life into her national drama, for a +set of gloomy corrupters of youth. France would not have bound and gagged +us and handed us over to the Philistines. + +M. Filon has done us a kindness in bringing us for a moment before the +eyes of Europe. He will have done us a far greater kindness if the English +edition of his book helps our own countrymen to form a juster opinion of +those who, in the face of recent discouragement and misrepresentation, +who, with many faults and blunders and deficiencies, have yet struggled to +make the English drama a real living art, an intellectual product worthy +of a great nation. + +HENRY ARTHUR JONES. + + + + +AUTHOR'S PREFACE + + +The French public has heard a great deal about modern English poets, +novelists, statesmen, and philosophers. What is the reason that it hears +nothing, or next to nothing, about the English drama? Your first impulse +is, perhaps, to make answer--"Because there is no such thing!" A +conclusive reason, and one dispensing with the need of any other, were it +true. But is it true? As it seems to me, it was true some thirty years +ago, but is true no longer. + +And, indeed, were there no English drama at the moment at which I write, +this in itself would be a phenomenon well worth studying, a problem that +it would be interesting to solve. The understanding of the miscarriages of +the mind, of the ineffectual but not wholly vain endeavours, the +frustrated efforts of Life, contains for the critic, just as it does for +the follower of any other science, the most fruitful of lessons, the most +strangely suggestive of all spectacles. Were there no English drama, we +should have to seek for the reasons--psychological, social, aesthetic--why +the Anglo-Saxon race, which produced a Shakespeare at a time when it +counted a bare three millions and covered a mere patch of ground, should +now be able to produce but clowns and dancers, when it is forty times as +numerous, and has spread itself throughout the world. + +But, as a matter of fact, these premises would be false. There _is_ an +English drama. The demand for it has been felt, and the supply is +forthcoming. Or, rather, it has come. It is a strenuous youngster, +determined to keep alive, bearing up pluckily, if with trouble, against +all the maladies of childhood, against the dangers of evil influences--the +brutal roughness of some, and the undue tenderness of others. Its growth +is slow and laborious; it recalls in no way that marvellous development of +the early drama, which, towards the end of the sixteenth century, passed +almost in a breath from the hesitating and halting speech of youth into +the rich utterance of full maturity. Here we still see doubt, uncertainty, +confusion. The struggle slackens at times. Improvement is followed by +lamentable relapse. But there the drama is; it is alive, and it is +growing. + +Ten or a dozen years ago, it was hard to say whether the drama was in +process of decline or of renascence, whether there was to be an end of it, +or a new beginning. There were many even among the critics who raised +their eyes in sorrow to heaven, and spoke of the drama as one speaks of +the dear departed. And they talked of the past as of a golden age--"the +palmy days, the halcyon days." + +To-day, these pessimists are non-existent. Their place has been taken, it +is true, by those intolerable carpers who, in every generation, would +prevent youth from daring, regardless of the fact that youth's chief +business is to dare. But these good people remain unheeded. Everyone is +agreed that to-day is better than yesterday; and almost everyone, that +to-morrow will be better than to-day. Twenty or thirty years ago, the +dozen theatres of London were almost always empty; there are now three +times as many, almost always full. The actors, then, were for the most +part mere clowns; they are artists now. Then, some of the best of them had +little more than a bare sustenance; now, there are some of the second rank +who have their house in town and their house in the country. About 1835, a +well-known author was glad to sell a drama to Frederick Yates, manager of +the Adelphi, for the sum of L70, _plus_ L10 for provincial rights. In +1884, a successful play (that had not yet exhausted its popularity) +brought its author L10,000 within a few months, of which L3000 came from +the provinces, and to which America and Australia had also contributed. +This is a very sordid aspect of the case, but a very important one. +L10,000 to an author must prove as effectual an incentive to the modern +English author, as did a _coup d'oeil de Louis_ to the French dramatist +in the reign of the Grand Monarque. Such profits should serve to encourage +talent, if it be beyond them to generate genius. + +It is not difficult to find the real reason why the French public is kept +so little and so ill informed as to the present prospects of the English +drama. To read Lord Salisbury's latest speech, all one has to do is to buy +a paper. One need but go to a bookseller to procure for oneself a volume +of Swinburne's poems, or a novel by Stevenson, or a work by Lecky or +Herbert Spencer. It is different with plays. From motives commercial +rather than literary, it has been the custom not to print these until long +after their production, and I could instance really popular dramas of +twenty or forty years ago which have never yet been published. It is +necessary, therefore, in order to study the drama, to become a regular +frequenter of the theatre; or rather, it is necessary to have followed its +course for a number of years in order to note, season by season, the +changes it has been undergoing, the tendencies which have been developing, +the growth or disappearance of foreign influences, and, finally, the +course of each individual talent and of the taste of the public. This +study, direct from nature--from the life--is not without difficulty, even +to Englishmen; how much less easy must it be to a Frenchman? Ever since it +has become the business of an actor, not merely to recite and declaim, but +to reproduce faithfully life itself, how many small points must escape the +ear of a foreigner? + +And if it be hard to say where the drama now stands, to foresee whither it +is going, it is still harder to ascertain whence it has come. You expect +from a critic, and quite properly, not merely a snapshot of a literary +movement at a certain specified moment, but some record also of its +process of formation. Affairs in England, even more than elsewhere, +require to be thus approached by the historical method. There is no +understanding what they are until you have learned what they have been. In +the present instance, before examining the resuscitated drama, it is +necessary to see of what it died, and how long it remained entombed. All +this has to be found out for oneself. The critics of the preceding +generations wasted their energies upon inessential details. Theatrical +"Reminiscences" are crowded with fictitious anecdotes. This department of +history is like a garden that has been neglected and grown wild; the +pathways are lost to sight. + +I have believed--fondly, perhaps--that, by my special opportunities, I +should escape some of these difficulties. I have resided long in England. +I know something of its people and its customs. I know how much value to +attach to individual testimonies, aided as I am by the thousand opinions +and feelings which are in the air, so to speak, but which find their way +never into print. I get the impressions of the public from the public +itself. Lastly, I love the theatre, and have been an enthusiastic +playgoer. During the last three or four years more especially I have seen +all the new pieces; and I may perhaps take this opportunity of expressing +my appreciation of the courtesy so kindly extended to me in this +connection by the principal managers. I may mention, among those to whom I +am most indebted, Mr. Tree, Mr. Hare, Mr. Wyndham, Mr. Alexander, and Mr. +Comyns Carr, the talented dramatist who, in his _King Arthur_, provided +Sir Henry Irving with the opportunity of rendering a last homage to the +genius of Tennyson. Indeed, I have met with wide-open doors and +outstretched hands wherever I have sought assistance in theatrical +circles. Many authors have been good enough to place at my disposal copies +of their works which had been printed only for their own use, or for that +of their interpreters upon the stage. + +But my greatest debt, of course, is to contemporary critics. After having +first assisted me in my studies, they have done me the further kindness of +encouraging me with their sympathy upon the publication of the successive +instalments of my work in the pages of the _Revue des Deux Mondes_. Their +mere attention had been a reward; their kindly approval was more than I +had hoped for. I trust they will be able to accord the same indulgent +reception to my book, now that it is complete, and that the spirit and +feelings which have actuated me in my work will be more fully apparent. + +I owe a special acknowledgment to Mr. William Archer. You will see in the +course of my book the part which he has played and is still playing, the +excellent seeds which he has sown broadcast, not all of which have yet +borne fruit. Here, I shall say only that, had I not had his books as a +guiding thread, I should have hardly ventured to risk myself in the +labyrinth of theatrical history. + +There are, in the England of to-day, two schools of dramatic criticism, +whose divergence of opinion is clearly marked. They are called "New +Critics" and "Old Critics," though accidents of date or age are hardly at +all accountable for their antagonisms; it is possible that during the next +few years the old criticism may become rejuvenated and that the new +criticism may age. For my part, I have sided with neither the one nor the +other, because the role of neutral is best suited to a foreigner. I have +supplemented my own personal impressions by quotations, taken impartially +from both camps, of what has struck me in their criticisms as noteworthy, +or happy, or true. I think that the new school is right in wishing to free +the English theatre from foreign influences, and in its efforts to give +the drama a moral value and an ideal. But I think the old school is not +far wrong when it defends, to a certain extent, the more popular forms of +dramatic art, and when it would have the drama follow the indications of +success, and not isolate itself from that public of whose feelings it +should be the living expression. + +One word in conclusion. Among the French critics who have done me the +honour of discussing my work during its serial publication, more than one +has come to the conclusion that, after all, these new English dramas were +not such great affairs, and that it was hardly worth while to make so +much fuss about them. They forget, these good people, that I promised them +no marvels; I did not invite them to a display of masterpieces. If there +are to be masterpieces at all, they will be of to-morrow, not to-day. What +I have set out to do is to ascertain at what temperature the drama comes +to flower, to see how a great section of the human race sets about making +to itself a new vehicle of enjoyment, of emotion, of thought, and, I may +even add, of moral education. It is an essay in literary history, but also +in social history. The two things go together,--are, indeed, henceforth +inseparable. + +I do not merely follow, step by step, the gradual transformation of the +theatrical world; I have endeavoured to make clear the attitude taken up +by the drama in presence of the crisis through which society has been +passing during the last score or so of years. In this strange conflict +between laws and manners, upon which side will the drama definitively take +up its stand? What part will it play, and what place will it assume, in +the renovation of England by the democracy? Will it help democracy with +earnest homilies? Or check it with satire and ridicule? Or will it turn +aside from such things altogether, and aspire to those serene heights of +art, to which the noises of the plain can never reach? The secret of its +downfall or glory lies perhaps in the answering of these questions. It was +time to submit them, pending the hour of their solution. + + + + +CHAPTER I + +A Glance back--From 1820 to 1830--Kean and Macready--The Strolling +Player--The Critics--Sheridan Knowles and _Virginius_--Douglas +Jerrold--His Comedies--_The Rent Day_--_The Prisoner of War_--_Black-eyed +Susan_--Collapse of the Privileged Theatres--Men of Letters come to the +Rescue of the Drama--Bulwer Lytton--_The Lady of Lyons_--_Richelieu_-- +_Money_. + + +From 1820 to 1830 the Theatre, or, to be precise, the theatres, prospered +to all appearances exceedingly. We shall see just now the real +significance of this prosperity; it may be compared to the great ball +given by Mercadet on the eve of his bankruptcy. But no one foresaw the +collapse that was impending. It was the reign of the Adonis of sixty, who +had spent his life inventing pomades and breaking oaths. It would have +been droll, indeed, had the man who washed his dirty linen in the House of +Lords pretended to be scandalised by the licence of the stage. And his +heir, also a worn-out man of pleasure, had lived for a time with an +actress, Mrs. Jordan, who, before his accession to the throne, died of +grief, and forsaken, at St. Cloud. The small girl named Victoria, who +roamed at this time amongst the lonely avenues of the old park at +Broadstairs, and who was destined presently to bring marital love and the +domestic virtues back into fashion, was still engrossed in the minding of +her dolls. + +The "privileged" theatres were frequented, or patronised,--to use the +recognised English expression, with its savour of old-time +condescension,--by Society. By the term "privileged," subventioned must +not be understood. To Drury Lane and Covent Garden alone belonged the +right of producing the legitimate drama, the plays of Shakespeare, that is +to say, and of his successors. This was their "privilege," a privilege +which might soon have become but a doubtful benefit had not great actors +arisen to keep alive the classical drama by their command on the suffrages +of the masses. The generation of actors who had studied in the school of +Garrick, and had maintained its traditions, was taking its farewell of the +stage in the person of John Kemble and Mrs. Siddons--Siddons, "whose +voice," one of her contemporaries tells us, "was more delicious than the +most delicious music." Edmund Kean had already come forward, and after +him, Macready. + +I try to picture to myself these two men as they appeared upon the stage, +to produce for myself from all the accounts of them that I have read the +illusion of their living presence. The first thing that comes home to one +is Kean's Bohemianism, Macready's respectability and good-breeding. +Macready was the friend of the leading men of letters of his time, and had +the advantage of their advice and support. Kean's only intimate was the +brandy-bottle that killed him. Writing to Frederick Yates, the manager of +the Adelphi, to ask him for a box, he says, "I don't want to herd with the +mob. I like the money of the public, but the public itself I scorn." He in +his turn might be looked upon with scorn, were it not for the sufferings +of his childhood and youth. If ever man had the right to hate life, it was +he. + +At Madame Tussaud's the two rivals may now be seen standing side by side, +Kean wearing the kilt of Macbeth and Macready the chlamys of Coriolanus. +Save for his small size, the former seems the better endowed by nature; +his countenance is sombre and bears the stamp of the tragedian. The +angular and wrinkled face of Macready, on the other hand,--his slitlike +mouth, his close-compressed lips and projecting jaws,--might have made the +fortune of a clown. He had only to emphasise or modify its effects, +indeed, for his tragic qualities to become comic. It was thus that he +rendered so admirably the officiousness and fussiness of Oakley, the sly +sensuality of Joseph Surface, the English Tartufe. Alas! he evoked a smile +sometimes as Othello; when the Moorish _condottiere_, this personification +of a passionate, noble, and high-strung race, was lost in an insensate +negro or, if Theophile Gautier were to be believed, something lower still, +"an anthropoid ape." + +Contemporaries seem agreed in attributing to Kean more genius, more +talent to Macready. But there are many occasions when talent serves better +than genius. To see Kean, said Coleridge, was to read Shakespeare by +flashes of lightning. It is a method which has its merits, but by it one +misses a good deal. Kean had some wonderful moments, then relapsed into +dulness and insignificance. He would stumble, like a schoolboy reciting a +lesson which had no meaning for him, through the whole of the speech of +the Moor of Venice before the Senate, "letting himself go" only in the +last verse, in which his emotion on seeing Desdemona brought down the +house. He concentrated a whole passion into these final words. It was +always thus with him. + +I may say of them, following Mr. Archer: of the two, Kean was the greater +actor and Macready the greater artist. Everything that pertained to +instinct was stronger in the one, and everything that pertained to +intellect was stronger in the other. Macready bore himself best in moods +of calm, rendered with most effect the more virtuous emotions,--_moral_ +passions one may call them. All that was greatest in Shakespeare, the very +soul of his poetry, was revealed through Kean. On one point only had +Macready the advantage: he had a way of gazing into space when his lined +and haggard countenance seemed to tell of the seeing of things invisible. +There was no one like Macready for the suggestion of the supernatural. In +all the other provinces of terror Kean was the real master. + +Mr. Wilton, the father of an actress of whom I shall have much to say in +these pages, used to tell how in his youth, when he was still a young and +unknown actor, he had had the honour of playing with Edmund Kean. They +were rehearsing the scene in which Shylock, baulked of his coveted gain, +rushes frantically upon the stage crying out for his prey. + +"Have you ever seen me in this before?" inquired the great actor of his +humble colleague. + +"No, sir." + +"Well, we must rehearse it then, otherwise you would be too much startled +this evening." + +They went through it, and yet Wilton tells us that when the evening came, +Kean terrified him so by the indescribable violence of his performance +that he was within an ace of losing his head and fleeing from the stage as +one might flee from the cage of a wild beast. + +It may be supposed from all this that Kean was in the habit of abandoning +himself entirely to the inspiration of the moment. Now, inspiration upon +the stage is almost a meaningless expression. In the very moments when the +terrifying actor was crossing the stage like a madman, he was counting his +steps. As for Macready, immediately before the great scene of Shylock he +would work himself up into excitement, emitting every imaginable oath, and +brandishing a heavy ladder until he panted actually for breath. Then he +would rush down the stage, pallid, breathless, the sweat coursing down his +face, the very picture of a man bursting with rage. The audience would +have laughed rather than have shuddered had they seen the ladder! + +Macready's voice was so rich and so beautiful that it delighted even those +who could not follow the meaning of the words which it gave forth. But he +was too intelligent an actor to make use of it as a mere instrument of +music. Until his time verses were chanted on the stage. He himself was +content to declaim them. English dramatic verse consists of a succession +of five iambics, which, by the alternation of short feet and long, results +in a regular and cadenced rhythm. From time to time an imperfection, the +deliberate introduction for instance of a trochee, or perhaps a redundant +syllable added at the end of the verse, has the effect of breaking this +monotony, but it recommences at once, and the mind relapses under its +sway, just as a child is sent to sleep again by a lullaby. My foreign ear +was long in taking to it, but at last I began to derive from its melody +the same delight that the music of Greek and Latin verse had given me long +before. This verse, so interesting and curious in its structure, seems to +bear a certain secret affinity with the genius of the English race; the +rhythm would seem to have been suggested by the clattering of a horse's +hoofs, or by the murmuring of waves. + +It is, then, no easy matter to deal with it. Macready approached it +reverentially, as was but fitting in a scholar and a devotee of +Shakespeare. He wished to leave to it all its melody, its poetic beauty, +but he wished at the same time to emphasise the most important words and +to bring out the full force of their meaning. He wished to blend the pure +classicism of John Kemble with the passion of Kean, and to add that +tendency to realism which marked his own temperament, and which sometimes +carried him too far; when as Macbeth he came back from Duncan's room, he +looked, according to Lewes, like an Old Bailey ruffian. + +It is enough for me to have shown that Macready, like many others in +different parts of Europe in 1825, was prepared for a drama that should be +in closer touch with life. In France, Romanticism came to turn aside and +check the movement. In England, there came absolutely nothing. + +But the bankruptcy of the new school was still far off, and the literary +atmosphere was charged with warlike sounds at the time when Macready made +his appearance in France, with an English company, in the course of the +year 1827. He was received as a missionary. He had come to preach +Shakespeare to a tribe of poor "ignoramuses," whom their fathers had +taught to worship the idols of Lemierre and Luce de Lancival, but who were +now anxious to be converted. The young "leading lady" was a Miss Smithson, +whose Irish accent clashed somewhat with the verse of Shakespeare. The +Parisians thought she had talent, and lost their hearts to "la belle +Smidson."[1] In London she was a joke. It is certain, however, that these +performances revealed to him who was to be the only true dramatist of the +romantic school--to Alexandre Dumas--the secret of a new art; that they +made an epoch, therefore, in our literary history, and that they affixed +the seal to the reputation of the English tragedian. + +Over and above the privileged theatres, there were a number of others, +such as the Haymarket and the Adelphi, at which farces and melodramas were +chiefly given. In the provinces there prevailed a curious system, without +any analogue, so far as I know, in France, that of going on circuit,--a +term borrowed, like the system itself, from the language and customs of +the law. Just as the English judges make the round at certain dates of all +the important towns within a certain district, holding assizes at each, +and accompanied by an army of barristers, solicitors, and legal officials +of all kinds, so the travelling companies of actors would cater for a +whole county, or group of counties, giving a series of performances in the +theatre of every town at certain fixed dates, in addition to fete-days and +market-days. Communication was slow and costly in those days, and trips to +London infinitely rarer than they are now. The country folk had to look to +their travelling company to keep them in touch with the successes of the +moment. + +On arriving in a new town, the manager's wife would go about soliciting +respectfully the patronage of the ladies of the place. The manager busied +himself over everything, played minor roles, presided over the box-office, +undertook the scene painting, and would even take off his coat and turn up +his sleeves and lend a hand to the machinist. His life, and the life of +all his company, was half _bourgeois_, half Bohemian; always _en route_, +but always on the same beat, always coming upon familiar and friendly +faces,--a beat on which his father and grandfather before him had followed +the same career. He had friends living in every city, dead friends in +every churchyard. Children were born to him on his travels, and when four +or five years old made their appearance upon the stage. These comings and +goings, the journeyings over green fields, the stoppages and ample +breakfastings at little hillside inns, while the horses browsed at large +along the hedges,--the freshness and peaceful rusticity of all these +things, alternating with the tinsel of the theatre and the applause of the +audiences, with the artificiality and feverishness of theatrical +life,--must have been a constant entertainment to the little actors and +actresses of eight or nine. For the adults, however, the life was a hard +one, and only too often their _roman comique_ was a _roman tragique_ in +reality. + +The public of these small towns wanted, on their part, to know something +of what went on behind the scenes. Sides were taken on the subject of the +actor's life, and hot discussions were called forth. Idle pens took to +writing pamphlets for or against individual actors, and these had to +defend themselves as best they might against their malignant inquisitors, +using their booths as pulpits for the purpose. Here, for instance, is an +incident that occurred one evening in a Northern town after the curtain +had been raised for _Antony and Cleopatra_. The _jeune premier_ comes +forward to the footlights, and takes the hand of one of the leading +actresses with the stiff, staid courtliness of former days, and the +following dialogue is exchanged between them:-- + +"Have I ever been guilty of any injustice of any kind to you since you +have been in the theatre?" + +"No, sir" (she replies). + +"Have I ever behaved to you in an ungentlemanlike manner?" + +"No, sir." + +"Have I ever kicked you?" + +"Oh, no! sir!" + +The audience applauds. Antony and Cleopatra assume their correct attitudes +and (this prologue to Shakespeare successfully performed) proceed with +their roles.[2] + +From time to time a great artist came forth, after three or four +generations of mediocrities, from one of these theatrical nurseries. The +others remained tied to their stake, revolving ceaselessly within the +orbit of their chain. For them there was no question of glory or fortune. +They lived simply and happily, if only they came to the end of the year +without having gone to prison, and if only at the end of their life they +saw their children growing up and getting educated. Their courage they +derived in part from the bottle, in part from religion. A correspondence +which has come to light through an unforeseen chance (a grandson who had +become famous) revivifies for us the actor-manager on circuit. He is a +good fellow, but a trifle sententious. He quotes from the works of his +authors, tragic and comic (he has them at his finger-ends) axioms upon all +the incidents and experiences of life. He quotes them just as Nehemiah +Wallington or Colonel Hutchinson used to quote the Bible. He is as easily +excited and as easily calmed as a child. A storm troubles him as a bad +omen. A rainbow smiles on him as a promise. Providence may be trusted, he +believes, to look after the takings of poor players. He is the Vicar of +Wakefield become _pere noble_. + +Neither in this monotonous and easy-going phase of life, nor in the +theatrical world of London, had anyone any idea of modifying the forms or +the tendencies of the stage. Those whose duty it should have been to give +the necessary impulse did not seem even to suspect that there was any such +work for them to perform. The critics of the time, Hazlitt, Leigh Hunt, +Charles Lamb, have achieved a permanent place in literature. And yet when +one reads them one is disappointed. Except for a few pages of Lamb, one +may look to them in vain for the expression of anything like a general +idea. They are taken up almost altogether in discussing and comparing the +different actors. It does not occur to them to attempt an appreciation or +a classification of the plays, for these plays had already been +definitively classified and pronounced upon. There was no drama, they +seemed to think, except that of Shakespeare and his satellites; and as for +comedy, it had said its last word when Goldsmith and Sheridan died. And +they were quite content that this should be so. They saw no reason why +they, their successors, and the general public, should not continue until +the end of time to carp over an entry of Macbeth or an exit of +Othello!--or why they should not sit out revivals without end of _The +School for Scandal_ or _She Stoops to Conquer_. There are eras which will +have novelties at all cost, and eras which cling to antiquity. + +Macready, with the instinct of a "realistic" and "modern" actor, kept on +the lookout for authors. A former Irish schoolmaster, who also had been an +actor, and whose name was Sheridan Knowles, brought him a tragedy entitled +_Virginius_ which he had written in three months. He made a good deal of +this point, never having read, probably, the scene of the sonnet of +Oronte. The piece was put into rehearsal and played at Covent Garden in +the spring of 1820. Reynolds introduced the unknown author to the public +in a carefully-written prologue. In it he ridiculed the drama of the +period, which he described as "stories"-- + + "... piled with dark and cumbrous fate, + And words that stagger under their own weight." + +He promised to return to Truth and Nature, the invariable programme of all +attempts at reforming the drama. And as a matter of fact, _Virginius_ +might be accepted in a certain sense as a return to Truth and Nature. It +belonged to what we were going to call in France, twenty-five years later, +the School of Common Sense. Or if one prefers to look back instead of +forward, one might say that in it the rules of Diderot and Sedaine's +_Drame Bourgeois_ seem to have been transferred to Roman tragedy. The +piece, like the plays of Shakespeare, was partly in verse and partly in +prose, but the verse was little more, really, than metrical prose. The +plot developed clearly and logically with a scrupulous observance of the +probable and natural. The heroine (one smiles at having to describe her by +so grand a name) is for all the world a little _pensionnaire_ who might +have got her ideas on rectitude from Miss Edgeworth. She occupies herself +with her needle in working together her initials and those of the young +man of her choice, who is no other than the tribune Icilius. It is this +piece of embroidery which reveals her secret. "My father is incensed with +you," she says to Icilius, and, her lover becoming impassioned, she covers +her face with her hands, saying (as is correct at such a juncture), "Leave +me, leave me!" He does not obey, and the author, not knowing how else to +prolong the scene, has recourse to high-sounding language.... "Thou dost +but beggar me, Icilius," exclaims Virginia, "when thou makest thyself a +bankrupt." And Icilius replies, ... "My sweet Virginia, we do but lose and +lose, and win and win, playing for nothing but to lose and win. Then let +us drop the game--and thus I stop it," and he stops it by seizing her in +his arms. + +In the scene in which the client of Appius attempts to possess himself of +her, Virginia remains absolutely mute. She is mute also in the great scene +of the judgment, and she seems, moreover, to have understood nothing of +what has been happening, for she asks her father if he is going to take +her home. From the angels and furies of Shakespeare and Corneille we have +come down to a virtuous idiot, and are told that this is a return to +Nature. + +Virginius is an excellent father, a liberal-minded member of the middle +class, interesting himself in politics. He knows his rights and does not +stand in awe of the ministers. He reminds one of the city man who returns +home to his comfortable residence in Chiswick or Hampstead after his day's +work in his Leadenhall Street office. He is a widower, but his house is +looked after by a very respectable elderly person, in whose excellent +sentiments and weak intelligence we recognise a housekeeper of the +superior type. The whole household is tranquil, well behaved, +Christian,--I might even say, Puritan. + +Doubtless the Romans of the republic were men like ourselves, but a true +picture of their humanity should reveal characteristics different from +ours. The author should either have sought out these characteristics, or +else have restricted himself to that sphere of great passions and heroic +madnesses in which all the centuries meet on common ground. One is +obliged, however unwillingly, to admit the impossibility of retrospective +realism. + +When Virginius returns from the camp to defend his child, he gazes on her +long, and tells her he had never seen her look so like her mother-- + + "... It was her soul, ... her soul that played just then + About the features of her child, and lit them + Into the likeness of her own. When first + She placed thee in my arms--I recollect it + As a thing of yesterday!--she wished, she said, + That it had been a man. I answered her, + It was the mother of a race of men; + And paid her for thee with a kiss."... + +There is something at once virile and moving in this passage, but how many +such cases are to be found in this tragedy? The paternal emotion of +Virginius prepares us but ill for the heroic crime which he is to commit. +There is the same contrast between the antiquity of the events and the +modernness of the characters. + +But the ruin of the piece was the fifth act. Virginia dead, it remains +only to punish Appius according to the good old laws of tragic justice. +For that, a single moment and a single gesture had been enough. Sheridan +Knowles was in the position of being obliged to write his fifth act and +having nothing to put into it. He had recourse to a mad scene. Merimee has +written that "_il faut laisser aux debutants les foux et les chiens_." +This doctrine has Homer and Shakespeare against it. On the other hand, the +example of Sheridan Knowles proves that the recourse to madness will not +always get the beginner out of his difficulty. + +Virginius has succeeded in making his way into Appius's prison-- + + "How if I thrust my hand into your breast, + And tore your heart out, and confronted it + With your tongue. I'd like it. Shall we try it?" + +When the old centurion plunged his hands into the robes of the _decemvir_, +as though he expected to find Virginia in his pocket, and when Appius, +horrified at finding himself "caged with a madman," appealed for help with +all the strength of his lungs whilst calling out to his assailant, "Keep +down your hands! Help! Help!"--I cannot imagine how the spectators of 1820 +can have refrained from laughter. The two men quitted the scene fighting, +and turned up again in another room,--for the prison was a veritable suite +of rooms. Having killed Appius, the old man grew calm, and Icilius had +but to call him by his name to bring back to him his reason. He slipped a +small urn into his hands. "What is this?" asks Virginius. "That is +Virginia." And the curtain fell. + +Contemporary critics admitted that the last act was somewhat weak. It was +curtailed, but delete it as one would, it was still too long. Had it been +reduced to ten lines, these ten lines had been ten lines too much. + +In spite of everything, however, _Virginius_, by Macready's help, remained +a masterpiece for twenty-five years! Knowles made haste to produce some +more. He tells in one of his naive prefaces, how he went to stop with his +friend, Mr. Robert Dick, near an Irish lough known for its scenery and its +fish, how he would spend the morning at his composition and the afternoon +angling, and how his host would snatch his fishing line from his hands +whenever he caught him using it before midday.... If only Mr. Dick had let +him fish in peace! The trout he might have hooked had been at least as +valuable as his verse and prose. + +If there was any sort of foreshadowing of a national drama in the years +1830 to 1840, it must be sought for in the works of Douglas Jerrold. +France knows little of Jerrold, who knew France so well. His was a valiant +little soul; his life was one long battle--a battle against obscurity, +against ill luck, against the enemies of his country, against the +oppressors of the poor, last but not least, against all those whom he +disliked. He belonged to that theatrical world at which I have glanced. He +was the son of a provincial manager who had met with failure. In his early +youth, while yet a child, one may say, he served as midshipman in the wars +against Napoleon. He became a journalist later, and threw himself into the +midst of politics. Whatever may be said of his caustic and aggressive +temperament, he belonged, every inch of him, to that noble generation +which aspired so fervently after better things, which strove so +strenuously for what was right, which believed it could help humanity +forward on the way to a progress without bounds. For forty years he +vibrated with generous passions, and grew calm only in the presence of +death, which he met like a stoic but with a simplicity not all the stoics +knew. I have been brought into intimate relations with his son, who has +repeated to me his last words--"This is as it should be." To fight for +justice and to accept the inevitable without fear,--this was the life of a +man. + +_The Rent Day_ was played on January 25, 1832, that is to say, at the +commencement of the memorable year which was to see the passing of the +Reform Bill. It is the day upon which the rents have become due. The +tenants have brought their money. There is drinking and laughing and +singing, the while the heaps of crowns are exchanged for receipts,--for +nothing was accomplished in England in those days without drinking, and +on rent day it had been almost a disgrace not to be at least "well on." +The middleman is presiding over the function. This morning he has received +a letter from the young squire, thus expressed--"Master Crumbs, use all +despatch, and send me, on receipt of this, five hundred pounds. Cards have +tricked me and the devil cogged the dice. Get the money at all costs, and +quickly.--ROBERT GRANTLEY." The middleman therefore must have no pity. +There is one farmer who cannot pay; his brother the schoolmaster comes to +plead for him. He himself is too poor to lend-- + + _Toby_ (the schoolmaster): "My goods and chattels are a volume of + _Robinson Crusoe_, ditto _Pilgrim's Progress_, with Plutarch's + _Morals_, much like the morals of many other people--a good deal dog's + eared."... + + _Crumbs_: "Has your brother no one to speak for him?" + + _Toby_: "Now, I think on't, yes. There are two." + + _Crumbs_: "Where shall I find them?" + + _Toby_: "In the churchyard. Go to the graves of the old men, and there + are the words the dead will say to you:--'We lived sixty years in + Holly Farm; in all that time we never begged an hour of the squire; we + paid rent, tax, and tithe; we earned our bread with our own hands, and + owed no man a penny when laid down here. Well, then, will you be hard + on young Heywood; will ye press upon our child, our poor Martin, when + murrain has come upon his cattle and blight fallen upon his corn?' + This is what they will say." + +The middleman is not one to be moved by the supplications of the +schoolmaster. He replies monotonously, inexorably--"My accounts; I must +settle my accounts!" Grouped round him, farther back, are the instruments +of his lowly tyrant, the beadle (for whom a young writer now hidden from +the public eye in the gallery of the House of Commons, Charles Dickens, +has in store so terrible a cudgelling) and the appraiser. In those days it +was the beadle's function to execute evictions for the benefit of young +squires who had lost at cards. The first act of _The Rent Day_ concludes +with a spectacle of this kind. We witness the seizing of the peasant's bed +and of all his furniture, down to a bird-cage and the children's toys. The +scene follows its course; entreaties, curses, threats, then silence and +desolation. It was thus that the social question was submitted. Had we +been there, and in our twentieth year,--you and I who have to contest +against the grandsons of the victims, become in their turn +slave-drivers,--we should have joined with the rest of the pit in cheering +Jerrold. + +The first act gives promise of a vigorous comedy of manners, but we sink +gradually into a dense melodrama crowded with absurd incidents and +extravagant surprises. Was this Jerrold's fault, or that of a public which +insisted upon monster jokes and monster crimes? I am inclined to adopt +the latter explanation, for supply is regulated by demand; a mercantile +axiom which resolves itself in a great natural and highly scientific law. + +Jerrold could achieve a light and realistic touch at need, and he has +given proof of it in _A Prisoner of War_. The scene is laid in France +shortly after the rupture of the Treaty of Amiens. Quite impartially, and +with consummate wit, Jerrold holds up to ridicule the _chauvinisme_ of the +two nations. He does not confound bombast with valour. "Soldiers," says +one character, "should die and civilians lie for their country." We are +shown--and this has some historical value--the English prisoners living +comfortably in a French town, frequenting the Cafe Imperial, regaling +themselves on the bulletins of the "Grande Armee," with no other +obligation than that of answering the roll-call morning and evening. They +have money, for the lodging-house keepers compete for their favour; and +they pay little French boys to sing "Rule Britannia." As it seems to me, +if Garneray's Memoirs are to be believed, our compatriots were hardly so +well off on the English hulks. + +But what strikes me most in _A Prisoner of War_ is one really ingenious +and moving scene. It is the evening. An old officer, a prisoner, has +remained late over a game of cards with a comrade. Meantime his daughter +Clary has a man in her bedroom. Don't be alarmed--the man is her husband. +A secret marriage is always introduced in English plays wherever a +seduction is to be found in ours. Suddenly Clary is called out to, loudly, +by her father. She imagines herself found out, and arrives quite pallid. +What had she been doing? her father asks. How was it she had a light still +in her window? So she had been reading, eh? Still reading--always reading. +And what had she been reading? Novels! As though there weren't enough real +tears in the world--real, scalding, bitter tears from breaking hearts--but +we must have a parcel of lying books to make people cry double! And what +was this silly novel of hers? Clary doesn't know what to answer, and +begins telling her own story--the youth of no family and fortune, the +moment of recklessness, the giving of her heart to him and then her hand. +"Well, and how did it end?" asks the old officer. Clary had "not come to +the end"! Ah, then (he resumes), she had turned down the page when he had +interrupted her? But he could tell her how it ended. The young couple went +upon their knees, and the father swore a little, then took out his pocket +handkerchief, wiped his eyes, and forgave them. + +At this Clary's face lights up with hope. So that would be the ending, +according to him! He could assure her of it? Yes, he replies, he could +assure her of it. She is on the point of falling upon her knees. Behind +the half-open door, behind which there glimmers the light of a candle, her +lover waits, ready to rush forward upon a word from her. "Of course, in +real life it would be quite another thing," goes on her father. "If it +were I, what would you do?" "I'd kill him like a dog. And as for you--But +there, it's too horrible to think of! Let's talk of something else." And +he tells her he has found a husband for her. Naturally she protests. The +old man goes off again into a fury. "These cursed novels are turning your +head. I shall go and burn them this instant." And he steps towards the +door, behind which Clary's lover stands trembling. + +All this is old-fashioned enough; it dates from the time when the drama +was made out of the materials of a vaudeville. And yet I think that even +nowadays this scene would tell. + +But once again Jerrold had to follow the public taste which led him so +terribly astray. His greatest success was his worst production, +_Black-eyed Susan_, the popularity of which does not appear to have been +even yet exhausted. The hero is a sailor, who translates the simplest +ideas into nautical phraseology; the heroine a woman of humble birth, who +expresses the loftiest sentiments in the finest language. The prolonged +success of such a piece shows the delight which the lower sections of the +public derive from the extravagant and the absurd,--the gross idealism, as +one may call it, of the masses. + +It is more difficult to understand how Jerrold, who had some regard for +realism, and who had himself served on the sea, could have brought himself +to write a drama which had in it not a semblance of truth, not a touch of +nature. In spite of all, however, even in _Black-eyed Susan_, one may find +that unrestrained violence, that _diable au corps_, which our fathers +accepted willingly as passion. + +It was not the public taste alone that was at fault; from the year 1830 +the commercial decadence of the English theatre became more and more +marked. As often happens, contemporaries failed to appreciate the real +meaning of this, and attributed it to accidental causes; amongst others, +to the rivalry between Drury Lane and Covent Garden, a rivalry which was +carried to absurd extremes under some of the managers, who bid against +each other, both for plays and players, to an extent that ruined them. +Then came the notion of ending this dangerous competition by uniting the +two houses under the same management, but the enterprise proved too big +for one man and for a single company. The separate existence had to come +into force again. A certain Captain Polhill, who aspired to the role of a +Maecenas, lost fifty thousand pounds in two years over the management of +Drury Lane. Then Macready in his turn had a try, and managed the two +theatres successively from 1838 to 1843. + +The privileged theatres were no longer living on their privilege; they +were dying of it. Theatres were springing up all round them, which +succeeded sometimes in drawing the public by strange means. Edmund Yates, +whose father was then manager of the Adelphi, has given us in his memoirs +some idea of the attractions then in vogue: a Chinese giant, Indian +dancers, a legless acrobat who got himself up with spreading wings as a +monstrous fly, and who sprang about, tied on to a thread, from floor to +ceiling. The privileged theatres had no other course than to emulate the +unprivileged ones. They produced Shakespeare in the form of +curtain-raisers, or to wind up the evening before half-empty benches. They +sliced him, carved him limb from limb, and served him up in bits, or +floating in a dish of music, with a garnishment of loud and vulgar _mise +en scene_, of which the contemporaries of Elizabeth would have been +ashamed. And, in spite of all, in spite even of Macready's talent (Kean +had died in 1833), they could not get the public to accept him. The new +public which filled the theatres was gluttonous rather than _gourmet_, and +wanted not quality but quantity--at least six acts every evening, and +sometimes even seven or eight. Masterful, clamorous, ill-bred, uncouth in +its expression both of enjoyment and of dissatisfaction, its attitude +astounded Price Puckler-Muskau, a very careful observer who visited +England about the time. Macready acknowledges that there were some corners +in Drury Lane where a respectable woman might not venture. The barbarians +had begun to arrive; it was the first wave of democracy before which the +_habitue_, the playgoer of the old school, was forced to flee. + +In 1832 a Commission was instituted by Parliament for the purpose of +going into the question of liberty for the theatre. The members could not +agree upon the subject, and the question was not settled until after +eleven years of discussion. Before this ultimate surrender of Privilege +and Tradition to the new spirit, one last effort had been made by men of +letters to save the theatre. This was when the great tragedian undertook +the management of Covent Garden. There was only one feeling in the world +of literature: "We must back up Macready!" Everyone helped. John Forster +applied himself to the stage management. Leigh Hunt left aside his +criticisms to undertake a tragedy (based on a legend in which Shelley had +already found inspiration), and those who could not do so much penned +prologues and epilogues and brought them to Covent Garden, just as in +former days, at moments of national peril, the patriotic rich brought +their valuables to the Mint.[3] + +From this abortive renaissance there remain one reputation and three +plays. The three plays are _The Lady of Lyons_, _Richelieu_, and _Money_; +the reputation is that of Bulwer, the first Lord Lytton. Bulwer passed +himself off as a _grand seigneur_ and a genius; he was really but a clever +man and a dandy, who exploited literature for his social advancement. He +affected a lofty originality, but his talents were mostly imitative. His +chief gift, almost entirely wanting in his books, but very notable in his +life, was what we call _finesse_. He took from the Byronian Satanism as +much as England would put up with in 1840. He copied Victor Hugo secretly +and discreetly. A sort of Gothic democrat, he managed at the same time to +charm romantic youths and flatter the proletariat by pretending to hurl +down that society in whose front rank he aspired to take his place. His +novels were terribly long-winded, but there are generations which find +such a quality to their taste. When at last it was discovered that his +sublimity was a spurious sublimity, that his history was false history, +his "middle-ages" bric-a-brac, his poetry mere rhetoric, his democracy a +farce, his human heart a heart that had never beat in a man's breast, his +books mere windy bladders,--why, it was too late! The game had been played +successfully and was over--the squireen of Knebworth, the self-styled +descendant of the Vikings, had founded a family and hooked a peerage. + +He had an eye for all the popular causes which were to be served--and were +likely to be of service. When there was talk of reforming the drama, he at +once came to the front and took the lead. He was the heart and soul of the +Commission of 1832. He was one of those who came to the support of +Macready in 1838. It was to this end he wrote _The Lady of Lyons_ (without +putting his name to it at first). + +This is a literary melodrama; a detestable combination, for melodrama, +considered either as a variation from drama proper or as a separate type, +is not to be raised to the dignity of literature by the veneering of it +with a thin layer of poetry. This operation does but produce wild and +violent incongruities. In the first act of _The Lady of Lyons_, Madame +Deschappelles is a Palais Royal _Maman_. Only a Palais Royal _Maman_, and +only one of the most pronounced of them at that, could imagine she would +become a dowager princess by marrying her daughter to a prince. Pauline +belongs to the same repertory. What are one's feelings, then, on hearing +tragic verses from her lips in the third act and seeing her compete with +Imogene and Griselda in the sublimity (and absurdity) of her +self-sacrifice! In the fourth act she has resumed something of her natural +temperament--the temperament of a prim and tedious governess. + +But I suppose I must put up with Pauline Deschappelles willy-nilly! It is +one of the accepted doctrines of the old dramatic psychology that a +character can pass from good to evil at critical moments, and pass out +again even when all egress is barred. It is an absurd notion, but if +Bulwer conforms to it, at least he is in the same boat with many others. +Where he is himself at fault--that which indicates the obliquity of his +moral outlook--is his having presented to us in Claude Melnotte a hero who +is a double-dyed cheat. A mere peasant by birth, he passes himself off as +a prince and marries under his false name the daughter of a rich +bourgeois; a soldier by profession, he becomes a general within two years, +and in these two years amasses a fortune. How? By what methods of +brigandage we are not told, but we are left to accept it as a matter of +course. As regards the first point, love may perhaps be held to excuse the +crime; as regards the second, no one seems ever to have raised any +objection, and it has been left for me to state my difficulty. In a +sufficiently disingenuous preface, Bulwer accounts for the incoherences +and extravagances of his hero by the state of extraordinary excitement +into which men's minds had been thrown by the French Revolution. This +explanation has sufficed for the author's fellow-countrymen, and the +Revolution has a broad back. But I am afraid that Bulwer was not clear in +his mind as to the kind of madness to which Frenchmen were impelled by +it,--and still more, that he has confounded our generals with our +contractors. Our Desaix and our Ouvrards are not made of the same clay nor +moulded in the same form; a fact as to which, unfortunately, he remained +unenlightened. + +After having made his anonymity serve the purpose of an advertisement, the +author consented to reveal his identity whilst announcing at the same time +that _The Lady of Lyons_ would be a sole experiment. The very next year he +appeared before the public with the tragedy of _Richelieu_, in which +Macready played the principal role. This piece may be compared with the +Cromwell of Victor Hugo. It was marked by the same mixture of tragedy and +melodrama; the same display of historical documents and the same ignorance +of what is essential in history; the same use of the lowest and the most +eccentric expedients to raise a laugh or cause a shudder; the same +superficial and crude psychology which in each character, male or female, +great or small, reveals the personality of the author. Even when this +author is a Victor Hugo it is bad enough! But when it is a Bulwer--! + +When he blended into one plot the _journee des Dupes_ and the conspiracy +of the Duc de Bouillon, together with some features borrowed from the +adventure of Cinq-Mars and De Thou, the author mingled together two +periods which could not and should not be thus confounded, the beginning +and the end of Richelieu's career.[4] He managed, too, to falsify English +history as well, incidentally, by making Richelieu refer in Council to +Cromwell, at that time a still obscure member of the House of Commons. +Richelieu speaks of the antagonism between Charles and Oliver at a period +when the latter is not even a captain of cavalry. But what is an +anachronism of this kind compared to that which involves the principal +character in one continued topsy-turveydom? It is the drawback both of the +historical play and the historical novel, that they put the great figures +of history before us in a form and in an attitude that their +contemporaries could have never witnessed; confessing, describing, +revealing themselves just to illustrate their character by their +conversation, always dilating on their deeds instead of doing them. But of +all the braggarts in theatrical history, Bulwer's Richelieu is the most +vainglorious and the most intolerable. It is all very well for the author +to say in his preface that the cardinal was the father of French +civilisation and the architect of the monarchy; he may say what he likes: +but we cannot stand Richelieu when he talks of himself in the same strain +and in the third person, just as Michelet and Carlyle might in a fit of +raving; nor when he counterfeits death in order to play the ghost, nor +when he weeps theatrically, and addresses declamatory love messages to "La +France."--"France, I love thee,--Richelieu and France are one!" Nor can we +believe in him when he sees modern France come to life again from out the +cinders of feudalism. After such nonsensical dicta, indeed, one would be +hardly surprised to hear him exclaim, "I am the precursor of 1789; what I +cannot consummate, Bonaparte shall achieve in the Sessions of the Conseil +d'Etat!" + +The secondary characters are one idea'd. Beringhen can say nothing but +"Let's discuss the pate!" and the Duc d'Orleans is limited to "Marion +dotes on me." To the tragi-comedy there is tacked on a melodrama made +after the approved methods of the Boulevard--a succession of events and +surprises which cancel out. You feel you are expected to shout, Bravo +Richelieu! bravo Baradas! Just as at the Porte Saint Martin or at the +Ambigu you cry out, Bravo d'Artagnan! bravo Mordaunt! It is the system of +Dumas without his art. + +Lord Lytton lacked both imagination and ingenuity. His effects are poor, +and he overdoes them. The first resuscitation of Richelieu comes near to +impressing one, the second is simply silly. The kernel of the play +consists of a document which passes through every pocket but never reaches +its address. At the moment, the owner of this treasure is a prisoner at +the Bastille. Instead of searching him, the Government sends a courtier to +seize him by the throat and rob him of it. The scene is witnessed through +a key-hole and described to us by a little page of Richelieu's--the role +being played by a woman. The page throws himself on the courtier the +moment he comes out in order to snatch from him the fateful paper, and the +conclusion of the drama results from these two encounters. One might sum +up _Richelieu_ as a mixture of bad Hugo with worse Dumas! + +_Money_ is by way of depicting English Society as it was in 1840. It +recognised itself, or rather its enemies recognised it, in this +caricature! Are we to believe that the gambling scene in the third act +takes place in an aristocratic club? It is more in keeping with the back +parlour of a public-house. A very well-known critic, who represents the +ideas of a whole class and of a whole school, in alluding to the success +which the piece met with in the first instance, and which it meets with +still on every revival, declares that the spectators wished to show their +appreciation of the "humour of a scholar." I must confess that I can +recognise neither the scholar nor the humour. On the contrary, what I see +in it is a spurious sensibility and that moral obliquity to which I have +referred. Alfred Evelyn, who has been enriched by the will of an eccentric +cousin, and who now sees the world at his feet after having experienced +its disdain, decides to share his fortune with an unknown girl who has +sent L10 to his old nurse at a time when he himself was too poor to come +to her aid. It is in this silly intention that he is throwing away his +happiness, and that the plot finds its motive. He is engaged to a young +girl whom he doesn't love, and in order to get rid of her, this mirror of +refinement, this Alcestes with all his fine scorn of average humanity, +pretends to ruin himself at play in the presence of his destined +father-in-law. The girl whom he loves has refused (in Act I.) to marry +him, not because he is poor, but because, poor herself, she was afraid of +being a drag on him in his career. But someone had entered during her +explanation and she had not been able to finish her sentence. She finishes +it in the last act, and it transpiring also that it was she who had really +sent the L10, the two lovers fall into each other's arms. That is really +all there is in _Money_ over and above the social satire, which to my +thinking is terribly far-fetched, and that wonderful "humour" which I have +been unable personally to discover. + +Bulwer was not the man to save the erring Drama. Stronger men than he +might have tried in vain to do so. It was not to the men of letters, the +scholars, that it was to owe its salvation. The democracy had to come to +the use of reason and to educate itself. Instead of the artificial drama +which was offered to them, they held out for a drama sprung from its own +loins, born of its own passions, made after its own image, palpitating +with its own life; literary it might become later, if it could. And to +this end, in the words of Olivier Saint-Jean, "It was necessary that +things should go worse still before they could go better." + + + + +CHAPTER II + +Macready's Withdrawal from the Stage--The Enemies of the Drama in 1850: +Puritanism; the Opera; the Pantomime; the "Hippodrama"--French Plays and +French Players in England--Actors of the Period--The Censorship--The +Critics--The Historical Plays of Tom Taylor and the Irish Plays of Dion +Boucicault. + + +Macready played once more in Paris in 1846, but the times were changed, +and he achieved only a _succes d'estime_. He then visited America, where +his presence evoked professional jealousies and bad blood, resulting in +serious riots in which lives were lost. On February 26, 1851, the great +actor gave his farewell performance. A brilliant page of Lewes has kept +alive until our own day the emotion of this memorable occasion, which +marks an era in the history of English art. Macready was in deep mourning; +he had just lost a daughter of twenty years of age. He did not declaim his +speech, but gave it forth with dignified sadness. In it he laid claim only +to two merits--that of having brought back the text of Shakespeare in its +purity, and that of having made of the theatre a place in which decent +folks need not hesitate to be seen. He foresaw that if his glory as an +artist should fade with the gradual disappearance of those who had +witnessed it, his work as a literary restorer and a moral reformer would +survive. And he was right. + +The farewell performance was followed by a banquet, at which the +inevitable Bulwer took the chair. John Forster read aloud at it some +verses by Tennyson. The Laureate had graven on the tomb of the tragedian's +career the three words, "Moral, Grave, Sublime." + +Then all was over. The voice that had thrilled so many souls was to be +heard only at charitable entertainments and provincial gatherings. And +when he died in 1873 England had forgotten him. + +There is a story of his last days which I cannot refrain from repeating, +though it has no bearing really upon the subject of this book. When the +old man, confined by paralysis to his armchair, was cut off from the world +by the loss of several of his senses, he would be seen acting to himself +(barely so much as moving his lips the while) the masterpieces he had +loved. There was nothing to reveal the progress of the play save the light +that would illumine his ever-mobile countenance, to which new lines had +been given by conscious use and solitary thought. + +How fine they must have been, these impersonations--Lear, Hamlet, +Macbeth--in the mysterious half-shades of his life's evening and in the +silent theatre of his mind, where there was nothing to shackle the artist +in his struggle after perfection, where every aspiration was an +achievement! + +If I have spoken at some length of Macready, it is because I cannot bring +myself to regard him as the representative of a dead art, the last High +Priest of a shattered idol. On the stage and off the stage, Macready was a +pioneer. He was the first to see the coming of Realism, and he was the +first actor of good breeding. But a long time was to ensue ere his example +would be followed and understood. The stage, when he left it, was in a +state of confusion and of squalor difficult to describe. + +Strive as Macready would to cleanse the theatre, the prejudice which kept +certain classes apart from it seemed to grow and spread. The accession of +the young Queen heralded one of those moods of puritanism which are +chronic with English society. Young Men's and Young Women's Christian +Associations multiplied, and, in providing innocent and free amusements +for the artizan, they competed with the theatre at the same time as with +the public-house. With the higher classes it was music that was injuring +the drama by its rivalry. For a long time--as Lady Gay Spanker put it in a +comedy of the time--the English had known no music but the barking of the +hounds; now it was that Society began to scramble for boxes at extravagant +prices to hear Grisi sing. A quarrel between the singer and her manager +having led to a severance, the now "star"-less company, by a marvellous +stroke of luck, was enabled to shine afresh with Jenny Lind. This rivalry +continued, and together with the burning of Her Majesty's Theatre it led +to the invasion of the two great London theatres by foreign musicians. The +opera held sway from the end of March to the end of July. The Pantomime, +at first humble and modest, but growing stronger every year, began now at +Christmas and lasted throughout a considerable portion of the winter. A +short autumn season was all that remained for the drama, or rather +melodrama, and for what was worse than the others, the "Hippodrama." Thus +was entitled a new kind of production in which horses had the principal +roles. More than one popular author was glad to invent plots for these +singular protagonists. Shakespeare, who had had to go turns hitherto with +the lions of the tamer Van Ambrugh,--he and they roaring on alternate +evenings,--had to give in completely before the Hippodrama. He took refuge +in a suburban theatre, Sadler's Wells, with the actor Phelps, and there he +was able eventually to boast, like that survivor of the Reign of +Terror--_J'ai vecu_. To arouse any interest in him amongst the English +public, it was necessary that he should be stumbled through by foreigners +or lisped by babes. + +According to an old brochure of the time which groans over the depth of +the humiliation of the theatre, people stood still to look a second time +at the madman who could attempt to run Covent Garden or Drury Lane. To the +reckless amateur succeeded the shameless adventurer, the shy contractor +with empty pockets that called for filling. About 1850 one of these great +theatres was managed by an ex-policeman who had started a restaurant; +later it passed into the hands of a theatre attendant. One manager was +arrested for theft in the wings of his own theatre. It is easy to imagine +how dramatic art would develop in the hands of such men. They dispensed +with scenery and stage properties, and made shift with an empty stage; +they squandered their substance and lavished their genius upon the art of +advertising; their puffs and prospectuses were the only masterpieces of +the times. There were some who sought to excite English chauvinism, +pre-jingoism as one may call it, by such performances as that of the +national acrobat who turned head over heels ninety-one times while his +American rival was achieving but eighty-one, thus conquering the New World +by ten somersaults. + +These things succeeded in attracting the public, but _what_ public? +Theatre-goers were but a small section really of the public--a group apart +on whom lay a certain suspicion of immorality connected with an evil +reputation of being un-English. There was some ground for this last +reproach. Foreigners were gaining ground. It would seem that there was no +getting along without us French between 1850 and 1865. We were translated +and adapted in every form. Our melodramas were transplanted bodily; our +comedies were coarsened and exaggerated into farces; sometimes even, that +nothing might be lost, our operas were ground down into plays. Second-rate +pieces were honoured with two or three successive adaptations; and dramas +which had lived a brief hour at the Boulevard du Crime, in England became +classics. There is a tradition that the director of The Princess's had a +tame translator under lock and key who turned French into English without +respite, his chain never loosened nor his hunger satisfied until his task, +for the time being, should be complete. + +Our actors had at this time a permanent home in London, kept for them by +Mitchell, the Bond Street bookseller, at the St. James's Theatre. Thence +they made incursions upon all the others. Some years previously Madame +Arnould Plessy, having taken into her head to act in the tongue of +Shakespeare, Theophile Gautier had complimented her on the grace with +which she had succeeded in "extracting English from her mouth." Others now +attempted to emulate her accomplishment and to turn it to account. Fechter +resolved not merely to play Hamlet, but to play as it had never been +played before, and he did so to rounds of applause for seventy nights. An +_ingenue_, escaped from the Comedie Francaise, made a similar effort in +the role of Juliet, and despite her bad accent, and intolerable +pretension, she was able to keep it up, thanks to powerful supporters, in +the teeth of the quite excusable hostility of the pit. Things did not +always pass off so harmlessly, and in more than one instance the brutal +anger of the public, as under Charles I., drove intruders from the stage, +which it wished to see occupied by native actors alone. + +As a matter of fact, there were some notable English actors and actresses +at this time. Helen Faucit (now Lady Martin) preserved the pure diction of +John and Charles Kemble. Charles Kean, despite his inadequate physique, +won for himself gradually an honourable place on the stage over which his +father had held sway. Ryder had a presence, and a sonorous voice, deep and +hollow and tragic, like that of Beauvallet or of Maubant. Keeley was a +massive man, who could act with subtlety; his wife, incisive, keen, +_amere_, had a leaning towards the serious drama--towards the realistic +even. Robson, a queer and wonderful little figure, made a mark in _le +drame noir_ and in outrageous caricature. Farren had made his _debut_ in +old men's parts at eighteen, and played them for fifty years without +advancing in his art a step, without introducing a shade of emotion or a +touch of humanity into his effects. Charles Mathews impersonated impudent +youth, just as Farren impersonated unpleasant and ridiculous old age. +Elegant, lissome, light, mobile, Mathews skipped and fluttered and +chirruped like a bird. In his old age he reminded me of Ravel, his +contemporary, whose method and roles offered some analogy with his.[5] +Buckstone made the Haymarket prosper for twenty years, where I saw him, +secure in the favour of the public, with his colleague, Compton, whose +speciality was a certain dryness of humour. Buckstone at this time had +lost both his hearing and his memory. But what a sly look there was in his +eye! How his mouth would twist and turn! What irony lurked in the +expressive ugliness of that wrinkled old mask of his! + +These good actors injured rather than served their art. They revelled in, +and limited themselves to, their own speciality, exaggerated their +idiosyncrasies day by day, and left them as a legacy to their imitators. +The authors were too insignificant, did they see the danger, to oppose +their will to that of Charles Mathews and Farren. They took their measures +to order and tried to satisfy their patrons. Thus became gradually +narrowed at once the field for invention and for observation. As +substitutes for the infinity of living human types and characters, seven +or eight _emplois_, as one may say, came into existence--_emplois_ often +further specified and characterised by the name of an actor. There was the +low comedian and the light comedian, the villain and the heavy man. All +diversities of womenkind were grouped into one of these four ticketed +sections: the _ingenue_, the flirt, the chaperon, and the wicked woman. +The valet of Comedy had become a rascally steward whose rogueries took on +a certain aspect of Drama. There were two or three types of old men. There +was the surly old curmudgeon in whom the author vents his spleen, and who +draws up eccentric wills. There is the old beau, cowardly and cynical, who +in the last act marries his fiancee to his own son and swears to reform. +And there is the old peasant who is descended in a straight line from the +father of Pamela, always talking of his white hairs and his contempt for +gold, and always greeting the traveller, who has been overtaken by a storm +and has lost his way, with "Be welcome to my humble roof." The peasant, +one need hardly remark, never existed. On the stage he has lived more than +a hundred years. Hardly less indispensable to the comedy or the drama was +the captain, the "man about town," addicted to drink, with a diamond pin +resplendent in his tie, wearing salmon-coloured trousers, and top boots +that he is always dusting with the end of his riding-whip. He represents +the selfishness, the folly, and the insolence of the higher classes, as +imagined by a man who has never been inside a drawing-room. Did he know +Society at his finger-ends, the man would never think of painting it. He +never paints from nature. He copies for the thousandth time from the old +models, Sheridan and Goldsmith, or his new masters, Scribe and d'Ennery. + +It was for the critics, one is inclined to say, to instruct the public, +the actors, and the author. I am almost ashamed to tell of the pass to +which dramatic criticism had come. A paragraph in an obscure corner, a +quarter of a column on the more important works,--that was about all the +space the great newspapers accorded to the theatre. Dramatic criticism was +a nocturnal calling that enjoyed a not too good repute, and was frowned on +by respectable people and fathers of families. It was entrusted to tyros, +who hoped by their good conduct to earn their advancement presently to the +reporting staff in the police courts. The one writer undertook both drama +and opera. Dramatic criticism and musical criticism, owing to the natural +gifts which they require, are two absolutely different callings. What +mattered it, however, to the writer, who was expected only to praise the +pieces and the performers, without being too much of a bore? + +John Oxenford, the critic of the _Times_, was sent for one morning to the +office of the editor. In analysing a new piece he had criticised freely +the performance of a certain actor, and the latter had addressed a letter +of remonstrance to Mr. Delane. "These things," said the editor +majestically to the writer,--"these things don't interest the general +public, and I don't want the _Times_ to become an arena for the discussion +of the merits of Mr. This and Mr. That. So look here, my dear fellow, +understand this well, and write me accounts of plays henceforth that won't +bring me any more such letters. Do you see?" "I see," said Oxenford. And +thus it was, continues the teller of the story, that English literature +lost pages which might have recalled the subtlety of Hazlitt in +conjunction with the winning humour of Charles Lamb. Henceforth Oxenford, +a scholar who had translated the "Hellas" of Jacobi and the +"Conversations" of Goethe with Eckermann, passed for a blighted and +discouraged genius; though of this he gave no stronger proofs than an +English version of the operetta, _Bon soir, Monsieur Pantalon_, a farce +which I saw fall quite flat, and some articles on Moliere. But you should +have heard him in a bar-parlour with his pipe between his teeth, a bottle +of port on the table, and facing him some interlocutor who was not Mr. +Delane! + +While the press critic neglected his duty, or was prevented from +fulfilling it, the official censorship added one more to the troubles and +obstacles which already hampered the progress of the stage. I may perhaps +make some reference in this place to the origin of the Censorship, and to +its scope and powers. + +Some writers will have it that this institution, as it now exists, is but +a survival of the office of Master of the Revels, which flourished under +the Tudors and the first Stuarts. As a matter of fact, the censorship owes +its existence to a law passed in the reign of George II.[6] It was +instituted nominally for the protection of good behaviour, decency, and +public order; in reality, to protect Walpole from the stings of +Aristophanic comedy and to silence Fielding. A century and a half have +elapsed since the fall of Walpole, and the censorship still exists, like +that sentinel who was stationed in an alley of Trarskoe Selo to guard a +rose, and who was still being relieved every two hours twenty-five years +later. The law of 1843, which was by way of according liberty to the +theatre, did not free it from the censorship of the Lord Chamberlain, +whose powers were delimited, so to say, geographically, in the most +curious manner, for it is impossible to understand why certain quarters of +the Metropolis were placed outside the reach of his authority and +submitted to the jurisdiction of the Justices of the Peace. + +To all intents and purposes the powers of the Chamberlain are exercised by +a gentleman who is styled the Examiner of Plays. Plays have to be +submitted to him seven days before their production, and when he returns +them with his signature he receives from the submitters of them fees of +from L1 to L2, according to the number of acts. The author may not enter +his presence. The manager alone has the privilege of contemplating his +features, and of giving, or getting from him, verbal explanations. And +even those communications are under the seal of secrecy. Above the +examiner stands a kind of head of department, and above him the +Chamberlain himself. When you have exhausted these three jurisdictions you +can go no higher. Above the Lord Chamberlain, as above the Czar of All the +Russias, there remains only Divine Justice, and to Divine Justice authors +of vaudevilles and musical comedies cannot very well appeal. The +censorship indeed is an absurd anomaly, the sole irresponsible and secret +authority which remains in English legislation. + +If you seek to discover how it has acted during this century, you will +find that according as the censor was indolent or zealous his office has +been a nullity or a nuisance. In theatrical circles that censor will not +soon be forgotten who suppressed the word "thigh" as dangerous to public +morals, and who exorcised from a play by Douglas Jerrold, as disrespectful +to religion, the following phrase:--"He plays the violin like an angel!" +The same censor found these words in a tragedy:--"_I_ do homage to pride, +debauchery, avarice!... Never!" He hastened to delete this, admitting thus +by implication that English society, which it was his mission to protect, +was compact of these three heinous characteristics. + +It was forbidden to make fun of Holloway's ointment, for Mr. Holloway was +"an estimable manufacturer who employs thousands of workmen." It was +forbidden to put a comic bishop on the stage--unless it were a colonial +bishop, in which case the censor would give his sanction. A play founded +on Oliver Twist was forbidden because it was calculated to incite to +crime, but it was allowed for a benefit performance; whence it would +appear that it is allowable to incite the audience to crime on such +special occasions. This poor censorship, which has to read everything, +which has to supervise everything,--from the rages of Othello to the +grimaces of the clown and the tights of the ballet girls,--which has to +uphold at once the constitution and propriety, to defend at once the +Divinity and Mr. Holloway, loses its head over it all at last, and reminds +one of the _bourgeois_ broken loose who is being launched at carnival time +into some dizzying Saraband. + +Its most absorbing task is that of barring the way against French +immorality. Its vigilance is eluded, however, by a kind of conventional +terminology. Where our authors have had the effrontery to write the word +"cocotte" in black and white, they replace it by the word "actress." Where +we have unblushingly written "adultery," they have inserted "flirtation." +The censor gives his sanction and pockets his fees, and on the performance +of the piece the by-play of the actor and actresses completes the +translation, re-establishing if not reinforcing the original sense. + +In the midst of all these difficulties the growth of the theatre-going +public had made necessary long series of performances, long runs as we +call them now, unknown up till then and inaugurated by the new theatres. +There were a dozen in 1847, twenty in 1860. The calling of dramatic author +began to grow lucrative and to tempt many writers. It was an easy calling, +too, as the public was young and ignorant, ready to accept anything, and +as, in addition, the French drama offered an almost inexhaustible amount +of raw material. They had recourse to it unceasingly, just as Robinson +Crusoe after his shipwreck used to return to his ship in order to look for +some tool! I shall not give a long list of names because, unless +accompanied by a short personal sketch and a few words of criticism, these +names, obscure or even unknown, would mean nothing to French readers, and +would be almost as wearisome as the long lists of warriors in the epics of +olden times. Amongst the more notable, I may mention Tom Taylor and Dion +Boucicault. Tom Taylor belonged to both the world of law and the world of +letters. Briefs gave him his dinner, the drama gave him his supper; his +supper got to be the more substantial of the two. From 1850 to 1875 he +seems to have achieved ubiquity. His name was on every poster. He was +facile, had a certain method in his work, a certain skill in putting his +plays together, a certain discretion which passed for taste--in fine, all +the qualities that go to form a painstaking and prolific mediocrity. He +would probably have wished to be judged on the merits of the historical +dramas which absorbed his whole activity during the concluding years of +his life, and in which he thought he was achieving "literature." But are +they really historical dramas? They contain at once too much history and +too little. The historical document is all-pervasive, enters into every +scene, interrupts the action; but anything like historical psychology, any +attempt to get at the real character of the personages presented, is +wholly unattempted. It was characteristic of him that, when desiring to +depict Queen Elizabeth, he relied upon some romantic stories by a German +lady instead of going to the work of Froude (far more dramatic than his +own drama), where he could have learned all he required to know. + +Dion Boucicault, the other writer whom I have singled out as +representative of the lot, had more character and was more interesting. He +was an actor, and an actor of some talent. He knew no other world than +that of the theatre--the world which from eight o'clock till midnight +laughs and cries, curses and makes love, dies and murders, under the +gaslight, behind three sets of painted canvas. Without any real culture, +and without having the least critical faculty, Boucicault had read +everything about the theatre--read everything and remembered everything, +good, bad, and indifferent, from _Phormio_ to the _Auberge des Adrets_. He +knew by heart all the _croix de ma mere_ of modern melodrama, and from his +mass of reminiscences he concocted his crazy-quilt-like plays, imitating +involuntarily, unconsciously. He was plagiarism incarnate. In his first +great success, _London Assurance_, you may find not only Goldsmith and +Sheridan, but Terence and Plautus, who had reached him by way of Moliere. +You will meet in it a father who speaks to his son without recognising +him, or who at least is persuaded not to recognise him; a young lady who +boxes her husband's ears and calls him her doll; a master who makes a +confidant of his valet, a valet as untruthful as Dave or Scapin; a lawyer +who is anxious to get himself thrashed like _L'Intime_; a young drunkard +and debauchee who falls in love with a country lass; and a young girl +brought up in the wilds, who replies to the first compliment she has paid +her--"It strikes me, sir, that you are a stray bee from the hive of +fashion. If so, reserve your honey for its proper cell. A truce to +compliments." The piece goes from vulgarity to vulgarity, from absurdity +to absurdity. Within a few minutes there is a ridiculous abduction, a +comic duel and a hardly less comic marriage, all brought about by a will +which is surely the most absurd of all the absurd wills known to the +drama. The piece had its central figure in a clever humbug whom no one +knows. "Will you allow me to ask you," says Charles Courtly in the last +scene, "an impertinent question?" + +"With the greatest pleasure." + +"Who the devil are you?" + +"On my faith, I don't know. But I must be a gentleman." Upon which another +character concludes the play with a pedantic definition of the word +"gentleman," and morality is satisfied. + +One fine day--it was in 1860--this playwright, who lived by borrowing, and +who was in debt to every literature, had the singular good fortune to +create a _genre_ of his own. Perhaps it is too much to say create. A +compatriot of his, Edmund Falconer, like himself an actor as well as an +author, had opened the way for him. But Falconer never again met with the +success which greeted _Peep o' Day_, and he wound up with the memorable +failure of _The Oonagh_.[7] Boucicault, on the contrary, was able to +exploit for twenty years the fruitful vein upon which he had happened in +the _Colleen Bawn_. + +The _Colleen Bawn_ is a tissue of improbabilities and extravagances. What +is the mysterious reason why we can put up with these absurdities and take +an interest in them? It is, I think, that there is in this crack-brained +drama a kind of ethnographic seed which enters into the mind and takes +root there. The sad, patient, uncomplaining struggle of this poor peasant +girl to become worthy of the man she loves,--her discouragement, which yet +cannot exhaust her devotion,--all this is depicted by touches so +suggestive and so strong that an elaborate analysis could not do more. But +there is something beyond this. A sort of primitive poetry seemed to play +round the whole character of the Colleen Bawn as she appeared thirty-five +years ago in the person of Mrs. Dion Boucicault, with her little red +cloak, her long black hair, and her expression half sad, half +seductive--smiling through her tears like an angel in disgrace. + +Until Boucicault's time it had been the fashion to laugh over Ireland, +never to weep over her. He brought about this change without depicting his +country otherwise than as she really existed. He knew the strange feeling +of England towards Ireland, the feeling of a man for a woman, devoid of +the refinements of philosophy and civilisation. Passionate, violent, hard, +England begins by crushing Ireland; then stops, conquered by the weakness +of the victim, subjugated by a charm which no mere words can describe. +Boucicault sought out this sentiment in the depths of the hearts of his +English audiences, and ministered to it; and was instrumental thereby in +preparing the way for an age of justice and generosity. Under the +commonness of the means which he employed, and often also of the +sentiments and ideas which he expressed, Boucicault hid a sort of subtlety +which was born of instinct. His Irish psychology is true to life, and +although he added many touches in the _Shaugraun_, in _Arrah-na-pogue_, in +_The Octoroon_, in _Michael O'Dowd_, and in other works, it may be said to +be already complete in _The Colleen Bawn_. When Myles-na-Coppaleen tells +us, "I was full of sudden death that minute," and when Eily speaks of the +little bird that sings in her heart, the passion does not strike us as +exaggerated nor the poetry as out of place. Father Tom, too, who smokes +his pipe and drinks his potheen with the smugglers, but who can assume at +will his authority as an apostle and a leader, is the personification of +the Irish priest of old, and indeed of our own day too--at once the man +of the people and the man of God. + +Altogether, one cannot but exclaim, as one looks at this crude but +striking piece--this is Ireland! The Ireland of zealots and traitors, of +rebels and the meek, of madmen and martyrs, of heroes and assassins. +Ireland the irrational and illogical, who disconcerts our sympathies after +winning them, and who has doubtless still further surprises in store for +History, already at a loss how to record her actions, how to explain her +character, what verdict to pronounce upon her. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +The Vogue of Burlesque--Burnand's _Ixion_--H. J. Byron--The Influence of +Burlesque upon the Moral Tone of the Stage--Marie Wilton's _debut_--A +Letter from Dickens--Founding of the "Prince of Wales's"--Tom Robertson, +his Life as Actor and Author--His Journalistic Career--London Bohemia in +1865--Sothern. + + +The taste, the rage for Burlesque, dates from almost the same moment as +the introduction of the Boucicault drama. The two things have, however, +nothing else in common, unless it be that neither one nor the other +pertains to literature. Burlesque is the English form, under an un-English +name, of that kind of musical parody in which we French used at that time +to delight, and of which the operetta was born. In London this exotic +_genre_ became quickly acclimatised by success. + +I shall take Burnand's _Ixion_ as a type, for by reason of its +never-ending popularity it may be regarded as a masterpiece of its kind. +It is in verse. What kind of verse may be imagined when I add that almost +every line contains at least one pun. The subject is a matter of no +consequence; the whole point of the piece consists in putting modern +sentiments and expressions into the mouths of characters taken from +antiquity. The people rebel and burn Ixion's palace. Jupiter appears in +answer to his invocation. "Are you insured?" he inquires. "Yes," replies +Ixion, "with all the best Insurance Agencies. But you see, when it comes +to paying you the money, they let you whistle for it." Jupiter invites him +to come to Olympus. "We lunch at half-past one. Don't forget." Mercury, +charged to conduct Ixion thither, hails an aerial omnibus. "Come on for +Olympus! Room for one outside!" We are shown Olympus. The meal is nearly +over. Juno asks Venus the name of her dressmaker, and sends a servant to +tell "the Master" that "coffee is served." Neptune talks nautical lingo +like the hero of _Black-eyed Susan_, and goes nowhere unaccompanied by a +French sailor and an English Jack-Tar, who are themselves bosom friends. +The Frenchman executes a hornpipe out of good-fellowship towards his mate, +whilst the Englishman expresses his regard for "La France" by performing +the cancan. Apollo plays an English sun to the life--he never shows +himself. He remains shut up in his office with his secretary, the Clerk of +the Weather, who, like all his kind, scribbles verses and newspaper +articles on paper bearing the Government stamp. + +Add to all this a bit of music here and there, a number of pretty girls +scantily attired, notably nine Muses and three Graces, whose dress and +dancing would have brought the author of the Histriomastrix in sorrow to +the grave, and allusions to all the topics of the day--to the victory of +the horse "Gladiator," to _Lady Audley's Secret_ (then all the rage), to +vivisection, to the novels of Charles Kingsley, to the fountain in +Trafalgar Square, to Mudie's Circulating Library,--and a thousand other +things which to-day have ceased not merely to be amusing, but to be +intelligible. + +To read _Ixion_, as I read it thirty-five years after its first +production, to read it sitting by the fire on a foggy afternoon, making +one's way as best one might through the thicket of allusions which had +become enigmas, and through all the _debris_ of these used-up fireworks, +was a singularly dismal undertaking. To form any just impression of the +piece, you must try to picture to yourself the little theatre (The +Royalty) on the occasion of the First Night, the thousand or so of +spectators, who have dined well and who incline to an optimistic view of +things in general, the pervading odour of the _poudre de riz_, the +_flonflons_ of the orchestra, the quivering of the gasaliers and of the +dazzling electric light, the diamonds, the gleaming white shoulders and +the soft silk tights, the superabundance of animal life and high spirits +which seem almost to glow like kindling firewood. A debutante destined to +a higher kind of success, Ada Cavendish, regaled the opera-glasses with +the sight of her beauty as Venus. Another attraction was to be found later +in the appearance on the stage of a member of a great family, the Hon. +Lewis W. Wingfield, who impersonated (with the contortions of a madman) +the Goddess of Wisdom. + +But the real home of Burlesque was the Strand, then under the management +of Mrs. Swanborough, famous for her incessant conflicts with English +grammar. Her wants were provided for by Henry James Byron, a good-looking +fellow who appeared in his own pieces, but not to great advantage. It used +to be said that he was a descendant of Lord Byron. How is this +genealogical mystery to be solved? I have been unable to find a clue to +it. Theatrical folk are no great scholars, they take but little note of +dates, and they are apt to treat history in a somewhat offhand fashion. +For them Lord Byron was lost in the mists of antiquity, and it was easy +for them to believe that their colleague, born about 1830, might have had +him for an ancestor. Whatever his origin, H. J. Byron was an actor, and +had begun on the lowest steps of the profession, with engagements at ten +shillings a week, and even less. Suddenly he struck a vein of success in +the writing of burlesques, and thenceforth he wrote as much as ever one +could wish, and even more,--so much so that the list of his works, were I +to print it here, would fill many pages. He did not worry himself about a +subject. A subject was a nuisance, he held; you had to keep to it, and +work it up,--you have to give it a beginning and an ending. Hang the +subject! He thought only of the witticisms with which his burlesque should +be stocked. He collected them together in notebooks which in time must +have come to rival the volume of Larousse's Dictionary. In the street he +would follow up some comic notion, jot it down on an envelope or on his +sleeve, or on the margin of a newspaper, using his hat as a writing-desk, +or else making shift with a wall. One day he was writing up against a hall +door. The door opened, and in rolled Byron on top of an old lady who had +been making her way out. He got up again smiling just as he would from his +mishaps in the theatre. He was possessed with the demon of punning, which +never left him an instant's peace. Having failed as a manager in the +provinces, he made puns upon his bankruptcy. He punned in the last moments +before his death. Is it not one of the rules of his profession to bring +down the curtain on a witticism? + +Byron used to boast that he had never given offence to delicate ears. And, +as a matter of fact, he said a million of nonsensical things but not a +single indecent thing. Yet he helped to depreciate the moral tone of the +theatre by lowering the standard of decency in regard to female costume +upon the stage, and by bringing on to it those pseudo-actresses whom, in +the slang of the green-room, we call _grues_. + +In this connection I ought to point out that the social ostracism under +which the stage then suffered was due less to the bad morals of the +actresses than to the bad manners and vulgarity of the actors. The former +were much nearer to being ladies than the latter were to being gentlemen. +Watched and warded, first by a father, then by a husband connected with +the theatre, obliged to give their first thoughts to their professional +and domestic duties, they had neither the power, nor the leisure, nor the +inclination to think of evil. Tom Hood, in his _Model Men and Women_, +paints a picture of the theatrical woman which reminds one of the +biographies of the _Prix Montyon_. She goes late to bed, rises early, +learns her roles while washing her children's linen, rehearses in the +afternoon, performs in the evening, and has no time to eat or to attend to +her _toilette_, still less to think, or make merry, or make love. "School +mistresses and governesses, shop-girls, dressmakers, cooks, +housemaids,--what are your fatigues to those of an actress?" So spoke a +writer[8] who was well acquainted with theatrical life. + +These habits were now to be changed. Burlesque, pantomime, comic opera, +were throwing open the stage to actresses of a new type who posed but did +not perform, and who were called upon to fill not roles but tights. The +respectable woman would not suffer herself to be vanquished on her own +ground; she competed with the newcomers by the same means: sometimes she +won--and lost. This was the transformation which Byron abetted. But it was +the public, of course, as always, that was most to blame. + +Poor Byron was not without the ambition of an artist: he aspired to +raising himself above the level of the _genre_ to which he owed his first +success,--to writing a comedy. And it so happened that by his side on the +stage of the Strand there was a quaint little body whose hopes ran +parallel with his. This was Marie Wilton. I do not know how old she was +then. In her pleasant Memoirs, written in collaboration with her husband, +she has quite forgotten to give us the date of her birth. So much we know, +however, that she was the child of somewhat obscure actors, and that she +herself made her _debut_ when she was five years old. At Manchester she +had the honour of playing some small role with Macready, who was then +making his last rounds before finally quitting the stage. The great +tragedian sent for her to his dressing-room, lifted her on to his knee and +questioned her. + +"I suppose," he said, "that you want to become a great actress?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"And what role are you most anxious to play?" + +"Juliet." + +Macready burst out laughing. "Then," said he, "you'll have to change those +eyes of yours!" + +Marie Wilton did not change her eyes, but she changed her ideas, which was +an easier matter. At fifteen she was acting fearlessly in every kind of +role. One evening she (who was too young, they thought, to assume the role +of any of Shakespeare's heroines) impersonated the old mother of Claude +Melnotte in _The Lady of Lyons_. + +It was in Bristol that they began to realise that there was something in +her. An actor on tour, then very well known, Charles Dillon, was playing +_Belphegor_, a monstrous emotional drama,[9] the hero of which was an +acrobat. Marie Wilton, in the role of a little boy, had to give him the +cue in one of the great scenes. She hit on a little piece of business, and +risked it at the rehearsal. The London actor lost his temper at first, +then reflected, questioned the little actress, listened to her +explanations, and finally gave in. The public was carried away. Dillon +remembered this, and when he returned to London he engaged Marie Wilton at +the Lyceum. Here she made her real _debut_ towards the end of 1858. +_Belphegor_ was followed by a farce in which Marie Wilton had also a role. +On the same evening, at the same theatre, in the same piece, there +appeared for the first time in London, John Toole, the king of English low +comedians. With these two names we come to the living generation, and have +to deal at last with the contemporary stage. + +But let us first follow Marie Wilton, for her little barque, though none +had any inkling of it, not even she herself, carries with it the destinies +of the English Comedy still to be born. + +From the Lyceum she passed to the Haymarket, where she was treated as a +spoiled child by the three old men who there held sway. She played Cupid +here with so much verve, point, impudence and sprightliness, that other +Cupids were created for her. This is the public all over; naively selfish, +it condemns the actor to maintain for a quarter of a century the posture +which has taken its fancy, to repeat unceasingly the gesture or the tone +which has amused or touched it. Marie Wilton had played the Haymarket +Cupid for ever had she not betaken herself to the Strand. Here she was the +inevitable principal boy of the burlesques. + +For some time past Mrs. Bancroft has played only when in the mood and at +long intervals, and has not felt inclined for the exertion of carrying a +whole piece on her shoulders a whole evening as of yore. I have seen her +only in two subsidiary roles, and for an estimate of her talents I must +rely upon other judgments than my own. M. Coquelin thinks that she reminds +one at once of Alphonsine and of Chaumont, and that she holds a middle +place between the two. But M. Coquelin had in his mind, when he was +writing, an actress of more than forty, appearing in the role of eccentric +ladies of fashion. There is a gulf between this and the imp of 1860 who +rattled across the boards of the Strand. All that I know of her at the +time of her _debut_ is that she had still those twinkling merry eyes which +forbade her to attempt tragedy, and the figure of a child of twelve,--a +figure so slight that when the man who was to marry her first saw her, he +declared she was the thinnest actress in London. But here is a letter +which will place Marie Wilton before our eyes as she was when the +barristers of the Inns of Court made verses in her honour and half +Aldershot came to town every second night to applaud her. It is from +Charles Dickens to John Forster:-- + + "I escaped at half-past seven and went to the Strand Theatre; having + taken a stall beforehand, for it is always crammed. I really wish you + would go, between this and next Thursday, to see the _Maid and the + Magpie_ burlesque there. There is the strangest thing in it that ever + I have seen on the stage. The boy, Pippo, by Miss Wilton. While it is + astonishingly impudent (must be, or it couldn't be done at all), it is + so stupendously like a boy, and unlike a woman, that it is perfectly + free from offence. I never have seen such a thing. Priscilla Horton as + a boy, not to be thought of beside it. She does an imitation of the + dancing of the Christy Minstrels--wonderfully clever--which in the + audacity of its thorough-going is surprising. A thing that you _can + not_ imagine a woman's doing at all; and yet the manner, the + appearance, the levity, impulse and spirits of it, are so exactly like + a boy, that you cannot think of anything like her sex in association + with it. It begins at eight, and is over by a quarter-past nine. I + never have seen such a curious thing, and the girl's talent is + unchallengeable. I call her the cleverest girl I have ever seen on the + stage in my time, and the most singularly original." + +But Miss Wilton was sick and tired of Pippo no less than of the Cupids. +She begged of all the managers to let her play the role of a heroine in +long dresses. They turned a deaf ear to her. Buckstone said to her, "I +shall never see you otherwise than in the part of this wicked little +scamp." + +Every evening she set her audiences in roars and every afternoon she spent +in tears over her lot. When one day her married sister said to her-- + +"As the managers won't have you, take a theatre yourself." + +"But I have no money." + +"I'll lend you money," said her brother-in-law. + +A partnership between Byron and Miss Wilton was the immediate result. _He_ +brought his reputation and his puns. _She_ the L1000 which was not hers. + +A theatre had now to be found. Near Tottenham Court Road, one of the +noisiest and commonest quarters of the town, there was a squalid, +miserable-looking street where ill-fed and ill-famed Frenchmen were at +this time beginning to congregate; and in it there was a place of +entertainment where all sorts of things had been achieved, but bankruptcy +oftenest of all. Frederic Lemaitre had played Napoleon there in French, +and had in this capacity passed in review some half-dozen supers who stood +for the "Grande Armee" and who cried "Viv' l'Emprou!" The house bore the +high-sounding name of the "Queen's Theatre," but the people of the +neighbourhood called it the "Dust-Hole," and in doing so proved their +acquaintance with it. The aristocratic seats were a shilling, and when the +Stalls had dined well they were given to bombarding the Boxes with orange +peel. + +It was now cleaned, restored, freshened up at an outlay more of pains than +of money. The "Dust-Hole" was transformed into a blue and white +_bonbonniere_. The little manageress did not spare herself, and on the +evening of the first night, whilst the _queue_ was already forming outside +the door of the theatre, she was busy hammering in a last nail. What would +have been said by the devotees of fashion, wandering in the muddy +Tottenham Street, and astonished at finding themselves in such a locality, +had they seen their favourite squatting on a stool, hammer in hand? + +The company she had gathered round her consisted of Byron, John Clarke, +transplanted from the Strand, Fanny Josephs--an actress of delicate and +agreeable talent, the excellent _duegne_ Larkin, and two other sisters +Wilton. It included also a tall young man of twenty-four who had not +previously acted in London, and who was not therefore of any interest to +the public, though to his manageress he was; his name was Bancroft. + +He was a gentleman by birth, breeding, and bearing. But, his family being +ruined, he had followed the vocation which led him to the stage. In four +and a half years he had played four hundred and forty-six roles. In one +engagement of thirty-six days in Dublin he had played forty. This hard +life as a provincial comedian had broken him into his business. Tall and +slender, he owed a sort of air of distinction combined with stiffness to +his short sight and to his stature. The rendering of cool, well-bred +nonchalance came naturally to him, but in the depth of his eye there +lurked a gleam of irrepressible humour. He had spent much time in +observing and reflecting, he knew much more of things than did his +colleagues, and he felt vaguely conscious of possessing qualities which +had only to be drawn out. And now fortune, in the guise of a young girl, +had come to him and taken him by the hand. + +Thus there was both ambition and love in the air that April evening in +1865 when the little "Prince of Wales's" opened its door as wide as it +could. In order not to startle the public or disturb its habits, a +burlesque and a comedy were offered it pending the preparation of the new +repertory. Marie Wilton's friends supported her in their hundreds, but +their sympathies were soon to be lost. The pieces themselves were almost +worthless; Byron would seem to have lost his _verve_ during the removal. +Something new had to be found for the autumn. It was then that Robertson +was thought of. + +Thomas William, or more familiarly, Tom Robertson, was at this time next +door to a failure. He was thirty-six, and was fighting an uphill fight +against ill-fortune with a desperation that was growing into rancour. The +son, grandson, and great-grandson of actors, he had passed the first years +of his life in a touring company in the midst of those _bourgeois_ +vagabonds whose joys and sorrows I have endeavoured to depict. His father +had been manager of the company which worked on the Lincoln circuit, and +had ended by giving it up. Tom himself had appeared upon the boards whilst +still a child, but, as it would seem, without giving evidence of any +remarkable talents. Later, his speciality was the taking off of +foreigners--a sorry means of inciting to laughter for a man of intellect. +In fine, though there are some who would fain mislead us in the matter, it +is clear that Robertson was but a second-rate actor. + +At the age of nineteen, on the strength of a newspaper advertisement, +Robertson set out for Holland to secure a place as usher or junior master +in a boarding school. After unspeakable misadventures, of which he talked +afterwards quite merrily, and curious experiences which must have been +useful to him in his capacity of dramatist, he was despatched home by a +good-natured consul, and took up his actor's life again with its three +roles and one meal a day. In 1851 we find him in London trying to earn a +livelihood. He has written one piece, _A Night's Adventure_, which by a +lucky chance has been accepted and performed. But it fails. He has a +quarrel with Farren, the manager, who has produced it, his only employer; +and behold! he is again at sea. Now he comes to the assistance of his +father, who is making desperate efforts to keep open a suburban theatre. +Anon he is fulfilling insignificant engagements here and there. He goes to +Paris with a company which gets paid on the first Saturday and never +again. He becomes prompter at the Olympic. He translates French plays, +writes farces, produces a heap of wretched stuff for which he cannot +always find a market. When hunger drives him to it, he sells his "copy" +for a few shillings to a bookseller, of whom it is difficult to say +whether he was merely a shrewd man of business or a friend in need. For, +after all, to the recipient these shillings meant his daily bread, and the +bookseller was not always sure of reimbursing himself. + +He has introduced into one of his comedies a bitter memory of his +beginnings as a dramatist of the objections which met him everywhere. The +speaker is a composer of music. "In England, yesterday is always +considered so much better than to-day--last week so superior to this--and +this week so superior to the week after next--and thirty years ago so much +more brilliant an era than the present.... I shall explain myself better +if I give my own personal reasons for making a crusade against age. In +this country I find age so respected, so run after, so courted, so +worshipped, that it becomes intolerable. I compose music; I wish to sell +it. I go to a publisher and tell him so; he looks at me and says, 'You +look so young,' in the same tone that he would say, You look like an +impostor or a pickpocket. I apologise as humbly as I can for not having +been born fifty years earlier, and the publisher, struck by my contrition, +thinks to himself, Poor young man, after all, he cannot help being so +young, and addressing me as if I were a baby, says, 'My dear sir, very +likely your compositions may have merit--I don't dispute it--but, you see, +Mr. So-and-So, aged sixty, and Mr. Such-an-one, aged seventy, and Mr. +T'other, aged eighty, and Mr. Somebody, aged ninety, write for us; and the +public are accustomed to their productions, and we make it a rule never to +give the world anything written by a man under fifty-five years old. Go +away now, and keep to your work for the next thirty years; during that +time exert yourself to get older--you will succeed if you try hard; turn +grey, be bald--it's not a bad substitute--lose your teeth, your health, +your vigour, your fire, your freshness, your genius,--in one short word, +your terrible, abominable youth, and some day or other, if you don't die +in the interim, you may have the chance of being a great man.'" + +As though in obedience to this ironical advice, Tom was already almost old +after fifteen years of so dreadful an existence. His handsome face had +assumed a melancholy cast which it was never to lose. Once in the depth +of his misery he took it into his head to enlist. The army would have +nothing to say to him. Then, recklessly, he married a beautiful girl who +imagined she had a vocation for the stage. Children came, but neither +success nor money. She died, and Robertson then tried his hand at +journalism. He tried to "place" work of every kind wherever he could, from +riddles and comic anecdotes of a dozen lines up to serial stories. He got +connected with a score of London and provincial papers--the _Porcupine_, +of Liverpool; the _Comic News_; the _Wag_, which his friend Byron had +started; _Fun_, just started by Tom Hood, and the _Illustrated Times_, on +which he succeeded Edmund Yates as dramatic critic, and in whose columns, +under the title of "The Theatrical Lounger," he sketched the features of +the whole stage-world from leading actor to fireman and call-boy. It is +all written with easy, familiar humour, with a spice of impudence thrown +in, not unlike the style of our old weekly _Figaro_; at the same time, it +is observant, natural, alive, with here and there a gust of passion and a +vent of spleen. + +Robertson lived in the very centre of Bohemia--that vaguely-defined +district in which "men of the world" whom the "world" bored, among them +officers who found the military clubs too solemn, came to drink and make +merry with the night-birds of the law, the theatre, and the press. They +would meet at the Garrick, the Arundel, the Savage, the Fielding, of which +last Albert Smith has left us a description in mock-heroic verse. Tom +Hood, a clerk in the War Office, and editor of _Fun_, used to give Friday +supper-parties--frugal meals, just cold meat and boiled potatoes. But +those who met there, Clement Scott tells us, were the best fellows in the +world. + +Conversation flowed until daybreak in a kind of torrent. It still flowed +as the guests made their way homewards at the hours when the carts of the +market gardeners began to rumble through Knightsbridge and the rising sun +to gild the treetops of Hyde Park. + +Were they all such very "good fellows"?--I have my doubts. This Bohemia +was not a country where everyone was young and kindly and gay. It was just +a backwater, or a little world apart where one talked instead of working, +and where night took the place of day; it was the antechamber to the real +world of literature, a place of impatient waitings, of feverish suspense. +I am sure there were half a dozen malcontents and failures there for one +man who could claim success. + +These lines[10] of Robert Brough (one of the most characterised members of +the body, one of the first to disappear from it), written by him on his +birthday, give an instructive glimpse at the life-- + + "I'm twenty-nine! I'm twenty-nine! + I've drank too much of beer and wine; + I've had too much of toil and strife, + I've given a kiss to Johnson's wife, + And sent a lying note to mine,-- + I'm twenty-nine! I'm twenty-nine!" + +After having written a few newspaper articles and two or three plays, +Brough grew embittered at not having attained wealth and fame. That he +should have failed to do so seemed a sufficient indication of the infamy +of society. He wrote and published the "Songs of the Governing Classes," +the satire of which is as corrosive as vitriol, as scalding as molten +lead. The "Song of the Gentleman" in particular might well be given a +place in the anarchist anthologies of the future. + +Something of this bitterness was to find its way into the impassioned +outbursts of Robertson and the philosophic irony of Gilbert. But at these +nocturnal repasts of Hood's, at which Robertson was one of the most +brilliant, fearless, and enthralling of talkers, there was question not so +much of reconstituting society as of renewing art and reforming the +theatre. They ridiculed the wretched stage management of the day, the +fatuity of the comedians of the old school, the tyranny of conventional +routine,--everything connected with the stage. And what was it they had to +offer in place of the old order? Truth more carefully observed, nature +more closely followed. It is always the same ideals, or the same +pretensions: the generation which holds them up against its senior never +seems to suspect that its junior may invoke them against itself. + +Pending the consummation of these great projects, Robertson had acted at +the Strand in 1861 a little play called _The Cantab_, which achieved a +sort of success. He offered another burlesque to Mrs. Swanborough but she +refused it. Then came a stroke of luck. Sothern, who was at this time +attracting all London in a piece by Tom Taylor entitled, _Our American +Cousin_, heard tell of a piece which Robertson had written. Sothern, who +was getting sick of the inexhaustible popularity of Lord Dundreary, was +anxious to appear before the public in the role of David Garrick. He was +anxious to get completely away from the field of caricature, to play a +really serious part which should bring out all his gifts. Unluckily the +piece had not much success, nor did it merit much. It was an adaptation +from the French with Garrick substituted for the original French hero. +Strange beginning for one who aimed at a "Return to Truth," this sticking +of a historic head upon the shoulders of "a gentleman unknown"! + +It was after this that he wrote his comedy _Society_. He took it to +Buckstone, who refused it flatly. "My dear fellow," he said, "your piece +wouldn't reach a fourth performance." The author went off, fingers +twitching, beyond himself with rage, and wandered into the Strand, where +one of his friends met him. "Look here," said Robertson to him, "here is a +capital play and these asses won't have it." A provincial manager took it +up. It succeeded in Liverpool. Marie Wilton secured it and produced it on +November 14, 1861, at her little theatre. From that evening dates not only +the success of the Prince of Wales's Theatre, but a new era for English +Comedy--the era of Robertson. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +First Performance of _Society_--Success of _Ours_, _Caste_, and +_School_--How Robertson turned to account the Talent of his Actors, John +Hare, Bancroft, and Mrs. Bancroft--Progress in the Matter of +Scenery--Dialogue and Character-drawing--Robertson as a Humorist: a scene +from _School_--As a Realist: a scene from _Caste_--The Comedian of the +Upper Middle Classes--Robertson's Marriage, Illness, and Death--The "Cup +and Saucer" Comedy--The Improvement in Actors' Salaries--The Bancrofts at +the Haymarket--Farewell Performance--My Pilgrimage to Tottenham Street. + + +That evening of the 14th of November has been described to us by several +eye-witnesses, so that we are able to realise the feelings that prevailed +both on the stage and amongst the audience. The first act seemed gay and +lively, with a sort of mordant raillery in it with which the audience was +unfamiliar. Then came an idyll, evolving amidst the trees of a London +square. What! love--youthful, tender, tremulous love--in the very heart of +this city of mud, fog, and smoke! Love, so near that you might touch his +wings! This was the kind of impression it evoked--an impression that +pleased and moved the more, that the public, always over-curious +concerning the private life of its favourites, was acquainted with the +tender relations of actor and actress. It was a real "honeymoon"--the +full moon which shone on this love duet from over the shrubbery of +coloured canvas. The hearts of the audience went out to them, and all was +well. + +But no one could say what sort of reception was in store for "The Owls' +Roost." This "roost" was a picture from the life of the clubs which I have +already described as the principal resorts of Bohemia. Now, the +"Savages"--the members, that is, of the Savage Club--as well as the +frequenters of the Garrick, the Fielding, and the Arundel, were all there +in force. How would they take this caricature of themselves? The laughter +which broke out in uninterrupted peals soon reassured the anxious ears +behind the scenes. + +There is a point at which one of the chief characters is at a loss for +half a crown wherewith to pay for the hansom in which he is going off to a +ball. Having no money in his pocket he asks a friend for the sum. "I +haven't got it," the friend replies, "but I'll see if I can't get it for +you." He asks a third, who makes a similar reply; and so the appeal makes +the whole round of the club, until at last a half-crown is found in the +depths of a pocket, and is passed on from hand to hand, borrowed and lent +a dozen times, to the man who had asked for it in the first instance. The +incident was taken from actual life. Thus reproduced upon the stage, it +seemed indescribably comic, and proved the turning-point in the fortune of +the play--the happy crisis after which everything was greeted with +applause. It was a trivial illustration, but it was thoroughly +characteristic. It was Bohemia in a nutshell--to have nothing and give +everything. + +As the "owls" were so much diverted by the faithful portrayal of their +resorts and of their customs, thus presented for the first time upon the +stage, there was no reason to expect that Society would take offence over +the extraordinary and incongruous proceedings at the establishment of Lord +and Lady Ptarmigant. This kind of comic libel was not unknown;--Bulwer, +for instance, had set himself to depict the union of the old aristocracy +with the new, the naive veneration displayed by Riches for Rank, and on +the other hand, the prostration of Rank before Riches. No one showed +astonishment at seeing Lady Ptarmigant smilingly take the arm of old +Chodd, though his language and his manners were those of a costermonger, +and though his lordship's valet would probably have hesitated about +letting himself be seen with him in a public-house. As for Lord Ptarmigant +himself, he was just what we call a _panne_. The whole character resolved +itself into a mere eccentricity, as monotonous as it was far-fetched and +extravagant,--a habit of dragging about his chair with him wherever he +went, and of falling asleep in it the moment he sat down, with the result +that everyone who came in or went out could not fail to tumble over his +stretched-out old legs. Who would have imagined that such a role as this +would be one of the causes of the success of the piece, and would be the +means of revealing to London an admirable actor? His name was John Hare. +He was still quite young, and he had wished for this strange role in which +to make his _debut_. Profiting by the example of Garrick, Hare had +realised that an actor does not make his name by giving out a witticism or +telling phrase with effect, but by putting before us a live human figure, +if only a silent figure, in all its eccentricity of brain. His facial +expression was wonderful, and his mimicry excellent;--he had in him the +genius of metamorphosis; he has it still, and gives evidence of it in a +hundred different roles. By a sort of intuition not easy to explain, there +was hardly a spectator who did not divine the future great actor from this +one performance. + +The success of _Society_--it lasted for one hundred and fifty nights--was +followed almost at once by the success of _Ours_, which lasted still +longer, and filled the theatrical season 1866-67. Then came _Caste_ in +1867 and 1868. _School_ in 1869 surpassed its predecessors in popularity, +being played nearly four hundred times. In the intervals between these +four great triumphs there were two pieces which, without achieving so long +a run, still maintained in the fortunate little theatre the same joyous +atmosphere of success. + +When the "Prince of Wales's," however, had recourse to any other than its +regular caterer, a check in its fortunes was sure to come, and there was +no alternative to falling back on Robertson. And when Robertson tried his +fortune elsewhere, even when supported by a popularity so well established +as that of Sothern, the result was invariably but a _succes d'estime_, +when not a disastrous failure. From these circumstances a certain +superstition grew up. Superstitions are rife in the theatrical world. +Marie Wilton, it was felt, had her lucky star, and Robertson had his, but +the two had to be in conjunction for their benign influence to be exerted. +Perhaps the coincidence may be explained without having recourse to the +stars. Tom Taylor, on the day after a new triumph, wrote to the young +manageress: "The author and the theatre, the actors and the roles, all +seem made for one another." This was quite true, and it may be added, that +the public and the time were in harmony with the spirit of the pieces and +the talent of the performers. Everything had come about as it should; so +it was called chance! + +Robertson was not much of an actor, but he was a wonderful reader. When +you heard Robertson read one of his comedies, Clement Scott tells us, you +understood it in all its details. Under the sway of his moving elocution +the actors laughed and cried. The author knew their weaknesses and their +gifts better than they themselves; he knew, therefore, how to make the +most of the peculiar constitution of this small company which formed a +kind of family, closely united by common interests, ambitions, and +affections. Until then a piece was often nothing more than a star actor +planted well in the front of the stage, taking his time and prolonging his +effects, and behind him a dozen or so nonentities mumbling mere odds and +ends of dialogue and addressing themselves to the back of their more +famous colleague. For the first time there was now at the "Prince of +Wales's," an _ensemble_ moulded by assiduous rehearsals and perfected by +the practice of every night. + +In _Ours_, John Hare, who played the role of Prince Perofsky, had only to +utter a dozen sentences--hackneyed and affected compliments--yet he made +out of it a really striking portrait of a Slavonic Grand Seigneur, with a +smouldering passion in his heart veiled under the most perfect manners. +Besides his impressiveness there was something enigmatic about him that +set one speculating as to the part he was to play in the plot,--an enigma +to which there was to be no solution. + +At length, in _Caste_, Robertson gave him a real role, that of Sam +Gerridge. I imagine, indeed, that author and actor contributed equally to +the creation of this character. The same might be said, perhaps, of that +of Captain Hawtree, created by Bancroft in the same play. Seldom, surely, +has the use of this big word "created" (so often applied in the papers to +the most insignificant performances) been warranted so fully as in these +cases. + +Before Sothern's time the man of the world used to be represented on the +English stage as an absurd figure treading on tiptoe while in ladies' +society and ogling them _a bout portant_. + +The type had been changed as regards costume, but not as regards language, +from that of the Macaroni of 1770. The dandy of 1840 does not seem to have +found his way on to the stage until 1865. + +It was a complete change from this type to the character presented by +Bancroft as Captain Hawtree, humorous but not ridiculous; not in the least +essential to the play, yet attracting a large share of interest and +sympathy. An elegantly languid air, which yet spoke of weakness neither of +muscles nor of character; a blind acceptance of the social code, which was +not incompatible with generous feelings and a sense of humour; a mixture +of soldier-like cordiality and worldly cynicism, which amounted to an +_etat d'ame_ if not to a philosophy: these were some of the features that +went to make up the character. + +When circumstances--quite simple and natural--lead to Hawtree's taking tea +in humble East End lodgings, between a little dancing-girl and an old +plumber, nearly all the fun of the scene comes from his mute expression of +continual astonishment. Hawtree presents a curious combination of +awkwardness and goodwill in the scene in which he brings the plates to +Polly Eccles in the pantry to be washed. At bottom it is the attitude of +the English gentleman towards the social question,--somewhat scornful, +somewhat amused, but ready to turn up his sleeves and put a shoulder to +the wheel at need. + +As for Marie Wilton, with what wonderful insight Robertson had made out +the real genius of this little woman, whose talents were so real, if all +her ambitions were not attainable! She looked back with horror at her +successes at the Strand; she wanted never again to play a _gamin's_ part +(as we should call it) or to appear in burlesque. Robertson wrote her a +succession of _gamin's_ parts and burlesque scenes. But the _gamin_ was +petticoated and the burlesque scenes set in a comedy. I am not referring +to _Society_, which was not written for the "Prince of Wales's." But what +is it she has to do in the three other pieces? In _School_ she climbs a +wall. In _Ours_ she takes part in a game of bowls, mimics the affectations +of the swells of '65, plays at being a soldier, bastes a leg of mutton +from a watering pot, and as a climax makes a roley-poley pudding, adapting +military implements to culinary uses for the purpose. In _Caste_ her +operations are still more varied--she sings, dances, boxes people's ears, +plays the piano, pretends to blow a trumpet, puts on a forage cap, and +imitates a squadron of cavalry. If this is not burlesque, what is it? + +Some months ago I saw her in a revival of _Money_, in which she plays the +role of a woman of the world, and in one scene of which--a scene which +owed much more to her than to Bulwer--she shows the steps of a dance. At +this moment I seemed to see the legs of Pippo moving under the skirts of +Lady Franklin,--those legs which five and thirty years before had made so +lively an impression on the brain of Charles Dickens. + +Whether he was conscious of it or not, Robertson made her play Pippo all +her life. These fantastic roles, sketched on to the margin of domestic +dramas, were to have a remarkable and twofold success; they were largely +responsible for the good fortune of Robertson's comedies, and in the +reading of these they constitute, as it were, appetising _hors +d'oeuvres_. If I say to the admirers of _Caste_ that Polly Eccles is an +excrescence spoiling the artistic merit of the piece, they reply at once +that, on the contrary, she is its life and soul; and from the point of +view of stage effect, they are quite right. + +The Bancrofts--they married shortly after the opening of the theatre--were +the complements of each other. She was all fun and fancy, harum-scarum, +irresponsible, indescribable. He was chiefly notable for thought, taste, +careful observation, and truthful representation of real life. One of his +first acts, as soon as there was some money in the exchequer of the +"Prince of Wales's," was to introduce a certain amount of intelligent +realism into the scenery. He felt the need of doors with locks instead of +the wretched folding-sashes, which shook before the draughts from the +wings. In _Caste_ he gave ceilings to the rooms. The last Act of _Ours_ +takes place in Crimean barracks during the winter of 1855; every time the +door was opened a gust of snow came into the room with a whirl and +whistle, which produced so strong an illusion that the audience shivered. +In the gardens, real flowers were introduced, and living birds. Charles +Mathews was thought very enterprising because he had ventured to have some +chairs placed in a drawing-room upon the stage. Bancroft went so far as to +assign a different character to different suites of furniture. Thus in a +revival of the _School for Scandal_, Joseph Surface's furniture was +different from that of Sir Peter Teazle; his furniture, hypocritical as +himself, seemed to make a pretence of being plain and simple, lied for him +and bore out his lies. As for the actresses, instead of being made guys of +by the theatrical costumiers, they had real dresses made for them by real +dressmakers. + +Robertson approved of these innovations, but he was never more than half a +realist, and this from several causes. Like all Englishmen, he delighted +in the warfare of words; he shared with them all, big and little, ancient +and modern, that liking for brilliancy which is perhaps evolved from the +liking of savages for brilliants. Once he began concocting repartees he +forgot all else and gave his pen its head. He made his characters play a +game of verbal battledore and shuttlecock. He dragged in by the nape of +the neck, as it were, tirades whose proper place had been in a leading +article. When he went too far, however, in these directions, he was often +the first to make fun of the result. "What has that got to do with what we +are talking about?" asks a character in _Ours_. "It has nothing to do +with it, that's why I said it." And in the same piece another character +remarks of something that has happened, "If an author put that into a +play, everyone would say that it was impossible and untrue to life." + +Thus it was he would forestall gaily, with a sort of impudent frankness, +the objections of the critics. The public enjoys this kind of thing. What +it enjoys most of all, in England at anyrate, is the _grain de folie_, the +lurking, unlooked-for quaintness, which characterises some of their +humorists, Dickens, for instance, and Ben Jonson. It is this quality which +is responsible for their creation of strange types whose ideas and +conversations are all topsy-turvy. + +It was in _School_ that Robertson poured it out most plentifully. It was +the most frivolous of his plays, and in this perhaps may be found the +explanation of its success. The heroines are boarding-school girls; they +are just at the age and in the situation in which no absurdity would seem +too great or out of place. By a convention which the spectator agrees to +willingly, they are girls in Act I. and women three weeks later in Act +III. In these three weeks they have learned the meaning of life. + +"What is love?" asks one of the youngest in the first scene. "Why, +everyone knows what love is," Naomi tells her. "Well, what is it then?" +asks another, and the first speaker insists that no one seems to know. + +Then comes the time for them to pass from vague theory to real experience. +It is the evening, in the orchard. There are two flirtation scenes, one +following the other, full of childishness, but full of _naivete_, +freshness, and charm. There is question of the distance from the earth to +the moon, of the play of light and shade, of a little milk-jug which it +takes two to carry, of the Crimean War, and of Othello. Of love there is +no word, but it underlies their every feeling, hides behind every word, +peeps out through every glance, mingles with the very air they breathe. + + _Naomi_: ... "I like to hear you talk." + + _Jack_ (_bows_): "The fibs or the truth?" + + _Naomi_: "Both. Have you ever been married?" + + _Jack_: "Never." + + _Naomi_: "What are you?" + + _Jack_: "Nothing. It's the occupation I am most fitted for." + + _Naomi_: "Oh, you must be something?" + + _Jack_: "No." + + _Naomi_: "What were you before you were what you are now?" + + _Jack_: "A little boy."... + + _Naomi_: "Mr. Farintosh was saying at table that you had been in the + army. Were you a horse-soldier or a foot-soldier?" + + _Jack_: "A foot-soldier,--a very foot-soldier." + + _Naomi_: "And that you were in the Crimea?" + + _Jack_: "Ya-as, I was there." + + _Naomi_: "At the battle of Inkermann?" + + _Jack_: "Ya-as." + + _Naomi_: "Then why didn't you mention it?" + + _Jack_: "Not worth while, there were so many other fellows there." + + _Naomi_: "Did you fight?" + + _Jack_: "Ya-as, I fought." + + _Naomi_: "Weren't you frightened?" + + _Jack_: "Immensely." + + _Naomi_: "Then why did you stay?" + + _Jack_: "Because I hadn't the pluck to run away." + + _Naomi_: "Did they pay you much for fighting?" + + _Jack_: "No, but then I didn't do much fighting, so that I was even + with them in that respect!" + + * * * * * + + _Naomi_: ... "Are you fond of reading?" + + _Jack_: "Ya-as. Middling." + + _Naomi_: "Did you ever read Othello?" + + _Jack_: "Ya-as. But I don't think it nice reading for young ladies." + + _Naomi_: "Othello told Desdemona of the dangers he had passed and the + battles he had won." + + _Jack_: "Ya-as. Othello was a nigger, and didn't mind bragging."... + +It would be but an ill service to Robertson to give an outline of his +plays. A mere outline would give the impression that they were childish +and absurd, and they were neither the one nor the other. He never invented +a striking situation, so far as I am aware. He never settled (or even +raised) a moral or social problem in any of his productions. He gave all +his attention to the characters and the dialogue. A scribbled synopsis +found amongst his papers reveals his method of character-drawing. He stuck +down three words, one after another--a name, a profession, a ruling +passion, such as love, ambition, cupidity, pride. With these words he +thought he had summed up the ordinary conventional man, as nature had +formed him, and society had reformed or deformed him: a very elementary +but very sane psychology, which he enriched, embellished, elaborated, with +the flowers of his fancy and the fruits of his observation. I have given +some specimens of the former. I may now give some specimens of the second, +to justify the title of half-realist which I have given him. + +He wanted nothing better than to be a realist and to reproduce what he had +actually seen. He knew nothing of great ladies, as one may well +understand. When he had to portray them he was obliged to copy from bad +models. His Lady Ptarmigant is a regular _bourgeoise_; his Marquise de +Saint Maur, who learns bits of Froissart by heart and gives lessons in +history to her son, is either a myth or an anachronism. His Hawtree, on +the other hand, is as real as can be; Robertson had met him probably in +the clubs which he frequented. In _School_ he introduced a foolish yet +ferocious usher, who was, it seems, a reminiscence of his youthful +expedition to Holland. His rancour had not become extinguished in the +twenty years that had intervened, and he could not resist the somewhat +brutal satisfaction of inflicting a physical punishment in the last act +upon his old enemy. He used to ask his small boy, whilst walking with him +in Belsize Park, what he would answer to such and such a question? How +would he set about enraging his master? And the boy would receive sixpence +or a florin according to the nature of his reply. + +Soldiers, theatrical folk, artistic and literary Bohemians, are painted as +they live, slightly idealised. In _Caste_ we have two specimens of the +people--bad and good--in the persons of Eccles and Sam Gerridge. "Work, my +boy," says Eccles to his future son-in-law; "there's nothing like +work--when you're young." As for him,--well, it was some years since he +worked (as a matter of fact he had lived on his daughters, and not touched +a tool for twenty years), but he loved to see young folk at work. That did +him good,--did them good too. He declaims against the upper classes; but +when a marchioness passes his threshold, he bows down before her, and +conducts her back to her carriage, only to return to his real self, +insolent and venomous, the moment she has gone. When he makes his way to +the public-house to drink, he gives a "business appointment" as his +pretext--"a friend who is waiting for him round the corner." Always posing +and aiming at effect, he uses big words for the smallest matters, and can +produce a tear in his eye at will. He has a few garbled bits of literature +at his command, and makes use of mangled quotations from _King Lear_. +And, wretched actor though he be, he is able, with the aid of filial +affection, to produce an illusion in the mind of one of his daughters. +"Poor dad," says Polly, "he is so good at heart--and _so_ cute." + +No money in the house! He has been left at home by himself to mind the +child of his eldest daughter, married to an officer who was well-born and +rich, but who, it is supposed, has perished in the Indian Mutiny. The old +drunkard rocks the cradle, angrily puffing his tobacco smoke in the baby's +face. + + _Eccles_: ... "Mind the baby, indeed! (_Smokes and puffs angrily short + cloud._) That fool of a ge'l to go and throw away her chances + (_rises_) for the sake of being an Honourable-ess. (_Goes up centre._) + To think of her father not having the price of an early pint, or a + quartern of cool refreshing gin! Rock the young Honourable! (_Kicks + the cradle._) Cuss him! Are we slaves, we working-men? (_Sings._) + 'Britons never, never, never'--(_Snatches pipe from his mouth, throws + it over the fireplace, takes chair front of table._) However, I shan't + stand this much longer! I've writ the old cat!--the Marquizzy, I mean; + I told her her daughter-in-law and her grandson were starving! That + fool Esther is too proud to do it herself. I 'ate pride--it's beastly. + (_Rises._) There's no beastly pride about me! (_Goes up centre, clacks + his tongue against the roof of mouth._) I'm as dry as a limekiln! Of + course, there's nothing in the house fit for a Christian to drink! + (_Looks into the jug on dresser._) Empty! (_Lifts teapot on mantel._) + Tea! (_Turns up his nose. Turns to table, looks into jug on it._) + Milk! (_Contempt._) Milk for this aristocratic young pauper! Everybody + in the 'ouse is saggrefized for him! To think of me, Member of the + Committee of Banded Brothers, organised for the Regeneration of Human + Kind by an Equal Diffusion of Labour and an Equal Division of + Property!--to think of me, without the price of a pot of beer, while + this aristocratic pauper wears round his neck--a coral of gold--real + gold. Oh, Society! Oh, Governments! Oh, Class-degradation! Is _this_ + right? Shall this mindless wretch enjoy in his sleep a jewelled gaud + while his poor old grandfather is _thirsty_? It shall not be! I will + resent the outrage on the Rights of Man! In this holy crusade of class + against class, of (_very meekly_) the weak and lowly against the + (_loudly, pointing to cradle_) powerful and strong! I will strike one + blow for freedom. (_Stoops over cradle._) He's asleep! This coral will + fetch ten "bob" around the corner! If the Marquizzy gives anythink, it + can be easy got out again! (_Takes coral._) Lie still, darling--lie + still, darling! It's grandfather a-watching you! (_Sings._) 'Who ran + to catch me when I fell? who _kicked_ the spot to make it well?--My + grandfather!' (_Goes R._) Lie still, my darling!--lie still, my + darling!" + +These comedies reveal the date of their composition in every line. +Everybody cries out in them against money, but as against a master. Love +cuts but a poor figure in comparison, though for form's sake it may +triumph for five minutes before the curtain fails. Sam Gerridge, the +virtuous plumber, who acts as counterpoise to the old wretch Eccles, has +concocted a philosophy for himself out of the notices which he has seen on +public conveyances--"First Class," "Second Class," "Third Class," "Holders +of Third-Class Tickets must not enter Second-Class Carriages." As for him, +he proposes to establish himself, and, from being a workman, to become an +employer. John Burns will tell you that this kind of democracy is a +negation of true democracy; in 1868 the formula seemed wide and generous +enough. + +In such a manner was it that Robertson, who had wished that the world were +a football which he could send into space with one kick, that the same +Robertson, who, as he quitted those nocturnal symposia at Tom Hood's, +would bring down his stick upon the pavement with a noise that made the +silent streets resound, as he held forth indignantly against +society,--grew in time and unconsciously, though in a manner easy to +under-stand, to be the interpreter of the feelings and ideas of this very +same society. The former assailant now defended the social rank which he +had attained against both the enemies above and the enemies below. The new +strata which came into being in 1832 were now half-way through their +evolution. In 1850 they had been content with melodramas, vulgar farces, +and Hippodramas. In 1865 they asked already for wit, sentiment, satire, +poetic feeling, all flavoured, it might be, with Cockneyism, but this +demand was an indication of progress, and Robertson satisfied it by +writing the middle-class comedy. + +The change which took place just then in the life of the dramatist +convinces me that I am right. He hastened to take leave of his irregular +life, and to feel after _bourgeois_ comforts. He worked out for himself a +happiness which made him, like the poor vagabond in the fable, weep for +very joy. The Eve of this new-opened Paradise was a fair German whom he +had met at the house of the editor of the _Daily Telegraph_, whose niece +she was. Robertson did not long enjoy the sweets of this happy land. His +mental and physical powers seemed to die away together. Mrs. Bancroft, who +accompanied him to the first night of _The Nightingale_, saw him, livid +with rage, shake his fist at the hissing members of the audience, +muttering, "I shall never forgive them for this!" + +The doctors ordered him to Torquay, where, however, he grew worse. I have +read a letter which he wrote thence to his young wife,--a pitiful letter, +all in little jerky sentences, set in rhythm by the sick man's pants for +breath. Pitiful, yet gay, for he could not give up being facetious. On his +return to London he experienced a literary misfortune of which it was the +lot of little Tommy, then thirteen or fourteen years old, to bring the +news. Father and son looked upon each other with tearful eyes, and +grasped each other's hands. "If they had seen me thus," said the writer +sadly, "they would have had pity." Robertson was wrong. The public should +know nothing of these things. There are no extenuating circumstances for +literary mistakes. + +He died some days later. He was only forty-four. A friend who attended the +funeral remarked, lying in the death chamber, its limbs dangling and +disjointed, a doll whose injured stomach gave out sawdust through a wide +opening. It was a doll with which he used to amuse his little girl to the +very end. As for the puppets with which he had so long amused the world, +they were to have a longer life. His comedies were destined to be +continually revived, applauded, and imitated. Out of the six thousand +performances given by the Bancrofts in a period of twenty years which +formed one long success, three thousand belonged to Robertson. He alone +furnished half their repertoire, and that the better half. From the depths +of the out-of-the-way district which it had brought into fashion, the +Prince of Wales's company sent colonies into the heart of the metropolis. +It was by actors who had been brought out in it, as in a _conservatoire_, +that the Vaudeville, the Globe, and the Court Theatres were founded. The +inexhaustible success of _The Two Roses_--of which there will be question +further on--placed the name of James Albery almost as high. + +Byron, in his turn, took a leaf out of the book of his old comrade, and +succeeded, in _Our Boys_, in producing a comedy without (or almost +without) puns. _Our Boys_ resembles Robertson's comedies just as a cook +resembles her mistress when she is decked out in her mistress's hat and +gown, or as Cathos and Madelon resemble the Marquise de Rambouillet and +Julie d'Angennes. Even in this unintentionally caricature-like form the +Robertsonian comedy continued to please, and it looked as though _Our +Boys_ would never leave the bills. + +The exacting, the fastidious, those who had begun to dream of a purer and +more penetrating art, dubbed Robertsonian comedy "Cup and Saucer" comedy. +The school accepted the nickname, and gloried in it. For the tea-table, +fifteen or twenty years ago, was still the centre of the home, the symbol +of the family, the core of English life, such as it had been formed by the +combination of the spirit of Puritanism with that of middle-class +Utilitarianism. + +The name of the Bancrofts remained associated with the "Cup and Saucer" +comedy as long as the movement lasted. As soon as they became sensible of +their favourite author's decline in the eyes of the public they called +Sardou to their assistance. By 1880 the Prince of Wales's had become too +small for them and they emigrated to the Haymarket, which Mr. Bancroft had +reconstructed as it is now, after a new plan, without the conventional +proscenium, with the orchestra out of sight, the stage encased in a gilt +frame like a picture, and no pit. + +This last innovation is characteristic. The pit from having composed the +whole arena of the hall, had been moved back bit by bit, until at last it +was confined to a few back benches behind the dress circle. To suppress it +altogether was not so much an act of authority as of emancipation. It has +been said that Mr. Bancroft thought too much of his gentility, and that he +seemed anxious to reserve his theatre for the _elite: Satis est equitem +mihi plaudere_. But even then? After all, it was only a case of an +extremely able man keeping pace with the democratic generation to which he +belonged, in his rise towards fortune and its accompanying enjoyments. He +raised the price of stalls from six to seven shillings, and then to +ten-and-sixpence. The public was evidently able to pay, for the stalls +were always full. + +It should be added that, under the management of the Bancrofts, the rise +in salaries was out of all proportion to the rise in the price of seats. +The weekly salary of one actor, continuing to play in the same role, went +from L18 to L60, and that of another from L9 to L50. Mrs. Stirling had +created the role of the Marchioness in Caste at the "Prince of Wales's," +and received seven times as much for appearing in it at the Haymarket. +Douglas Jerrold said to Charles Mathews: "I don't despair of seeing you +yet with a good cotton umbrella under your arm, carrying your savings to +the bank." Many years afterwards Mathews, presiding over the Theatrical +Fund, recalled this remark, and added, "The first part of Jerrold's wish +has been fulfilled. I have bought an umbrella." Thanks to the Bancrofts +and the managers who came after them, the bank has been in receipt of the +savings of many actors who previously would have been content if only they +might earn their daily bread. + +Mr. and Mrs. Bancroft saw the time approaching when the monopoly they had +secured of the works of Robertson would cease to exist; they felt at once +that the vein was being exhausted, and that the new generation would have +new needs. Able and far-sighted, they determined to retire at the zenith +of their success, and if not in their youth, at least in their prime and +in the full activity of their intellect. Neither of them was forty-five +when in 1885 they gave their farewell performance at the Haymarket. + +Amongst the innumerable tokens of esteem which conduced to the triumph of +this withdrawal, I shall cite only one. It is a letter from Arthur W. +Pinero, who had belonged as an actor to the Bancroft Company, and who has +taken since then a foremost place amongst English dramatists. He wrote to +his former manager:-- + + "It is my opinion, expressed here as it is elsewhere, that the present + advanced condition of the English stage--throwing as it does a clear, + natural light upon the manner and life of the people, where a few + years ago there was nothing but moulding and tinsel--is due to the + crusade begun by Mrs. Bancroft and yourself in your little Prince of + Wales's Theatre. When the history of the stage and its progress is + adequately and faithfully written, Mrs. Bancroft's name and your own + must be recorded with honour and gratitude." + +I took it into my head not long ago to pay a visit to the little theatre +in which Frederic Lemaitre appeared, in which Napoleon and Count d'Orsay +rubbed shoulders with Dickens and Thackeray, in which there was difficulty +once in finding a seat for Gladstone, and in which Beaconsfield received a +memorable ovation. The Salvationists have succeeded to the comedians, and, +whether or not it be that their trumpets have the virtue of those of +Jericho, these historic walls are crumbling to ruin. The place is empty, +cold, and desolate. It was on an evening of last winter that I stood +pensively under the porch--the porch through which had flowed like a +stream all the elegance and talent of a whole generation. The light of a +gas jet shone mournfully on the notice, mouldy already, "To be let or +sold"; and the rain trickled down on me from a gaping hole whence the +electric light used once to glare upon pretty women issuing in all their +finery from their carriages. My curiosity was not satisfied. In order to +obtain admission inside, I gave myself out as a lecturer in search of a +hall, but the ruse failed. I was told that I should have to pay L4500 or +L6000, and was asked whether this trifling outlay would interfere with me. +I did not pursue the negotiations, and the door remained closed. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +Gilbert: compared with Robertson--His first Literary Efforts--The _Bab +Ballads_--_Sweethearts_--A Series of Experiments--Gilbert's Psychology and +Methods of Work--_Dan'l Druce_, _Engaged_, _The Palace of Truth_, _The +Wicked World_--_Pygmalion and Galatea_--The Gilbert and Sullivan Operas. + + +When Marie Wilton's company, during their first holiday, went on tour to +Liverpool, they happened upon the autumn assizes. The young London +barristers who followed the circuit made haste to fraternise with the +theatrical folk, and a sort of little colony came into being in which +everyone rejoiced and made merry. Grotesque trials were represented in +which Marie Wilton, got up as the Lord Chief Justice in wig and gown, gave +forth admirable verdicts; she tells of these frolics in her Memoirs, +adding pleasantly: "We were all young then, and the fun perhaps appeared +greater than it would now, but it was a very happy time." + +Among these young barristers there was one named Gilbert. He was soon to +throw aside his gown in order to devote himself to the calling in which he +was to achieve a reputation as great as Robertson's,--a reputation which +still lives. The contrast between the two dramatists is striking. +Robertson is a craftsman, brought up in the theatre, amenable to outside +influences; he collaborates with his actors, with the public,--one may +say, with his entire generation. The ideas of his time, good, bad and +indifferent, exude from him at every pore. He becomes, therefore, +unconsciously, a representative man and the leader of a school. Where +Robertson is a natural product, a symptom, Gilbert is a freak, an +accident. He might have "occurred" at any time in the century, or indeed +in any century. One can neither trace his ancestry nor imagine his +posterity. Born and bred a gentleman, he loved the theatrical world +without being of it. Actors have accused him of being cold in his manner +to them, high and mighty, even disdainful. So much for his personal +character;--in discussing a living writer, more than this would be +improper. As to his bent of mind, its originality was evident from the +first, but that originality was at all times somewhat shallow and liable +to run dry; and instead of widening it, he scooped it out. + +He exploited his talent by a kind of mathematical system, to its utmost +limit, to the point of absurdity, in fact, and even further. His literary +career may be described as containing three periods: in the first he felt +his way; in the second he achieved brilliant and legitimate successes; in +the third he met with even more fruitful triumphs, but of a kind which +arouse little sympathy in a critic, and of which, I think, even he +himself grew a bit tired. But he is so true an artist, and at the same +time so typically English, that a French critic may well study him, even +in his errors, without feeling that it is waste of time. + +It was some verses which he contributed from week to week to _Fun_ that +first attracted attention to him. He reprinted them under the title, _Bab +Ballads_, and as the public seemed to want them he followed these up with +_More Bab Ballads_. Some of them were set to music and are still popular +as songs, but these are not the ones which have the most flavour. It is +difficult to describe this flavour; it consisted in a kind of naive irony, +expressed in a form that was sometimes extravagant, sometimes studiously +careless,--a blend of the deliberately prosaic with amazing fantasy. Some +of these ballads finished up with a surprise, the others did not finish up +at all,--which was a surprise too. + +Gilbert offered to his friends at the Prince of Wales's a pleasant little +comedy entitled _Sweethearts_. A young man is about to start for India, +where he is to make a career for himself, but he is in love with a young +girl who lives near his country home. She has but to say a word and he +will not go, or will not go alone. She does not say this word. What +prevents her? Is it timidity, bashfulness, pride, or that strange spirit +of contradiction or of coquetry which sometimes keeps the tongue from +obeying the dictates of the heart? However that may be, she lets him go. +Thirty years ensue. The lover returns, grey haired now,--a lover, indeed, +no longer. + +Distance in time, as in space, makes things look small. His "grande +passion" seems to him now a boyish fancy. He merely wishes to see the spot +again; that is all. She, too, is there, seated under the shade of the tree +which they planted together, retaining still the flower which he had given +her, faithful to the memory of the love she had seemed to scorn. The old +boy's scepticism gives way to tenderness. They marry. But will they ever +find the thirty years that they have lost? + +Here is one of those pleasingly fanciful ideas that a man like Octave +Feuillet may work out delightfully. Sadness and gladness should alternate +in it like mist and sunshine on an autumn day. Now, Gilbert is a cynic, +though a refined cynic, and he could deal only with half of his subject. +In his little comedy, one or other of its two characters is always carping +at love. In the first act it is the woman, in the second the man. Gilbert +speaks, and very cleverly, through the mouth of this railer, but, alas! +there seems nothing to be said on the other side. From the moment of this +first attempt of his, the young author had to face the fact that he had a +great disqualification for the writing of dramas; he could neither depict +love nor reproduce its language. Is it out of a kind of revenge that he +has continued to rail at love ever since? + +Nevertheless, he made some further efforts during the years which +followed. He wrote _Broken Hearts_, a fantastic drama in verse, and made +it clear even to himself that he was unequal to such high flights. He +aimed at freeing Goethe's Margaret from all that philosophy which +surrounds and obscures her, and he discovered that the idyll thus +disencumbered, and naturally told, became flat and commonplace. He was +then inspired by history, and the idea entered his head--probably after +some reading that had moved him and awakened in him some dormant atavistic +instinct--that his misanthropy would have a new force in the mouth of a +puritanical peasant of the seventeenth century. But how difficult it is +for a university man, a Garrick Club man, to feel and speak like such a +character! As far as mere language is concerned, the author was fairly +successful; _Dan'l Druce_ is a pleasing mosaic of archaic phrases, an +ingenious transcription of the speech of those days. (But was the public +which applauded _School_ and _Society_ sufficiently advanced in its +artistic education to enjoy these things?) Can one say the same, however, +of the ideas? Had one submitted, for instance, to a contemporary of John +Fox or of Bunyan the moral question on which Mr. Gilbert's drama turns, +would he really have solved it after the fashion of _Dan'l Druce_? Surely +not. + +It is an interesting problem, though, of course, not new. To which of the +two does the child belong--to him who begat but abandoned it, or to him +who took pity on it and brought it up? It is the modern conscience that +decides in favour of the second; the Puritan conscience of former days +would have feared to interfere with that natural order of things in which +it saw the guiding hand of God. As all things in this world and the next +were pre-ordained, the father must remain the father in spite of +everything, just as the chosen remained chosen, and the evil evil; the +heart might bleed, but Divine Providence must have its way. This, it seems +to me, had been the Puritan solution. But while we are reflecting upon +these things, this problem, by a characteristic Gilbertian stroke, is +turned upside down through a series of utterly incredible complications, +the real father becomes the adoptive, and the adoptive father the real. +Thenceforth we tumble from psychology into melodrama, and there remains no +problem to solve. + +A love-scene was required in the play, as there were a young man and a +girl amongst its characters. Their conversation--apart from certain pretty +archaic touches which continue to delight me--is a sort of subtle +intellectual game. Each seizes upon some one word in the last phrase of +the other, works it up into a new phrase and darts it back. Thus the +dialogue is bandied about to and fro, the great thing being to keep it up. +Sometimes, however, it falls to the ground. "I don't know what to say," +Dorothy's answer to her lover's proposal, seems to suggest that the author +himself is in a difficulty. This Dorothy is a thoroughly ingenuous young +person, naively outspoken to the point of silliness. She is not sure of +being in love, and discusses the subject like a question of conscience +with him whose interest in it is most at stake. "These are my feelings," +she tells him. "Is this love or is it not?" This self-analysing _ingenue_ +is the only woman's character in the whole of Gilbert's dramatic work. + +Before writing _Engaged_, some such thoughts as these must have passed +through his mind. "I shall turn out the human soul like a bag and show its +lining instead of its cover. It will be very ugly, but all the more +amusing. What does a man want when he puts aside all hypocrisy and all +regard for social conventions, and gives the rein to his appetites and +instincts?--To eat, to drink, to sleep, to be at his ease; to see all +those die off from whom legacies are to be expected; to win, honourably or +otherwise, every pretty woman who comes across his path. And what does a +woman want?--To shine in society, to have fine dresses, to be admired, to +marry a man who may give her a good position in the world. What is the +meeting-point of the feelings of both man and woman?--The greed for money +wherewith to buy the rest. + +"My _dramatis personae_ shall be neither good nor bad, they shall be +naively and absolutely selfish,--their selfishness shown clearly, but in +the thousand shades which civilisation has imparted to characters; it +shall be expressed not bluntly but in the thousand shades which well-bred +people bring into the utterance of fine sentiments and correct +commonplaces. They shall lack only the moral sense; of this organ I shall +deprive them as neatly and gently as possible. _Fiance_ and _fiancee_, +father and daughter, friend and friend, shall become enemies the moment +their interests clash; the moment their interests agree they shall clasp +hands and kiss again as before. Three couples will perform these +evolutions and manoeuvres before the audience, and the young girls will +change their lovers as complacently as they would their partners in a +quadrille. In a few minutes Cheviot Hill will propose to three different +women; within the same space of time Simperson will throw his daughter at +the head of Cheviot Hill, and drive his intending son-in-law to suicide. +Belvonny will expend all his energies in the first half of a scene in +denying a certain fact, and during the second half of it will make no less +desperate efforts to establish this fact. Thus will the changeableness of +men be demonstrated at the same time as their egoism. These puppets are +monsters and these monsters puppets: my audience will not need to be told +that '_Il faut se hater d'en rire de peur d'etre oblige d'en pleurer_.'" + +So cruel a farce had never been seen. The public was accustomed in farces +to two or three comic characters, to satire at the expense of two or three +ridiculous types. Here was a caricature of all mankind. The spectators +laughed, but the jest was too bitter for their palate. It was at once too +unreal and too true. Such cynical outspokenness might mark the +conversation of the inhabitants of some dreamland. But it was incongruous +where people travelled by railway and read the daily paper. Gilbert had +but to transfer his puppets to the enchanted region where he located his +_Palace of Truth_ for the big children who composed the public to accept +them with glee. + +The _Palace of Truth_ is a pleasant piece based on the same notions of +psychology as _Engaged_, but the satire is less bitter and less obvious. +Here there is no mistake possible. Before seeing the characters as they +really are, we have seen them playing every role in the human comedy. In +the second act the faithful husband flirts indiscriminately to every side +of him; the devoted girl-friend is a machiavelian coquette; the ardent +lover, so generous of madrigals and sighs, is a vain and selfish coxcomb; +the _ingenue_, chaste and correct almost to the point of coldness, is +beyond herself with love; the honey-lipped courtier becomes candid and +insolent to all the world; finally, the most amusing metamorphosis of all, +the professional boor, who has achieved notoriety by his merciless +criticisms, is the only person sincerely content with his life. Alceste +has changed skins with Philinthe. + +In this world of fantasy, Gilbert was at last thoroughly at home. He +experimented without restraint, like those physiologists who practise upon +animals, depriving this one of viscera, that one of a cerebral lobe, a +third of some nerve essential to motion. His _Creatures of Impulse_ do +everything that comes into their heads, obeying every dictate of their +instincts. In the case of the inhabitants of the _Palace of Truth_, their +language is sincere enough, it is their manner that is hypocritical. The +denizens of fairyland in _The Wicked World_ are unacquainted with love; +they form a kind of puritanical society up in the clouds. Once they are +made to know the sentiment which they have lacked, every evil springs from +the Pandora's box. Selene passes through every stage of the malady. Joy, +ecstasy, absolute security,--the celestial period; then vague disquietude, +anxiety, with fierce jealousy on their heels; then anger, quarrels, +threats of vengeance, finally, profound humiliation. The mocker had it all +his own way, hitting to right and to left. On the one side, at the +colourlessness, the shabbiness, the squalid monotony of virtue; on the +other, at the enervating and degrading effects of vice. + +But Gilbert never soared so high either in his philosophy or in his art as +in _Pygmalion and Galatea_. This was one of the great successes of the +Haymarket in 1871 and 1872. Galatea was impersonated by Madge Robertson, +the young sister of the dramatist, then in the flower of her twenty-second +year; and Kendal, whose wife she was soon to be, was Pygmalion. Miss +Robertson's grace of person, her pure and noble diction, were aids to +success, though it was not to them that success was due. Even had the +piece fallen quite flat, however, I should still give it a place above all +the other productions of the author. + +I know, of course, what captious critics have had to say on the subject. +Nothing is easier, indeed, than to pull to pieces the figure of Galatea; +to show how far it is from plausibility; how inconsistent Gilbert was in +his composition of it; to show how, almost in the same breath, she asks +the most childish, almost imbecile, questions, and indulges in an analysis +of her emotions as subtle as Joubert's or Amiel's; how this absolutely +ignorant creature, who asks whether the room in which she comes to life is +the world, has yet the faculty of explaining the stages of consciousness +through which she has passed on her way to full existence; how she can +distinguish between an original and a copy, and be jealous at another's +having sat as a model for her features, although she does not know the +difference between a man and a woman. + +Then, again, there is her characterisation of a soldier, when she has the +meaning of the word explained to her, as a "hired assassin." Her +comprehension of these two words "assassin" and "hired" presuppose some +rudimentary knowledge of the principal social institutions which affect +the preservation of life, as well as of penalties, and salaries, and of +the circulation of money and of the economic laws which it obeys. The +soldier, she is told, attacks only the strong. That may be so; still war, +she insists, is cruel. As for hunting, it is cowardly. All these +reflections and comparisons, all this reasoning in a brain of marble which +could not think, which did not exist, a few hours before! + +These examples might be multiplied, but to no end. All such criticisms are +vain, because they assume our acceptance of a general thesis more +improbable than all the minor ones which it involves. No statue ever did +come to life, but if one were to, it would find itself in the position of +a newborn child. Before learning to moralise, it would first have to learn +how to walk and how to talk; its first movement would be a tumble, its +first utterance inarticulate: whoever submits such myths to this kind of +critical examination is to be sincerely pitied, for whether he realise it +or no he thus deprives himself of whatever of poetry or of suggestiveness, +of charm, or of profundity, they may contain. + +For Gilbert the fable of Galatea, of the statue come to life, was +something more than it had ever been either for artist or man of thought: +it offered a form to that dream by which he was haunted, a frame for that +favourite picture he had so often sketched out already--the woman whose +heart is a _tabula rasa_, whose mind is an instrument that has never been +used, but is perfected and ready for use, who for the expression of her +unsophisticated feelings has all the resources of intelligence and +language at her command. What _we_ learn during the toilsome schooling of +twenty or thirty years _she_ apprehends at a glance, and it would seem +that she is the better able to judge of life in that she sees it +reflected, as it were, in a single picture suddenly unveiled. + +Mr. Gilbert's Pygmalion is married to a woman whom he loves, and who sits +to him as a model. He is not in love with the statue at the outset. He is +jealous, however,--and in this conception the author is more Greek than +the Greeks themselves,--of the gods, in that they alone have the power of +giving life. _He_ is capable only of producing this inanimate figure. As +for death, any common murderer can achieve that better than he. It is not +Venus who gives life to Galatea to satisfy mere lust; it is Diana, whose +priestess Cynisca he had taken from her, and who avenges herself by this +cruel gift, whilst humbling at the same time the pride of the sons of +Prometheus. Thus it comes that Pygmalion's feeling upon first noting the +aspect of the living statue is not rapture but wonder, a sort of religious +awe, the exaltation of a lofty and intellectual paternity. It is the +gradual passage from this feeling to that of love which constitutes the +life and, I may add, the beauty of this scene. You can guess what is the +first question of Galatea, "Who am I?"--"A woman." "And you, are you also +a woman?"--"No, I am a man." "What, then, is a man?" Upon this the pit +would burst out in a roar of laughter which must have hurt the ears of the +author. How few of those who laughed were qualified to appreciate +Pygmalion's reply-- + + "A being strongly framed, + To wait on woman, and protect her from + All ills that strength and courage can avert; + To work and toil for her, that she may rest; + To weep and mourn for her, that she may laugh; + To fight and die for her, that she may live!" + +Galatea learns the right which another woman possesses to Pygmalion, the +thousand shackles by which men are content to limit their slender liberty +and to diminish their fugitive enjoyments. The evening comes, and with it +sleep. She thinks she is turning again to stone, then she dreams, and then +she sees the light once more. But is life the dream or is the dream life? +She asks Myrine, Pygmalion's sister, for an explanation of all these +things. Myrine replies-- + + _Myrine_: "Once every day this death occurs to us, + Till thou and I and all who dwell on earth + Shall sleep to wake no more!" + + _Galatea_: (_Horrified, takes Myrine's hand_) "To wake no more?" + + _Pygmalion_: "That time must come, may be, not yet awhile, + Still it must come, and we shall all return + To the cold earth from which we quarried thee." + + _Galatea_: "See how the promises of newborn life + Fade from the bright life-picture one by one! + Love for Pygmalion--a blighting sin, + _His_ love a shame that he must hide away. + Sleep, stone-like, senseless sleep, our natural state, + And life a passing vision born thereof, + From which we wake to native senselessness! + How the bright promises fade one by one!" + +At this point the idea reaches its full expression. The scenes written for +old Buckstone, as an Athenian dilettante who judges statues by their +weight; his dialogue with Galatea, in which the piece returns to the old +groove of fun and folly and sinks almost to the level of burlesque, and +finally, the domestic drama in which Pygmalion and Cynisca are concerned, +and then the renunciation of self which moves Galatea to become once again +the lifeless statue, that she may thus bring back peace and happiness to +those upon whom she had entailed trouble and disunion: all this adds but +little to the value of the piece, though it cannot be said to spoil it. It +remains one of the most delicate, graceful, and ingenious of modern +English plays. + +Gilbert had felt the need more than once of providing some sort of musical +accompaniment for his paradoxical fantasies, for is not music the natural +background to the land of dreams? This accompaniment seemed to soften the +outlines of his thought and to temper the bitterness of his satire. The +writer had experimented first with the music of his own verses, but this +was not a success. Why then should he not secure the aid of real music by +a musician? He did so in _Trial by Jury_, a very amusing one-act piece, +suggested in part by his joyous reminiscences of Liverpool. It was a +little piece, but it had a big success. Then came the long series of comic +operas which have rendered the Gilbert and Sullivan combination as popular +in England as that of Meilhac and Halevy with Offenbach was with us during +the last ten years of the Empire. The English owe a debt of gratitude to +their compatriots for having dethroned burlesque and operetta, two imports +from France which competed with the national manufacture. So far so well, +but I doubt whether the native comic opera will survive its originators. +Already they are out of fashion. + +For my part, I never yawned so much as I did at _Princess Ida_, unless it +was at _Patience_. The first is a parody of the unsuccessful work of +Tennyson, which bears the similar title _The Princess_, and is a satire +upon the higher education of women; the second is a parody of the +aesthetic movement. In _Iolanthe_ I saw a Lord Chancellor who has been +married to a fairy come at midnight to a spot in Westminster, with his +colleagues of the Judicial Committee of the House of Lords, all dressed in +their scarlet and ermine, and to sing (and dance) a judicial sentence +(expressed in the correct legal phraseology), whilst the shining face of +Big Ben lit up the background and a grenadier on guard paced up and down +before Whitehall. + +In _The Pirates of Penzance_, and in _Pinafore_, mankind seems to be +walking on its head. Everything happens contrariwise. The fun consists in +making everyone say and do exactly the opposite of what might be expected +from them, considering their character and profession. Here, briefly, is +the plot of the _Pirates_. Frederic's nurse was charged by his parents to +make him an apprentice to a pilot, but, being deaf, she had misunderstood +and had handed him over to a pirate. The young man fulfilled his contract +of apprenticeship, which provided for a certain number of years. This duty +accomplished, it remains for him only to accomplish his duty as a citizen +of proceeding to the extermination of his ex-companions. He has set +himself ardently to this when the pirate chief points out to him that by +the terms of his indenture he is not to be free until his birthday shall +have come round a certain specified number of times. Now Frederic was born +on the 29th of February in leap year! He has therefore many long years +still to serve with the pirates. An outlaw's devotion to strict +legality--this may be said to be the idea, which is worked out in the +production with a methodical determination to overlook no single aspect of +the question, the characters being dealt with like so many briefs. Would +you have supposed that there would be material enough in this to furnish +forth three hours' entertainment? But the author was justified by the +result. + +Gilbert never quite succeeded in shaking off the dust of Chancery Lane and +Lincoln's Inn. In many respects he may be said to have remained a lawyer +all his life: by his professional scepticism, by the variety of his +dialectical resources, by his proneness to subtle distinctions and +interpretations, by his cleverness in setting up appearances against +realities, and words against ideas, but above all, by his curious faculty +for losing good cases and winning bad ones. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +Shakespeare again--From Macready to Irving; Phelps, Fechter, Ryder, +Adelaide Neilson--Irving's _Debut_--His Career in the Provinces, and Visit +to Paris--The Role of Digby Grant--The Role of Matthias--The Production of +_Hamlet_--Successive Triumphs--Irving as Stage Manager--As an Editor of +Shakespeare--His Defects as an Actor--Too great for some of his Parts--As +a Writer and Lecturer; his Theory of Art--Sir Henry Irving, Head of his +Profession. + + +What became of the "legitimate" drama the while Robertson busied himself +with his attempts to bring comedy into the domain of reality, and Gilbert +worked away at the exploiting of his fancy? In a preceding chapter I have +shown to what a depth of degradation it had fallen towards 1850. The old +privileged theatres which had possessed the monopoly of it had abandoned +it, and when it became public property the new theatres scorned to take it +up. The two little Batemans, aged six and eight, piqued in _Richard III._ +the curiosity of an unsophisticated, uneducated public, which was the +readier to enjoy these childish exhibitions in that it was itself childish +in its literary tastes. These little girls were symbols of a "Shakespeare +Made Easy." An actor named Brooke made things still worse; with him it +was a case of Shakespeare made ridiculous. He was laughed at up till the +day which brought the news of his "Hero"-like end on a ship which was +taking him to America, and which was wrecked; the poor tragedian had come +upon real tragedy for the first time, in the hour of his death. From 1850 +to 1860 the permanent home of Shakespeare was the theatre of Sadler's +Wells at Islington. Imagine Corneille exiled to the _Bouffes du Nord_, or, +further still, to the _Theatre de Belleville_! + +Phelps, whose undertaking it was, was not a great actor, but he was a good +actor. He had, besides, the sacred fire, the key to certain roles which up +till then had been left to inferior performers, but which suited his +personality, as he had the discrimination to perceive. They say his Bottom +was a masterpiece of innocuous fatuity and conscientious blundering,--that +crazy preoccupation of a workman, one sometimes encounters, with matters +beyond the scope of his intelligence. In _A Midsummer Night's Dream_, the +fantastic parts were represented behind a curtain of gauze, which threw +between the spectator and the scene a faint mist producing the illusion of +the vagueness and indistinctness of a dream.[11] Kean and Macready had +"popularised" Shakespeare, as had Garrick and Kemble before them, to the +best of their ability; they tried to extract from all his plays every bit +of the melodrama therein contained. Phelps, as it seems to me, brought out +another and nobler distinctive quality--that of _poemes en action_. This +does no small credit to the intelligence of a Shakespearian actor. + +The Frenchman, Fechter, came next. The same Fechter who, with Madame Roche +in _La Dame aux Camelias_, set our mothers weeping, brought back +Shakespeare in triumph to the Princess's and to the Lyceum. In _Macbeth_, +he was only middling; but while they say his _Othello_ was the worst +imaginable, his _Hamlet_, according to the same critics, could not be +surpassed. He brought to light, indeed, an aspect of this great role which +had been ignored. On the evening of his last performance of it, Macready, +taking from him Hamlet's velvet coat, addressed to him, in tones of some +emotion, Horatio's words--"Adieu, dear Prince!" and added, "It seems to me +that I understand now for the first time all that there is of tenderness, +humanity, and poetry in the character." Fechter found out traits which had +escaped his predecessors. He imparted grace and elegance to the tranquil +and pleasing parts of the action--a refined intellectual elegance proper +to a prince who had passed through the University of Wittemberg. The +advice of Hamlet to the players--the actor's Ten Commandments--he rendered +with much art and spirit. + +After Fechter there came a new, but only a partial eclipse. Beginners +became old stagers and appeared in principal roles. Between 1870 and 1875 +I saw Ryder, whose voice varied in tone from that of an organ to that of a +hunting-horn, on several occasions, notably in _Anthony and Cleopatra_, +with Miss Wallis, who had not the beauty, and could not suggest the charm, +one ascribes to a woman for whom an empire were well lost. I recall, too, +the countenance, with its delicately tragic aspect, of Adelaide Neilson, +who shook with passion from top to toe, and shrieked and writhed, and yet +kept her good looks. She met with a sudden death at Pre-Catelan,--it was a +glass of milk that killed her within two hours; and in London they say +that the proprietor of the hotel in which she was stopping was inhuman +enough to threaten to thrust her out in her agony upon the streets. + +He who was to bring back Shakespeare, and to make of him the most +flourishing and most warmly applauded of dramatic writers, had already +been long upon the stage,--he was already an actor of repute even; but the +Shakespearian revival to which I allude dates from October 31, 1874. It +was then that Henry Irving played Hamlet for the first time at the Lyceum. + +There was an institution in the City, at one time frequented by amateurs +of the drama, which was known as the City Elocution Class. A certain Mr. +Henry Thomas conducted it according to the principle of mutual instruction +associated with the name of Pestalozzi. As soon as each student had +recited his piece, his colleagues had their say upon his delivery of it, +pointing out any faults they discovered in his manner of giving it out, in +his pronunciation, accent, or emphasis; the master summed up these +criticisms and pronounced his own judgment upon the subject. From time to +time they gave public performances. + +It was at one of these that there appeared one evening--in 1853--a +strange-looking and attractive youth. His eyes, intelligent and full of +fire, lit up a face whose features were delicate as a woman's. He wore a +jacket of the old-fashioned cut and a great white collar. His long raven +locks covered his neck and reached even to his shoulders. + +He was then fourteen years old, and was employed in the office of an East +India merchant. His early childhood had been spent in an out-of-the-way +corner of Somerset, amongst sailors and miners. The library of the house +in which he lived consisted of only three books, which he devoured--the +Bible, _Don Quixote_, and a collection of old ballads. From these Western +expanses, where the imaginative soul of the Celt has left something of its +reveries, he had been transported when eleven to a mean little house in +London, in one of those central districts which swarm and overflow like +very ant-hills of humanity. + +Two years of school-life ensued; then his commercial apprenticeship, the +stereotyped office-life. How was it that under these conditions Henry +Irving's vocation for the theatre came out? He will tell us the story some +day, perhaps, and tell it admirably. This, at least, is known, that his +vocation, once it had declared itself, was distinct, absolute, not to be +shaken. We have before us one of those rare careers which are so perfectly +ordered towards the accomplishment of some end by a resolute and +inflexible will, that there is to be found in them no single wasted minute +or ill-directed endeavour. + +Young Irving frequented Phelps' theatre, Sadler's Wells; an old actor who +belonged to it, David Hoskyns, gave him lessons, and on going off to +Australia left him a letter of recommendation with the address blank. +Phelps would have given him an engagement, but the young aspirant deemed +himself too unworthy, and was anxious to commence his novitiate in the +provinces. Doubtless he had an inkling already of the truth he expressed +pithily at a later period: "The learning how to do a thing is the doing of +it,"--one of the most thoroughly English aphorisms ever given out in +England. Thus it was that the bills of the Lyceum at Manchester, on +September 26, 1856, contained the name of Henry Irving, who was to play +the role of the Duke of Orleans in Lord Lytton's _Richelieu_. Thence he +proceeded to Edinburgh, and in the next three years he played a hundred +and twenty-eight parts. On September 24, 1859, he made his _debut_ in +London at the Princess's, in an adaptation of the _Roman d'un Jeune Homme +Pauvre_. His part was limited to six lines. What was he to do? Repeat +those lines evening after evening till he got addled? He preferred to +break off his engagement. But before returning to the provinces he gave +two lectures at Crosby Hall, which drew from the _Daily Telegraph_ and the +_Standard_ the prediction that he would have a fine career. Then came +seven years of study and of growing success in Glasgow, Manchester, and +Liverpool theatres. And then, the creation of a role in one of +Boucicault's dramas having brought him into greater prominence, he at last +set his foot firmly on the stage of the St. James's, whence he passed +first to the Queen's, later to the Vaudeville, and finally to the Lyceum. + +More than one Parisian must remember the posters with which the actor +Sothern covered all our walls during the Exhibition of 1867, that haunting +vision of Lord Dundreary with his long frock-coat, his hat slightly tilted +over his forehead, and his glass fixed in his eye. In the second, perhaps +it would be more correct to say the third, rank of this company which +visited us, hid Henry Irving. + +There are often two distinct phases of success. The first is that during +which the conquest of one's professional brethren is achieved. Now, one's +professional brethren maintain silence, sometimes with singular unanimity, +upon the talents they have discovered, and thus retard that second period +during which the greater and ultimate public success is at length +attained. Irving was still in the first phase when he played Digby Grand +in James Albery's _Two Roses_. Digby Grand is an impecunious gentleman +who accepts alms with an air of conferring favours,--a singular blend of +pride and baseness, brazen-faced, insolent, a liar and a blackguard. The +opening scene of the piece, in which he induces a landlady who has been +pressing him for rent to offer him a loan of twenty pounds, is so +brilliantly carried through, that it compels one to compare it with the +scene of Don Juan and M. Dimanche. But how far is all the rest of it from +fulfilling the promise of this beginning! From this out we have nothing +but a tumult of words, a confusion of _jeux de scenes_, interrupted here +and there by silly _preciosites_ which are intended to serve as aphorisms. +However, the vogue of the piece was inexhaustible, and such was the taste +of the public, that two or three other actors attracted their attention +more than Irving. On the occasion of the two hundred and ninety-first +performance of _The Two Roses_, he recited "The Dream of Eugene Aram," and +his delivery of it was a revelation. In it, indeed, the scope of the +actor's art was immensely widened--what he actually expressed in his +recital was nothing to what he was able to suggest. With the whole +province of life for his subject, what was most impressive was the glimpse +beyond, into the region of the unseen and the unknown. + +Irving was able not only to impart more meaning to his words than they +expressed in themselves, but he was addicted even to making them +subservient to his own ideas, and of making the public accept his +conception in the face of a text which was in flat contradiction with it. + +At this critical moment of his career a happy chance brought to him the +very piece of all others calculated to bring out his gifts--a piece which +should enable him to depict the wonderful and awful dualism of thought and +language, of a man's outward aspect and his soul within,--this was _The +Bells_, an almost literal translation of Erckmann and Chatrian's _Polish +Jew_. Irving bought the MS. and offered it to his manager, Bateman, who +tried it as a last chance. Irving acted Matthias, and in one evening the +actor of talent became the actor of genius. Clement Scott hurried to his +newspaper, _The Daily Telegraph_, and wrote so enthusiastic an account of +the performance that next morning the editor chaffed him on the subject, +and wanted to know who this Irving might be. In an article in the _Times_, +John Oxenford analysed with much penetration that suggestive power of the +actor, and that striking dualism of which I have spoken. Matthias, for all +that idyllic existence in which everything succeeded with him and smiled +upon him, seemed, said Oxenford, to wear the aspect of one living in a +world of terrors, where all was torture and impending destruction. The +horrors of the second and third acts would not have been intelligible, and +would have missed their effect, if they had not been foreshadowed in the +first by the glances, the tremors, the lapses into silence, the +indescribable atmosphere of fatefulness which seemed, under the bright +morning sunshine, to envelop the murderer as with a shroud. The actor was +to give proof of many other gifts, to traverse triumphantly every province +of his art in the course of his splendid career, but it was by his +psychological suggestiveness, by his engendering of fear, both physical +and mental, that he won his first great theatrical victory. + +_The Bells_ was succeeded by _Charles I._, by Wills. From the Alsatian +inn-keeper to Charles Stuart was a big jump. Irving managed it without +apparent effort. + +It was as though the portrait by Van Dyck had stepped down from its +frame--this stately figure with its cold and lofty aspect, the look of +sadness in the eyes, the lips smiling bitterly under the thin moustache, +the pale veined forehead that bore the seal of destiny. I seem still to +see him, now playing with his children on the grass slopes of Hampton +Court, now crushing Cromwell with his kingly scorn. That phrase of +his--"Who's this rude gentleman?" still rings in my ears. The picture of +Charles clasping little Henriette and her younger brother in his arms in +the heartbreaking farewell scene at the close is still before my eyes.... +Then, in a village graveyard, that more terrible figure takes its place, +the sombre phantom-form of Aram, long and lank, the assassin reasoning +with his remorse. + +In these fruitful years one creation followed another in quick succession, +each excellent, all different. Finally, on October 31, 1874, Irving +appeared as Hamlet. + +This was his Marengo; up to the third act, the battle seemed lost. His +anguish must have been terrible. The audience was mute, frigid, and their +frigidity seemed to increase. The third act produced a complete change. +From the scene with the players and the description of the imaginary +portraits the evening was a continual triumph. The public had before them +a Hamlet they had never seen or even dreamt of; all the Hamlets that had +ever appeared upon the stage seemed to have been assimilated by an +original and powerful temperament, and blended harmoniously into one. _The +Bells_ had been played a hundred and fifty-one times, _Charles I._ eighty +times. _Hamlet_ filled the Lyceum for two hundred nights without +interruption. + +Irving took up _Richelieu_ next, and in it strove victoriously against +memories of Macready. At the close of the performance the house rose at +him--men waved their hats in their enthusiasm in the midst of the wildest +cheering. Such a scene had not been witnessed in an English theatre for +half a century! It proclaimed Irving Kean's successor. As though to +complete the rites of this coronation, the sword which clanked at his side +when he played Richard III. was that which Kean had carried in the same +role, and the ring which shone on his finger was a ring of Garrick's. A +colleague, old Chippendale of the Haymarket, had given him the one; the +other was a present from the Baroness Burdett-Coutts. They formed, as it +were, the insignia of royalty. + +He continued to make himself master of all the great Shakespearian roles, +like a conqueror annexing provinces. Of course, he was not equally good in +all, though to all he brought his understanding and his inspiration, and +to all gave the stamp of his individuality. He sighed and sang of love as +Romeo, railed and mocked at it as Benedick; raged with Othello, trembled +with Macbeth; laid bare, as Wolsey, the inner working of the soul of the +statesman-priest; as Lear, went raving over the desolate heath in the +storm and the darkness of the night. Throughout he has had the +co-operation of Miss Ellen Terry, an actress of the finest and most +delicate talent, whose charm has resisted the passing of the years. Around +them there has grown up a generation of younger actors and actresses, who +to-day adorn the stages of other theatres. + +Irving is to be looked on not merely as an interpreter of Shakespeare. +Hardly less important has been his work in editing the plays for the +modern theatre, and in staging them worthily: at the Lyceum he has given +them a setting than which the great dramatist, had he lived in our days +(and read Ruskin), could have wished for nothing better. He has told us in +a few lines, which I regard as the expression of his mature judgment, the +result of thirty years of theory and practice, what sort of staging is +required for masterpieces. _The mise en scene_, he tells us, should not +give the spectator any separate impression, it should be in keeping merely +with the impression of the piece. It should envelop the performers in an +atmosphere, provide them with suitable surroundings, afford the special +kind of lighting that is required for the action. Its role is a negative +one. It should introduce no incongruity, no discordant note; that is all +that is required. To attempt more is a mistake, and is apt to do injury to +the general effect. Whenever I have been to the Lyceum I have found this +programme strictly adhered to. + +The restoration of Shakespeare's text, however, was a still more important +achievement. Everyone congratulated him on his good sense in freeing us +from Colley Cibber's version of _Richard III._ He continued the good work +with all the other dramas he took up; and we have to thank him to-day for +an "acting edition" of the Shakespearian masterpieces,--an actable +Shakespeare that is yet a real Shakespeare. The principle which he has +followed in this task may be summarised, I think, as follows:--Omissions, +often; transpositions, sometimes; interpolations, never. + +I am far from pretending that Irving as an actor is without fault, that he +is not liable to go wrong like everyone else, that the richness of his +artistic nature attains to universality. There can be no doubt that he is +better as Richard III. than as Macbeth, as Benedick than as Romeo. The +first time you see him, his play of feature seems exaggerated, his motions +jerky and irregular. A critic has compared his gait in _Hamlet_ to that +of a man hurrying over a ploughed field; another critic has found in that +curious gesture, which periodically throws up his shoulders and draws his +head down into his collar-bone, a resemblance to the motion of a savage +making ready to spring upon his foe. His elocution is far from being +perfect,--a fact he has recognised himself, for he has worked hard to +correct the defects of delivery which have been charged against him. But +these are slight shortcomings of which a year of technical study at the +outset of his career would have freed him completely. + +A more serious drawback, to my mind, is that he is too great for many of +his roles, that he is out at elbow in them, so to speak. He himself has +told us that the first duty of an actor is to fit his part, to _be_ the +character, to personate; and, it must be admitted, that in following this +principle he has given proof of a versatility unsurpassed by Garrick +himself: yet it would seem that the greater he has grown by study and +thought, (with the growth of his years and of his fame,) it has become +more and more difficult for him to squeeze himself into the smaller +personalities he has had to represent upon the stage, to sink in them that +magnetic individuality of his own which constitutes his power, and to +which he owes his success. Just as that young actor called out "Burbadge" +instead of "Richard," we also, in Irving's case, forget the role, and see +only the actor; and the play assumes for us the character of an admirable +lesson in the art of recitation. + +Although he reverences the great actors who have preceded him, Irving +takes but little note of tradition. His method is essentially individual +to himself, and he does not hesitate to recommend this method to all +members of his profession, even beginners. + +It may be said to have three phases, involving three successive processes. +First, a patient and conscientious study of the text: it is essential to +understand the author's meaning. When this has been mastered, you may +trust to your instinct, to inspiration. Then, amongst the ideas thus +discovered, you make your selection, of the good ones by a species of +mental process which will enable you to reproduce them artificially at +will. + +Thus it is that Irving passes, smiling, by Diderot's paradox about the +actor. Diderot is right, of course, when he says that the actor does not +abandon himself on the stage to the promptings of inspiration; but he is +wrong in concluding that the whole business of acting is mechanical. As +Talma well expressed it in speaking of his own case, the emotions +represented by an actor, and communicated through him to us, are often +worked up from old experiences really met with and stored by study as +material. But shall we exact from him that he should have a real craving +to deceive when he impersonates a hypocrite? or that he should be in love +with the actress who has to enact a love scene with him? or thirst for +blood when he accomplishes a stage murder? These violent and often +contrary emotions--supposing, that is, that any one man should be capable +of them--would paralyse the actor instead of inspiring him. We expect of +him not that he should himself experience personally all these passions, +but that he should understand and be able to portray them. What culture, +though--what a combination of gifts, does this portrayal require and call +into play! An actor may be in turn, painter, sculptor, poet, musician, +psychologist, moralist, historian, and yet be inadequately equipped for +his calling. + +Does one go to the theatre to see life depicted upon the stage, or, on the +contrary, to escape from life and forget it? Irving takes up a position +half-way between the realist and that of the ultra-idealist. What one +should see at the theatre is indeed life, but an intenser life, with +emotions that are keener, a pulse that beats more quickly,--a life in +which the potentialities of men and women are at their full, and in which +there is a standard of good and evil to give a moral conclusion, a lesson +in the art of living. "Get the working-man to go to the theatre," he +declares; there is no better way of keeping him out of the public-house. +The theatre should be really a school, should teach the young how to live, +and reconcile the weary and the sad to their existence, by setting before +them the ideal poetic justice which hovers over their heads. + +This is the substance of the great actor's teaching, as set forth by him +on many occasions,--I shall not say in defence of his profession: the +theatre, he has declared proudly, no longer needs to be defended--but +rather in glorification of it. Quite recently, in an address to the Royal +Society, in February 1895, he demonstrated that acting was truly one of +the Fine Arts. Taking a definition of Taine's as his starting-point, he +dealt with that great writer's opinions on the same plane of thought, in a +style that was no less brilliant than clear and concise. Irving has too +keen an appreciation of beauty of form not to be conscious of the value +lent to his ideas by his method of expressing them. If he was not a writer +born, he has made himself a writer; his sentences are marked by a purity, +a nobility, a lofty and serene simplicity which communicates to the reader +the same spell his acting has wrought upon the spectator. His first +lectures were full of good things, happy phrases and observations that set +one thinking. In his later ones he has taken up the philosophy of his art, +and has revealed the tireless ambition of an intelligence ever striving +after higher things. To-day it has reached the summit. The royal decree, +therefore, which entitled him "Sir Henry" in May 1895, could not have come +at a more fitting moment. When this favour is bestowed on an official who +has grown old in service, or on a major-general who can no longer mount a +horse, the world takes no notice; this everyday distinction dazzles only +"my lady's" dressmaker and the tradesmen with whom she deals. In Irving's +case, it is an historical occasion, an epoch-making event. He is the first +actor to be invested with the emblem of rank. What is for him a reality is +a possibility for every actor. Thus he has raised them in being raised +above them. + +Irving seems to me--may I venture to say it without seeming unappreciative +of the excellent and even great actors of whom our own country can +boast?--to be pre-eminent in his art, the leader of his profession. He +compels this admission by the beauty and unity of his life, by the +splendid strength of his vocation, by the magnificent variety of his +gifts, by his intelligent feeling for all the other arts and for the ideas +which belong to the spirit of his time. And, on the other hand, by the +slow growth, the gradual development of his talent, by his spirit of +independence and initiative, tempered by regard for the past, he is one of +the incarnations of his race, one of those men in whom to-day we may see +most clearly the features of the English character. He has failed in +nothing,--he has not even failed to make a fortune. And in respect to +this, should anyone charge it against him as a fault, he has given his +defence in a saying which I shall quote in conclusion as a finishing touch +to his portrait:--"The drama must succeed as a business, if it is not to +fail as an art." And in truth, does Shakespeare cease to be Shakespeare +because in Irving's hand he is also a mine of gold? + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +Is it well to imitate Shakespeare?--The Death of the Classical +Drama--Herman Merivale and the _White Pilgrim_--Wills and his Plays: +_Charles the First_, _Claudian_--Tennyson as a Dramatist; he comes too +soon and too late--Tennyson and the Critics--_The Falcon_, _The Promise of +May_, _The Cup_, _Becket_, _Queen Mary_, _Harold_. + + +Irving's personality has filled the preceding pages so completely that I +have been unable to find space in which to do justice to those men and +women who, near at hand, or from afar, have helped to uphold the Colossus +upon the stage. Ellen Terry, first of all, who has not only been an +incarnation, delicate, moving, impassioned, of Shakespeare's heroines, but +who, even more perhaps than her illustrious colleague, has in her pure and +sweet elocution set the poet's dream to music. From America have come Mary +Anderson, whose statuesque attitudes are well remembered; and, more +recently, Ada Rehan, who gave us so modern and so alluring a Rosalind. It +was possible for a critic to declare,--speaking of the vogue towards which +everything seems to have worked,--that of all the dramatists of the day, +Shakespeare was the most successful; adding with truth, that, having been +brought into fashion in the theatre, Shakespeare in his turn had brought +the theatre into fashion. + +But is the resuscitation of Shakespeare productive of nothing but good? +Has it not been accompanied by certain drawbacks which are still evident, +and by certain dangers all of which have not been successfully surmounted? +One has taken to doubting whether Shakespeare be really the best of guides +for a new generation of dramatic writers, especially when one has studied +closely what the imitation of Shakespeare involves in practice. To imitate +Shakespeare is to copy in the most superficial manner his locutions and +turns of phrase, his complicated plots, his successions of changing +scenes; to mingle prose and verse, and to indulge in puns and _coups de +theatre_; above all, to assume certain mannerisms that are held to bear +the stamp of the master. To come near him, on the other hand, it is not +merely prose and verse that must alternate, but the realism and the poetry +of which these are but the outward signs; it is not puns and _coups de +theatre_ that are essential, but the power to divert and to move, which is +quite another matter. Shakespeare's spirit is not to be assimilated; this +is impossible to a man of our time: one can but dress oneself up in the +cast-off garment which served as a covering to his genius. This garment +does not suit us,--it is either too long or too short, or both together. +One dresses up as Shakespeare for an hour, and resembles the great man +about as much as a lawyer's clerk, masquerading _en mousquetaire_, +resembles d'Artagnan, or as the Turk of carnival time resembles the +genuine Turk smoking his pipe outside his cafe in Stamboul. This +tremendous model, all whose aspects we cannot see because it goes beyond +the orbit of our perspective glass, oppresses and paralyses our +intelligence: did one understand it, one would not be much the better off. +It would be sheer folly to wish the modern English dramatist not to read +his Shakespeare, for it is in Shakespeare that he will find the English +character in all its length and breadth; let him absorb and steep himself +in Shakespeare by all means: but let him then forget Shakespeare and be of +his own time, let him not walk our streets of to-day in the doublet and +hose of 1600. The choice has to be made between Shakespeare and life, for +in literature, as in morals, it is not possible to serve two masters. It +is possible that Shakespeare has been, and is still, the great obstacle to +a free development of a national drama. Nor is there anything to be +astonished at in this. The Shakespeare whom we know could not have been +born when he was had there been another Shakespeare two and a half +centuries before. + +These are _a priori_ considerations, but they are confirmed by the +experience of the last twenty years. These years have seen the apotheosis +of Shakespeare and the death of the classical drama. Amongst the last who +tried to galvanise it into life, I hardly know what others to mention +besides Wills and Herman Merivale. In the drama entitled _The White +Pilgrim_, Merivale achieved some really beautiful passages: in them may be +felt the first thrill of those sombre and impalpable reveries, come +towards us with the cool breath of the North, in which we find a balm for +our fever. As for Wills, for a moment he gave rise to hopes. There was +room for false expectations as to the future of his career. He was, says +Mr. Archer, "so strong and so weak, so manly and so puerile, so poetic and +so commonplace, so careful and so slovenly." His Bohemian life, his +impassioned character, his hasty methods of production, added to the +illusion, and gave him, in the distance, a look of genius. But it was a +misleading look. I have seen two of his pieces, _Charles the First_ and +_Claudian_. The first called up on the stage--for the last time +doubtless--that legend of the martyr king which the historical labours of +Gardiner have shivered into atoms. And here is the story of Claudian. A +man who has killed a monk falls for this crime under a curse which, +instead of attaching itself to him, attaches itself to all those who cross +his path. He does evil unwittingly, when he would fain do good; he brings +about the death of those he loves. In the end he is saved. So that this +horrible waste of human lives, this torrent of tears and blood, these +sufferings, agonies, despairs, all serve but to gain a seat for a +white-robed criminal at the banquet of Life Eternal. "In order that the +world may be Claudian's purgatory, it must first be the hell of an entire +generation." Thus it is with all the pieces of Wills; they are founded +upon conceptions which crumble away upon analysis, and the versification +is too poor to veil or redeem the weakness of the dramatic idea. + +Despite the efforts of Henry Arthur Jones and some other living writers, +tragic verse, blank verse, the impression of which I have tried to +characterise, is dead. Were there still authors to work in it, there would +yet lack actors to speak it, and I do not know who would venture to chant +it after Ellen Terry. + +One name, however, comes to mind, a great name which it would be most +unjust to overlook in this review of the contemporary drama,--the name of +Tennyson. Mr. Archer has remarked that Tennyson, so fortunate in his life +as a poet, was inopportune in his career as a dramatist. He wrote his +plays too late and too early: too early for the public, and too late for +his talent. As a matter of fact, he was sixty-six when he published _Queen +Mary_, the first in date of the six pieces which constitute his dramatic +output. That was twenty years ago, and the education of theatre-goers was +far from being as advanced as it is now. It was not their fault if they +brought to the poet a taste somewhat coarsened by the success of _Our +Boys_ and the _Pink Dominoes_, and a soul closed to the higher enjoyments +of the imagination. + +The actors did their duty, and even more than their duty, to the Laureate; +it was the critics--and I am borne out in this by the most eminent of +their number,--it was the critics who decided the fate of Tennyson's +plays; if they did not exactly condemn him unheard, at least they listened +to him under the sway of prejudice. I shall borrow the sardonic expression +of Mr. Archer: the critics were prepared to be disappointed--it was for +this they came. What business had this old man to start on a new career, +and a career requiring all the powers of youth? What induced him to +believe that he had developed faculties at an age at which it is more +usual to repeat and re-read oneself? Had a man any right to be a success +in two trades at once? Was there not a law against this kind of pluralism, +tacitly agreed upon by critics, and applied by them with remorseless +rigour? For the beauty of these methods of reasoning, it was necessary +that Tennyson should fail upon the stage; therefore he failed. + +But as this check was an unfair one, he recovered from it, and his +theatrical work, even when it is mediocre, even when it is bad, belongs to +the living drama. + +I myself have fallen into the common error. I spoke of Tennyson in 1885 as +if the tomb had closed over him already. I may have been right in saying +that in the garden of the poet, upon which winter had fallen, certain +flowers would bloom no more. But what I did not perceive then, and what +to-day is manifest to me and to many others, is the fact that the latter +days of the poet not only preserved some of his early graces, but brought +out for us qualities which his youth had not known. He remained in touch +with the mind of the humble until the very end. Moreover, he revealed +himself a master in the art of giving expression in verse to the social +and religious discussions which carry one away. He has displayed in his +theatrical work an historical sense and a dramatic sense of the highest +order, and if these two gifts have clashed sometimes to the point of +cancelling each other, their combination at certain more fortunate moments +had issue in some precious fragments of masterpieces. The slightest of all +his pieces is _The Falcon_. The action takes place in some vague region in +an Italy of romance; neither the scene nor the century is defined. It is +like a tale by Boccaccio, but by a Boccaccio who is ingenuous and pure. +Federigo, an impoverished gentleman, is in love, at a distance and without +hope, with the rich and beautiful widow Monna Giovanna. His greatest +possession, his pride and his joy, his only means, too, of securing a +subsistence, is a wonderful falcon which he himself has trained for +hunting. One morning Monna Giovanna pays him an unexpected visit, and, +ignorant of the neediness of her neighbour, invites herself +unceremoniously to lunch. Federigo, whose larder is empty, kills his +favourite bird, that he may serve it up for the lady. It happens that it +was this very falcon that the lady had come to beg for, to fall in with +the fancy of a sick child. Federigo is obliged to acknowledge the +sacrifice to which hospitality and her love impelled him, and Monna +Giovanna is so keenly touched by it that she falls, and for ever, into his +arms. + +When _The Falcon_ was put before the public in 1879 at the St. James's +Theatre, John Hare, who is a manager of cultured taste as well as an +excellent comedian, had mounted it with the utmost care, and had given it +a _mise en scene_ that was at once realistic and poetic. Federigo and +Monna Giovanna were impersonated by the Kendals, and those who saw Madge +Robertson's performance think of it as one thinks of some painter's +masterpiece seen in the picture galleries of Italy or Germany. In mere +outward form, her Giovanna was a pendant to her Galatea. But neither the +charm of the scenery, nor the perfection of the acting, nor the music of +the verse, could obtain a long life for the piece. It was not to be +expected that there would be more than a few hundreds of elect spectators +to delight in this delicate trifle, the joy of an hour, the enthusiasm of +an evening. From the morrow, Cockneydom was obliged to recapture the +house, and call out for its wonted entertainment. The critics made common +cause with Cockneydom, but from reasons less foreign to art. + +They pointed out that if there is any subject at all in _The Falcon_, it +is apparently Federigo's sacrifices. Now this subject, such as it is, is +not dealt with. Two words in an aside to his servant, a whispered order, +that is all that leads up to and justifies the death-sentence on the bird. +Even more deceptive than the _dejeuner_ offered to Monna Giovanna, the +_menu_ presented by Lord Tennyson to his spectators was composed but of +delicate _hors d'oeeuvres_, and there was not enough in them for healthy +appetites. + + * * * * * + +_The Promise of May_ had a worse fate than _The Falcon_. It failed +outright. A certain section of the public pretended to believe that the +poet spoke through the mouth of his hero when he denounces, with so much +bitterness and so indiscriminately, the principles and prejudices upon +which society has its base. These spectators were sadly wanting both in +patience and in intelligence. Harold's theories are answered in the play. +When he has been declaiming upon the evil that religions have wrought upon +man, Dora does her best to show him the good influences they have wielded. +Whereas he prophesies the imminent and universal abolition of the bonds of +marriage, Dora sets forth with simplicity, yet not without grace and +feeling, her ideal of a perfect union of man and wife. "And yet I had once +a vision of a pure and perfect marriage, where the man and the woman, only +differing as the stronger and the weaker, should walk hand-in-hand +together down this valley of tears, as they call it so truly, to the grave +at the bottom, and lie down there together in the darkness which would +seem but for a moment, to be wakened again together by the light of the +resurrection, and no more partings for ever and ever." + +In the first part of the play, too, when Harold pulls down for Eve a +branch of an apple-tree in blossom, this farmer's daughter looks upon it +sadly. "Next year," she says, "it will bear no fruit,"--a moving piece of +symbolism; one likes to see a poet condemning in this way the morality of +the impulse which, in plucking the flower, forbids it to bring forth the +fruit, and destroys the very seeds of the future. + +The comparative success of _The Cup_ at the Lyceum surprises me less than +it does Mr. Archer. I see no need to seek the secret of this success in +the grace of Ellen Terry, or in the splendid scenery of Diana's Temple. +_The Cup_ has certain qualities which were calculated to please the +general public. The subject is taken from Plutarch's _De Claris +Mulieribus_, and from a passage which had already suggested a tragedy to a +Frenchman, a German, and an Italian. It is possible that, without being +quite conscious of it, Tennyson adopted to a certain point the tone of the +original author and the manner of his predecessors. He was less English, +less Shakespearian, less himself, in this piece than in his other dramatic +works. The dialogue is rapid and effective; the characters do not give +themselves up to poetical fancies; instead of formulating theories, they +express sentiments that are in no way complex or strange. One of them, +Synorix, is interesting. Except for the Don Juanism which seems to impart +to him too modern a note, this double-faced type, half Roman, half +barbarian, whose intelligence has been sharpened but whose passions have +not been extinguished by civilisation, is an exceptional creature, a sort +of monster, who is conscious of his intellectual superiority and his moral +decay; he unites these two qualities in a sadness that has about it +something that seems great. + +The attractiveness of this character was what made a failure of Tennyson's +piece; the English poet avoids the subject which Plutarch puts before him, +and which Thomas Corneille and Montanelli had seized upon; the latter, +cleverly and with success, despite the inflation of his style. This +subject lies in the action of Camma, widow of the Tetrarch of Galatia, +whom Synorix, with the aid of the Romans, has killed and supplanted. +Synorix loves her, and is anxious to make her his wife. Camma, seeing no +escape from this odious marriage, pretends to assent to it. After the +sacred rites she has to put her lips to the same cup as Synorix before the +altar of Diana. She gives him death to drink from it, and drinks death +from it herself. That this _denouement_ should awaken no objections in our +mind, it would be essential that we should have been brought to hate +Synorix as Camma hates him. Now, Tennyson seems to have done everything in +his power to minimise the repulsiveness of the character. He has woven +round him the fascination of a noble sadness, the palliation of a great +love; has in some sort constrained him to kill his rival, by importing +into the action an element of justifiable self-defence. Not content with +this, he depicts Camma's husband as an unintelligent brute, who ill +deserves her regrets and her sacrifice. + +It may be added, that of the real drama--the conflict of emotion in +Camma's soul--we know nothing until the last scene. A _coup de theatre_ +does not make a play, and Mr. Archer is doubtless right in placing the +work of Montanelli above that of Tennyson; but these defects +notwithstanding, I think _The Cup_ would be accorded the same favourable +reception from the public again now that it enjoyed in 1881. It bears a +distinct resemblance to our French tragedies, in its dignity, its +propriety, in the seriousness, the freedom from any comic element, by +which it is marked, by the consistency in the characters, its continuity +of tone and unity of action,--qualities which undoubtedly give more +pleasure, whatever may be said to the contrary, than the most faithful +imitation of the contrasts and inconsistencies of life. + +Had he written nothing but _The Falcon_, _The Cup_, and _The Promise of +May_, Tennyson would hold but a very low place among play-writers. If he +is to live as a dramatist, it must be by his three historical plays, +_Queen Mary_, _Harold_, and _Becket_. + +These dramas, it has been declared, were bound to be inferior, even before +they ever saw the light, to the historical dramas of the age of Elizabeth, +whose aspect and character they recalled so completely; for whereas the +histories of Shakespeare and his contemporaries were hewn out of the old +Chronicles which, almost equally with reminiscences, preserve the vivacity +of personal impressions, and something, as it were, of the warmth of life, +Tennyson's dramas are taken from "History," properly so called, and +"History" is a serious scientific person who studies life by dissecting +it, who is addicted to discussion rather than to the telling of tales, and +who substitutes modern judgments for ancient passions. The objection is +more plausible than real. First of all, this definition of History, though +true enough of a Guizot, a Hallam, or a Lecky, is quite inapplicable to a +Carlyle, a Michelet, or a Taine. + +In reading Freeman and Froude, was Tennyson less in touch with the soul of +the past than Shakespeare was in making his way through the cold and often +tedious pages of Holinshed? Moreover, even had Froude been as sententious +and frigid as he was in reality picturesque and impassioned, Tennyson's +own faculties would have made good these defects. + +It may be well at this point to attempt to do justice to the delicacy and +quite exceptional strength of Tennyson's sense of history. I must explain +clearly what I mean by sense of history. I do not refer to the critical +faculty of the historian, but to the gift bestowed upon few, of living +over again in imagination the emotions of a century long gone to dust. It +was thus that Michelet was present at the doing to death of Joan of Arc; +Macaulay at the flight of James II. and at the trial of Warren Hastings; +Carlyle at the taking of the Bastille, at the return from Varennes, and at +the battle of Marston Moor. Had the men and the scenes been really painted +upon their retina, the effect upon the brain could not have been stronger. +This intellectual vision of theirs is worth a hundred times more than the +actual physical vision of such men as Holinshed and Ayala. + +This rare gift belonged to Tennyson, and took in him that feminine +acuteness which was in harmony with all his poetical faculties. As +evidence of this, take the by-play in his historical dramas,--that is to +say, all that is not essential in them, the mere accessories, +illustrations of manners, minute traits of character, scraps of history; +for instance, the account of the marriage of Philip and Mary, and that of +the execution of Lady Jane Grey by Bagenhall, in _Queen Mary_, and in +_Becket_ the sarcasm directed against the Church of Rome by Walter Map, +the witty precursor of the bitter and sombre Langland. + +A Bulwer or a Tom Taylor may be able to cut out bits from the Chronicles, +and introduce historic utterances into their flabby and declamatory prose, +but beyond and underneath these words, will they be able, like Tennyson, +to set before us _un etat d'ame_, and plunge us into the depth of the life +of olden days? + +I am fully aware, of course, that this is not everything, or rather that +it is nothing, unless the poet possesses also the dramatic faculty. Is +there a dramatic idea underlying _Becket_, _Queen Mary_, and _Harold_? I +shall reply after the manner of the Gentlemen of the Jury: No, to the +first question; Yes, to the second and third. + +It is true that _Becket_ achieved a startling success in the summer of +1892. But three-fourths of the success were due to Irving. Those who have +been long familiar with the great actor, know how episcopical he +is--hieratical, pontifical. Mediaeval asceticism is one of the forms of +life which his artistic personality fills most perfectly, and fits into +most easily; I know of only one other man who could have represented +Becket nearly as well, and that was Cardinal Manning. It was well worth +one's while to travel far, and put up with hours of boredom, to be present +at that symbolical game of chess, in which the struggle between the bishop +and the king foreshadowed the whole piece; to hear that absorbing dialogue +in which Becket recounts to his confidential friend his tragic career and +his prophetic dreams, and that stormy discussion, too, at Northampton, +when the archbishop puts his signature to the famous constitutions and +then cancels it; and to witness the scene of the murder. A scene which +follows history, step by step, and which, by the way, might have been +carried through by dumb show without words at all. + +Those who saw Irving, mitred and crozier in hand, totter under the blow, +and fall upon the altar steps, whilst the chanting of the monks came in +gusts from the church above--mingled with the cries of the people beating +against the door, and the rumbling of the thunder shaking the great +edifice to its foundation--experienced one of the strongest emotions any +spectacle ever gave. + +And yet there is no drama in the piece, for a drama involves a situation +which develops and changes, a plot which works out. The duel between the +king and prelate in the play, no less than in our history books, is merely +a succession of indecisive encounters. The metamorphosis of the +courtier-soldier into the bishop-martyr is indicated hardly at all by the +poet. And what is one to say of the love idyll appended to the historical +drama, in spite of history, in spite of the drama itself? All Ellen +Terry's tact did not suffice to save this insipid Rosamund. The +complications surrounding the mysterious retreat of this young woman +savour more of farce even than of melodrama, and as for the facetious +details by which this episode is enlivened, they form so common and flat a +piece of comic relief, that one listens to them ashamed and ill at ease. I +may observe silence on this point, in order to avoid the ungrateful +function of ridiculing a man of genius, but I cannot refrain from +protesting against the irreparable error Tennyson committed in dragging +Becket into this shady intrigue, and giving him the king's mistress to +care for at the very time when he is holding the king in check with so +much hardihood. + +I have not the same objections to make against _Queen Mary_ and _Harold_. +In the first piece, the human psychological drama, which is half submerged +in history, but not so as to be out of sight, is the development of the +character and of the sad destiny of this unfortunate queen; the road, +strewn first with flowers and then paved with sharp-edged stones and lined +with thorns, along which she passed, in so brief a period, from a +protracted youth to a premature old age, from irrepressible joyousness to +agonising solitude, misfortune, and despair. Here was a life thrice +bankrupt. As queen, she dreamt of the greatness of her country, and left +it under the blow of a national humiliation, the loss of Calais. As a +Catholic, she strove to restore her religion, and, far from succeeding, +she dug a chasm between Rome and her people which the centuries have not +sufficed to fill. As a woman, she loved a man of marble, an animated +stone: her heart was crushed by him, and broke. She was to learn before +her death the failure of all her projects; she read contempt and disgust +in the eyes of the man she worshipped, the man to whom she had offered +human sacrifices to win his favour. This is the drama Tennyson sketched +out, if he did not quite complete it, in _Queen Mary_. + +The subject of Harold stands out more clearly, in stronger relief. It is +the struggle of religious faith against patriotism and ambition. All the +feelings that are at variance, are indicated with a power worthy of the +great master of the drama in the successive scenes which take place at +the Court of William when Harold is a prisoner. After the political aspect +of things has been set forth by the old Norman lord, there comes the +episode in which Wulfuoth, Harold's young brother, describes to him the +slow tortures of the prison-life, the living death of the prisoner, +deprived of all that he loves best,--of the sight of the green fields, of +the blue of sky and sea, as of the society of men; his name gone out of +memory, eaten away by oblivion, as he, in his dungeon, is being eaten away +by the loathsome vermin of the earth. + +When Harold has yielded, it is moving to see him bow down with Edith in a +spirit of Christian resignation, and sacrifice, as ransom of his violated +oath, his personal happiness to his duty as a king. The dilemma changes, +and its two new aspects are personified by two women, whose rivalry has in +it nothing of the banality, or of the vulgar outbursts of jealousy, to +which we are too often treated in the theatre. + +Edith gives up the hero to Aldwyth while he lives; dead, she reclaims him, +with a nobility and pride of tone that thrill one. + +These two dramas--I dare not say two masterpieces--set in a framework of +history, which in itself is infinitely precious, form the legacy left by +the great lyrist to the theatre of his country. + +A pious hand, to extricate these two dramas from the rest, and so let in +air and light upon their essential lines; a great actor, to understand +and incarnate Harold; a great actress, to throw herself into the character +of Mary,--and Tennyson would take his proper place amongst the dramatists. + + NOTE.--I have decided to make no reference here to the dramas of + Browning or Mr. Swinburne. These belong rather to the history of + poetry than that of the theatre. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +The Three Publics--The Disappearance of Burlesque and Decadence of +Pantomime--Increasing Vogue of Farce and Melodrama--Improvement in +Acting--The Influence of our French Actors--The "Old" Critics and the +"New"--James Mortimer and his Two "Almavivas"--Mr. William Archer's Ideas +and Role--The Vicissitudes of Adaptation. + + +Is it not a sign of the times that the Lyceum should have been filled +through two consecutive months, in the midst of the heat of summer, by a +reverent crowd, come to listen to and to applaud _Becket_? + +Attribute it, if you will, partly to Irving, partly to fashion, the fact +remains, that fifty or sixty thousand persons showed a keen, a passionate +interest in this struggle between Mind and Power--between the National +Throne and the Roman Priesthood--resuscitated by a poet. Many other +symptoms go with this one, and confirm it. + +I do not wish to assert that low tastes and vulgarity have gone out of +London: nothing could be more untrue. Never has the _bete humaine_ been so +completely at large there; never has sensualism, since the distant days of +George IV., and those more distant still of Charles II., held its way so +unblushingly. But these tastes are catered for in certain special +resorts. Every evening in the year more than thirty music halls spread out +before the multitude a banquet of indelicacies that are but slightly +veiled, and of flesh scarcely veiled at all. So much the worse for +morality. So much the better for art. For, this being so, nothing is +looked for in the theatres except emotion and ideas. All the ideas may not +be right, nor all the emotions healthy. No matter. The _bete humaine_ is +outside the door. + +I have told of the initial vogue of burlesque at the Royalty and the +Strand. This vogue was later to bring fortune to a larger and more +luxurious theatre, the Gaiety, under Nellie Farren, as the successor to +Mrs. Bancroft, whose former roles she vulgarised to a remarkable degree. +If you mention her name before an elderly "man about town," who was young +and went the pace from 1865 to 1875, you will set his eye aflame. To-day +you hear no more of Nellie Farren, no more of burlesque. + +The operetta, too, is vegetating; the pantomime serves hardly to amuse the +children. Of inferior dramatic forms, two still survive, and have even +extended their clientele. Farce has called for elbow-room; it takes three +acts now, instead of one, to spread itself in. Melodrama, which used to +inhabit only outlandish regions, chiefly to the East and South,--districts +of London whose geography was hardly known,--at the Surrey, the Victoria, +the Grecian, the Standard, returned once again to the charge. It holds +sway at Drury Lane, the Adelphi, and the Princess's. In that immense +conglomeration of human beings, of which London boasts, there is a third +public for these two popular forms of the drama, an uncultured but +respectable public, which is to be confounded neither with the public of +the music halls nor with that of the great theatres in which the literary +drama and the light comedy are produced. The persisting, and even growing, +popularity of farce and melodrama, is not a disquieting symptom. These +forms meet mental requirements that are primitive, but quite legitimate. +It is hardly necessary to prove that it is a good thing to make people +laugh, and that this laugh is a beginning of their education. Those who +despise the absurdities of melodrama do not reflect that the very +acceptance of these absurdities reveals an idealising instinct in the +masses which people of culture often lack. + +When dealing with Irving, I asked the question, so often discussed, +whether we go to the theatre to see a representation of life, or to forget +life and seek relief from it. Melodrama solves this question, and shows +that both theories are right, by giving satisfaction to both desires, in +that it offers the extreme of realism in scenery and language together +with the most uncommon sentiments and events. These multitudes who delight +in the plays of R. Buchanan and G. R. Sims, or even--to descend a degree +lower--of Merritt and Pettitt, often pass quite naturally to Shakespeare, +for there is a melodrama in every drama of Shakespeare's; and were it not +for the archaism of the language, this melodrama would thrill the people +to-day, in 1895, as it did in 1595. + +Melodrama does not lack its moral, but the moral is always incomplete, in +that it is the issue of an accident. A foot-bridge over a torrent breaks +under the steps of the villain; a piece of wall comes down and shatters +him; a boiler bursts, and blows him to atoms. These people should be +taught that a criminal's punishment ought to be the natural outcome of his +own misdeeds. Will they ever be brought to understand? If not, at least +their children will, and will take their seats beside us in the same +places of entertainment. But in their place, new strata of uncultured +spectators will appear, who will continue to call out for melodrama. + +As for the literary drama and for comedy, whose destinies I am here +following, they have been cultivated only by the Lyceum, the Haymarket, +the Garrick, the St. James's, the Court, and the Comedy; I should add, +perhaps, the Criterion, where, under the management of that excellent +actor, Charles Wyndham, they have often found a home. The _personnel_ of +these theatres presents a remarkably distinguished body of actors and +actresses, ceaselessly recruited and strengthened. We have seen the +advances that have been made by the profession as regards its material +well-being, its personal dignity, and social status. It has made a yet +more notable advance in the matter of intelligence. To what is this due? +To observation, to study, to that striving after improvement by which +individuals, and classes, and communities are set in movement and kept +going. Twenty or twenty-five years ago a manager's first question of a +girl coming to him for an engagement would be--"Can you sing? Can you +dance? Have you got good legs?" To-day his first requirement would be that +she should have intelligence. + +English actors and actresses owe much to ours. Sarah Bernhardt especially, +and now Rejane, have exerted an influence so decided that it might be made +the subject of a separate study; and the visits of the Comedie Francaise +are regarded in England as events. Clement Scott, in his _Thirty Years at +the Play_, tells, as only a genuine playgoer could, of the improvised +performance given by our comedians at the Crystal Palace, after the +banquet given to them by the theatrical world of London. That evening +Favart and Delaunay played _On ne badine pas avec l'Amour_ before the +keenest and most impressionable of "pits," composed exclusively of actors +and authors. When, at the _denouement_, there was heard the sound of a +fall behind the scenes and of a muffled cry, and Favart appeared, pallid +to the lips, and rushed across the stage, like a whirlwind of despair, +crying out, "_Elle est morte! Adieu Perdican!_"--so exquisite was the +sense of anguish, that the audience forgot to applaud, and there was a +second of strange stupor, of respectful silence, as if in the presence of +some real catastrophe: the finest tribute ever paid to histrionic talent. +I should not be surprised if that evening marked a date in the career of +more than one English actor. + +Dramatic criticism had at last emerged from that lowly and precarious +stage of existence in which I have shown it in the first part of this +study. It had now the independence and intelligence which were required to +enable it to aid in the movement which was shaping, and even to take a +large part in it. When the history of the English stage of the nineteenth +century comes to be written, place must be reserved in it for men like +Dutton Cook, Moy Thomas, Clement Scott, and all those who, having made +their first appearance during the years of drought and famine, have led +the community of critics, and with it the whole of the people of Israel, +out of the land of bondage. It is not so long since the critic sold his +soul for an advertisement; since Chatterton, who, from being a theatrical +attendant, had become the master of three theatres, and who suffered his +toadies to call him the "Napoleon of the Theatrical World," would fain +have had Clement Scott, of the _Weekly Despatch_, dismissed from his post, +and presumed to deny him the _entree_ to his theatres, and even to refuse +his money at the ticket-office; since the actor who had been criticised +appealed to the jury, and the jury, being composed of business men, and +looking at the case always from a business standpoint, decided invariably +in the actor's favour;--for the truer the adverse criticism, the more +injury it did to its object. + +Truly, there were some hard years to weather. Perhaps one of the men to +whom criticism owes its emancipation most is James Mortimer, the founder +of the _London Figaro_. An American by birth, Mortimer lived for many +years in Paris; he was known to Napoleon III., and it was in the palace of +St. Cloud that I made his acquaintance. He possessed a thorough knowledge +of our drama, no less than of our politics, and when his newspaper, by +reason of the withdrawal of certain financial support, from being a daily, +became a weekly or bi-weekly, Mortimer gave plenty of room and plenty of +freedom to criticism. He not only opened his columns to Clement Scott and +William Archer, but, far from disclaiming connection with them in cases of +complaint, he backed them up sturdily, and I have seen him, with his hat +on the side of his head, staring boldly at a gang who hooted at him as he +entered the theatre. The gallant and witty little journal has lived its +life; Mortimer himself, since that time, has fallen upon hard times in his +career as publisher. It is not the less one's duty to accord him, under +the eye of French theatre-goers, the tribute due to him, and paid to him +by his old colleagues; so that, having undertaken the toil, he should now +carry some of the honour, the victory being won and the barbarian driven +from the theatre. + +The critics have often made mistakes since that time, have erred in their +judgments, have condemned good pieces and glorified bad ones, have +pandered to vanity and spite, have backed up speculators and cliques, have +abused their new power, and fallen back to their old feebleness; but, on +the whole, dramatic criticism in England is worth more to-day than it was +yesterday, and this must content us--this is as much as we have any right +to expect. + +_The London Figaro_ was published in a mean little shop near Old Temple +Bar, facing the site where the Law Courts were to be erected. Two writers +in succession undertook the theatrical chronicle, and signed it with the +pseudonym of "Almaviva." The reader is already acquainted with the real +names of "Almaviva I." and "Almaviva II."; he has encountered them several +times in these pages. Clement Scott and William Archer had only a +difference of a few years between them, but they represented in their +profession two periods, schools, temperaments, that were absolutely +opposed. Scott was the critic of the Robertsonian era; Archer is the +critic of the drama of to-day, and to a certain point of the drama of +to-morrow. + +Mr. Archer's passion for the theatre--he has told us in a charming preface +addressed to his friend, Robert Lowe, how this passion began in him--dates +from his earliest youth, and it was entirely free from any alloying +element. He has never written plays; or, at least, has never put them on +the stage. On principle, he has abstained from frequenting the green-room, +and from personal intercourse with actors. He has devoted himself entirely +to his critical mission; and, to carry it through the better, he has +studied the past of the national drama and every kind of dramatic +literature, living and dead. Mr. Archer is an encyclopaedia, a library of +references, but, unlike so many men of learning, his every item of exact +information goes side by side with some pregnant thought, some suggestive +idea; not content to instruct, he thinks and sets one thinking. He is at +once a penetrating critic and a first-rate _petit journaliste_. Humour, of +which he is full, flows freely through all his writings; an easy, limpid, +lively, delicate humour, in which I have never detected a lapse of taste +or a touch of pedantry. I don't believe that in all his life he has +perpetrated an obscure or insipid line; in fact, he could not become a +bore, if he would. + +The best way of giving French readers an idea of him would be to compare +him with one of our dramatic critics of this generation, or of that which +preceded it, and to show in what respects he resembles, for instance, M. +Francisque Sarcey or M. Jules Lemaitre, and in what respects he differs +from them. But the comparison is impossible, because their positions and +circumstances are even further removed than their talents. The excellent +writers whom I have mentioned are with us the guardians and interpreters +of a tradition consecrated by masterpieces; they strengthen or refine it, +now by the vivacity and gaiety, now by the delicacy and grace, of their +personal impressions. The public to whom they address themselves is more +_blase_ than ignorant, and has more need to be stirred up than to be +taught. William Archer, on the contrary, is an initiator; he has had to +hew a passage for himself through a forest of prejudices; he has had +always to go back to the elements of his subject, to demonstrate +principles which, with us, are taken for granted,--to accomplish, in fact, +a task which bears some resemblance to that of Lessing in the +_Dramaturgie_ of Hamburg. Were one to extract from the thousands of +articles which he has published during the last twenty years the questions +which he has set himself to discuss, one would amass a sufficiently +complete code upon all the problems, great and small, which touch upon the +arts and professions of actor, playwright, and critic. + +His conception of the theatre is a very wide one. He regards it as a +meeting-place, a _rendez-vous_, of all the arts. Its province, he holds, +is co-extensive with life itself. He welcomes all forms and all kinds, +provided they are not exotic growths, and answer to some need of the soul +of the people. Thus melodrama is but an illogical tragedy for him. As for +farce, he cares nothing for its progress; for although a really lively +farce is worth more than a pretentious and unsuccessful drama, it would be +folly to judge it by aesthetic laws. One does not take the height of a +sugar-loaf, he remarks, from barometric observations. The drama can exist +outside the domain of literature. It was thus with the English drama ten +or fifteen years ago. The business of criticism, Mr. Archer holds, was to +raise it to the dignity of a department of literature, to reconcile it +with literature. What sort of criticism was required to this end? +Analytical or dogmatic, comparative, anecdotical or facetious? They may +all be resorted to, each in its own place and time, provided only that +they are sincere and independent. + +Every piece should contain these three elements: a picture, a judgment, +and an ideal. On the first rests the great question of realism on the +stage. Mr. Archer has put the objections to realism in the form of a +dilemma. "Either you show me on the stage," he says, "what I see and go +through myself every day; in which case, where is the point of it--what do +I learn from it? Or else you put before me things, ideas, and modes of +life of which I know nothing; and how am I to determine their degree of +truth and reality?" To this he replies himself, that the theatre obliges +us to observe--that is to say, to see and feel more intensely--what we see +and feel in our daily life, without taking much notice of it and without +reflecting upon it. As for the sensations we have never experienced, and +of the depicting of which we are unable, therefore, to judge the truth, +the English critic pins his faith to an intuitive sense, which accepts or +refuses the portrayal of an unknown world. When Zola describes the +financial methods of the Second Empire, when Pierre Loti transports us to +the side of Rarahu or of Chrysantheme, an infallible instinct tells the +reader if it be truth or fancy. Why should not the spectator also be +endowed with the same critical instinct? + +Mr. Archer will not allow that the Robertsonian comedy had this realistic +character; or he maintains, at least, that if it ever had it, it very soon +lost it. The author kept pouring hot water into the famous tea-pot until +there was nothing to offer the public but an insipid decoction, whose +staleness he tried in vain to hide by alternating it with the bitterness +of French coffee, accompanied by the inevitable cognac. The English drama, +Matthew Arnold had written, lay between the heavens and the earth--it was +neither realistic nor idealistic, but just "fantastic." Mr. Archer took up +Matthew Arnold's idea, and carried it a step further. Over and beyond the +portrayal of manners and of character, the theatre puts before us a +succession of events, a phase of life, upon which we are to pronounce +judgment. It was in this field that the critic had entirely new truths to +put before his countrymen. The English drama thought itself very moral; +the critic deprived it of, and set it free from, this illusion. He was +inclined even to admit the truth of M. Got's declaration, that our drama +was the more moral of the two; or rather, he held, that whereas the French +drama was deficient in morality, the English drama had no morality at all. +Does a play become moral by having for its climax the destruction of the +villain and the rewarding of virtue, that triumph of good which is lost in +the general rummaging for overcoats and shuffling of feet? No; a play is +moral if it works out a psychological situation, a problem of conduct to +which it suggests or allots a right solution. Now, Mr. Archer could see no +drama in 1880 written upon this model; nothing but colourless +sentimentalities, a minute corner of life, and for sole problem the +antagonism of poverty and riches, ever smoothed over by love. + +He wished to see soaring above every dramatic work, an aspiration towards +better things, towards a life superior to our common life,--the life, +perhaps, of to-morrow. + +He wished the theatre to have an ideal; not a retrospective, and, so to +speak, reactionary ideal, as so often happens in a country where tradition +retains its force, and where it is held that there is no reform like that +of restoration; but an ideal of advance and progress. + +His articles were like a series of vigorous shakes to a sleeper. Any kind +of effort, he maintained, was better than apathy. He cast about in every +direction, ransacked every hole and corner, raised every imaginable +question, whether of trade or theory. Up to what point may Shakespeare be +imitated with profit? Is the censorship more favourable to manners than it +is oppressive to talent? Is the establishment of a national theatre, which +should serve at once as a school and a standard, a practicable idea? And +would such an institution really help to the perfecting of the art? What +is one to think of Diderot's paradox about the actors' art, and what do +actors think of it themselves? What was the social position of actors in +former times, and what will it be in the future? Will they be respected +because of their profession, like the judge, the clergyman, the officer, +or only in spite of it? What are the rights and the duties of the critic? +What are the dangers, and what the advantages, inherent in the system +which leaves all the great theatres in the hands of actor-managers? Ought +the English dramatist to accept the collaboration of the actor-manager, +and to what extent? These are some of the questions he has discussed and +answered with a variety of information, a freedom of judgment, an +unfailing argumentative power that command our respect even when our own +opinions are at variance with his. + +This is not all. Perhaps the most important part of Mr. Archer's role has +consisted in his labours in connection with the dramatic literature of +foreign countries. He was one of the first to make known the Norwegians +and the Germans; and better than anyone else he has understood the works +of our French dramatists, and realised to what account they were to be +turned in the development of the English stage. Of the influence exerted +by Ibsen and Bjoernson on the generations of to-day and to-morrow, I shall +speak later. Here I shall indicate only the new way in which French works +have come to be adapted since 1875 and 1880; a curious movement of which +Mr. Archer is by no means the sole author, but of which he has been a very +attentive and perspicacious observer, and to which his counsels have lent, +as it were, a character of scientific precision. + +The way in which the English used to imitate our pieces half a century ago +resembled the hasty procedure of a band of thieves plundering a house, +doing their utmost, but against time and without method, and in +consequence burdening themselves with worthless nick-nacks and overlooking +jewels of price. When the London managers came to Paris post haste, vieing +with each other for our manuscripts, and resorting to every kind of dodge +to secure the prize, it was sometimes but the potentiality of becoming +bankrupt that was thus held up, as it were, to auction. + +From 1850 to 1880 they took everything indiscriminately, translating +sometimes a second and a third time the same inept _vaudeville_. A +melodrama from the Boulevard du Temple, but long forgotten there, became +the _Ticket of Leave Man_, a play whose success is not yet exhausted; on +the other hand, a great comedy by Augier or Feuillet, still to be found in +our repertory, would languish and die after a few weeks before the +indifference of the English pit, without anybody's attempting to draw a +moral from the event. But the legal aspect of things began to alter; the +idea of international literary property had been started, and was making +way. The successive steps were as follows. The principle was settled by an +Act of Parliament in 1852; the foreign author retained his copyright for +five years, but this affected translation only, adaptation not being +covered by the laws; then it was sufficient to add a character, or to +invert two scenes, to evade all dues. In 1875 a new law brought adaptation +into the same category as translation. Finally, in 1887 as the result of +the Treaty of Berne, and the interesting discussions which led up to it, +an Order in Council laid it down in black and white, that the literary +property of foreigners is, in every respect, identical with that of the +natives of this country, and is protected in the same way. + +These are very liberal provisions, and do honour to the statesmen to whom +we owe them, but I am obliged to say they have greatly reduced the +importation of French goods into the English theatrical market, and that +they threaten it with complete extinction in the future. One has to think +twice before taking up a piece which is burdened with the necessity of +paying two authors; it seems preferable to study our methods, and learn +from us, if possible, how to dispense with us. Nothing has contributed so +efficaciously, for some years past, to the progress of the native English +drama. + +It is here that the teaching of the critic comes in, with the _flair_ of +the actor-manager. + +From the English point of view, there are two kinds of pieces included in +the domain of our _Haute Comedie_. + +The one, including such plays as those of Dumas and Augier, requires +almost literal translation, and ought to be put before the public as +finished specimens of Parisian civilisation and art; to alter them would +be to spoil them--_sint ut sunt aut non sint_. It is different with the +pieces of M. Sardou. Once you have torn off the outer covering, and +detached the thousand adventitious details with which the French author +has ingeniously set out his subject, there remains an idea to be worked +out, an idea with a strong foundation, capable of supporting an entirely +new structure. It is possible to make an entirely English thing out of the +excellent foreign materials from which one has chosen. It is a matter of +taste, adroitness, and inspiration, and I quite understand this kind of +work having a certain fascination for the playwright. + +To understand thoroughly the process of adaptation, we ought to have been +in a certain first-class carriage on the way from Paris to Calais one +spring morning in 1878. It was occupied by three Englishmen, Mr. Bancroft, +Mr. Clement Scott, and Mr. Stephenson. They had been present at the +performance of _Dora_ on the previous evening. Bancroft had bought the +English right from M. Michaelis, who had himself bought them from M. +Sardou. How were they to make an English play out of it? Someone suggested +the introduction of the Eastern Question, which at the moment, under the +sedulous treatment of Disraeli, was stirring British _amour propre_. All +the music halls were re-echoing the refrain, "But by jingo if we do." The +idea hit upon was to turn this jingoism to account in the adaptation, by +making Disraeli collaborate with Sardou. "By the time we got out at Amiens +to drink our _bouillon_," one of them tells us, "the play was fully +planned out." And, under the title of _Diplomacy, Dora_ enjoyed an even +more brilliant success in England than it had had in France. + +This, of course, was only a combination of smartness and good luck. The +new kind of adaptation was in sight, however, which was to have the double +advantage of evading the law and elevating the art. All that was taken +from the French author was a social thesis, a dramatic situation, a moral +problem. Thesis, situation, and problem were carried bodily into the midst +of English life, provided only that English life allowed of them. Then, in +complete disregard of the original, a solution was sought for afresh. If a +new _denouement_ resulted, a solution quite opposed to that in the French +play, it was felt to be so much the better, for in this case the +adaptation was seen to be independent, and it had but opened the field to +a fruitful and suggestive comparison between the two races, the two arts, +and the two codes of morality. + +This is where we stand at present: this form of adaptation is the more +interesting of the two, and constitutes the last stage previous to the era +of complete emancipation, of absolute originality. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +The Three Principal Dramatists of To-day--Sydney Grundy; his First +Efforts--Adaptations: _The Snowball_, _In Honour Bound_, _A Pair of +Spectacles_, _The Bunch of Violets_--His Original Plays--His Style--His +Humour--His Ethical Ideal--_An Old Jew_--_The New Woman_--A Talent which +has not done growing. + + +If you were to ask a London theatre-goer to name the most popular +dramatists of the present day, to designate the ripened talents which tell +most clearly of the present and of the future of the English drama, I +think I may affirm that the names that would come immediately to his lips, +with scarcely a moment's pause for reflection, are those of Arthur Wing +Pinero, Henry Arthur Jones, and Sydney Grundy. There would doubtless be +some demurrings on the part of those contrary or eccentric spirits who +will never admire except out of opposition and in disagreement, not merely +with the uncultured many, but with the critical few. The theatre has its +sects and its chapels, or rather, its crypts and its unknown idols, to +whom a dozen votaries offer incense with weird rites. But we have no time +to study the vagaries of individual minds. A _plebiscite_ of West-End +playgoers would certainly point to the three men whose names I have +mentioned as the leaders of the dramatic movement of the day. + +They all began work about the same time--a score of years ago, as nearly +as possible. They have encountered the same difficulties. Their progress +has been slow. The commencement of their career was marked by vain efforts +and misdirected labour: whether it was that opportunity was lacking, or +that they could not find their way, certainly no one of them gave evidence +of his full capacity, or even gave any real promise, in his earliest +works. They were long mere imitators, without seeming to suspect that they +were worth more than their models; and they hardly were aware of their +originality before the public discovered it for them. There is something +almost depressing in the story of these three theatrical _autodidactes_, +but it is very human and very instructive. It shows the will dragging +along the intelligence; the investigation by means of experiment preceding +science; the effort giving birth to the ability. And even now, they are +only half-way along their arduous paths. + +So much they have in common. But their temperament and their ideas are +dissimilar, and every day adds to this dissimilarity. With whom should one +commence? Clearly with him who retains most in him of the past, who +adheres still--largely through his antecedents, and partly through his +natural disposition--to the school of Robertson, and to the imitation of +the French: with Sydney Grundy. + +If I am not mistaken, his first appearance dates from 1872. At long +intervals during the subsequent years he succeeded in getting quite small +pieces upon the stage, contenting himself very often with provincial +theatres. Two things served to draw him forth from obscurity--an affray +with the censorship, and the very thorough success of a farce in three +acts, entitled _The Snowball_. There was question, in the first case, of +an adaptation of _La Petite Marquise_, which he wrote in collaboration +with Joseph Mackayers. To my mind, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius contain +nothing more frankly moral than _La Petite Marquise_. The story of the +piece, for all the licence of its treatment, is one calculated to deter a +virtuously inclined woman from succumbing to temptation. Unfortunately its +moral is a moral of--shall I say?--fastidious abstention; a moral it is +difficult to appreciate or put into practice, except at an age when +passion has lost its fire and its poison. + +It serves, therefore, despite its subtle humour and clever observation, no +more useful purpose than the entertainment of philosophers. The English +censor did not, or would not, see the lesson it taught; he saw only the +posturings and the language, and was alarmed. He had "passed" the _Petite +Marquise_ in French in all her original licence; he refused her his +sanction when she turned up respectably attired by two of his +fellow-countrymen. Mr. Sydney Grundy made a great outcry, greater, +perhaps, than was necessary. He was in the right; but one might have +wished that he had kept in the right without so much passion and +indignation. However that may be, he made his name known to many people +who were destined to keep it in mind. + +_The Snowball_ is an English version of _Oscar, ou le mari qui trompe sa +femme_. Mr. Sydney Grundy's originality consists in his having introduced +into the English farce qualities which were foreign to this +species--cleverness and ingenuity, wit, some bits of comedy, and not a +single pun. The author holds his puppets adroitly suspended from his +finger-tips, without ever entangling their threads. But if, in listening +to or reading _The Snowball_, you look out for a single trait of English +manners or character, you will do so in vain, for there is not one. + +The well-merited success of _The Snowball_ retarded Mr. Grundy's dramatic +career, because it condemned him to the work of adaptation--so ungrateful +in those days--for long years. But this period of ill-fortune had its good +side, for he knew how to turn it to account. Just as a good painter, +obliged to earn his livelihood by painting portraits, looks on the wealthy +Philistines whose features he has to depict as mere models who pay instead +of being paid; so Mr. Grundy learned the technique and methods of his +business from Sardou, Labiche, and Scribe. I shall not follow in detail +these literary jobs of his, some of which were very humble, though none +of them useless. I shall draw attention merely to three of these +adaptations, in which Mr. Grundy seems to me to have put some of his +personal quality, and to have grafted his own talent on the talent of +another. + +The first in date, _In Honour Bound_, is at once a condensation and a +critical commentary on Scribe's piece, _Une Chaine_. The heroine is a +young wife whose husband has neglected her, and who has sought +distractions. How far has she gone in her search? We are not told; and it +is better that we should not know, for this doubt adds to the interest of +a piece which, whilst wearing the outward aspect of comedy, borders +throughout upon serious drama, and keeps it always within sight. The young +man who has consoled her, or who has come near to consoling her, and has +had strength enough to flee to the ends of the earth from his guilty +happiness, comes back presently with a new love in his heart, a love that +is to be consummated in a happy and brilliant marriage, if the girl's +guardian gives his consent. Now--and it is here that Scribe's hand is +discovered--this guardian and the husband, whose honour has been +threatened or destroyed, are one and the same, the famous barrister, Sir +George Carlyon. He it is who bears the burden of the play; and the plot is +unrolled in a kind of cross-examination of the guilty youth at his hands, +under the guise of a friendly conversation. How much does Sir George +know? And whither is he making? Therein lies the interest. You follow +every move in the clever and perilous game played by the husband whose +happiness is at stake; and you follow it with the intenser interest that +he never for a moment loses his _sang-froid_, his grace, or his wit. At +bottom, his policy consists in counting upon the innate generosity of the +woman. After devoting a world of skill and patience to the trapping of +Lady Carlyon, at last, when he has in his hands the written proof of her +guilt, he throws it into the fire, and, instead of listening to the +confession which has been offered him, accuses himself. + +There results a mutual pardon, discreetly covering over and absolving all +the past. Thus finishes this little piece, which runs smilingly, +breathlessly, along the edge of a precipice. It is the Drama in essence, +cunningly distilled. + +_A Pair of Spectacles_ is an imitation (Mr. Grundy modestly calls it a +translation) of _Les Petits Oiseaux_, by Labiche and Delacour. The subject +is well known. It is the crisis of distrust which every man goes through, +sooner or later, who has believed too much in the goodness of mankind. He +passes from a blind optimism to a ferocious pessimism, then returns to a +more moderate estimate of average human nature--prepared now and again to +come across a wretched creature who abuses his charity, and many shallow +natures who accept it and forget it. This indulgent theory, this +easy-going attitude, finds expression in a pretty apologue, explanatory +of the title chosen by Labiche. The old fellow's future daughter-in-law +congratulates him on the good he effects all round him. "You are so good!" +she cries; "but people are so ungrateful!" "What does that matter?" she +makes answer; "I feed the sparrows every morning that come to my +window-sill. They never say 'Thanks.' Often, indeed, one of them, hungrier +than the others, pecks at my finger. But that does not stop me from +feeding them again next day." At the _denouement_, he recalls this lesson +read to him by the innocent girl, and applies it to his own experience. +The pecking is the deception of which he has been the victim; and as for +the ingratitude of people, well, there is nothing to be surprised at in +that--the sparrows don't say "Thanks!" + +It is a symbol, nothing more nor less,--a symbol in a play by Labiche! +Labiche poaching upon the fields of him who has written _Solness, the +Master-Builder!--n'est ce pas un comble!_ A second symbol is added to the +first in order to justify the title which Mr. Grundy has given to the +English piece. In his ill-temper over the discovery that human nature is +not perfect, Benjamin Goldfinch has broken his spectacles. From this +moment he uses those which have been lent to him by his brother Gregory, +the misanthrope. At the _denouement_, his own come back to him from the +optician's. He seizes upon them with delight, and there is nothing to +prevent the spectator, should the superstition be to his taste, from +believing that all that has happened has resulted from the changing of +these pairs of spectacles. The author's idea is obvious to all. Our mind +is the prism by which everything is distorted or refracted. So long as we +look at things through the glasses of our intellectual vision, it is +probable that they will always appear to us as they appeared at first. The +pair of spectacles is in us. Experience breaks them, and illusions mend +them again. + +In France the _Petits Oiseaux_ had a provincial success. In Paris the +piece produced but little effect when first performed; and when revived at +the Comedie Francaise some years ago, the critics thought it childish. + +In London, on the contrary, in the form given to it by Mr. Grundy, it was +given a brilliant reception, which was renewed later on its revival, as I +myself can bear witness. Whence is this difference? From the superiority +of Parisian taste? Such an explanation would be pleasing to our _amour +propre_. I shall venture upon another, which will, perhaps, dispense with +this one. Namely, that _Les Petits Oiseaux_ is a fairy tale, and that +Labiche has no gift for fairy tales. His big honest hands--I speak +figuratively, never having seen the author of _Perrichan_ and _La +Grammaire_--were made to seize and keep hold of the comic aspect of +realities. But for this gracefully fanciful subject, the touch of a real +writer, such as Mr. Grundy, was required, and this is why I think the +copy is better than the original. + +The third adaptation which has struck me is that of _Montjoye_. So far +back as 1877 Mr. Grundy offered a first version of it, under the title of +_Mammon_, to the English public. He must, while profiting by opinions +already passed upon it, have made a full and detailed critical study of +the piece before he touched it at all. The result of his reflections was +the suppression of a valueless character, that of Montjoye's son, and the +introduction of an excellent one, that of Parker, the old clerk, whose +fidelity and modesty everyone admires, and who, having found out all his +employer's secrets, and treasured up in his dogged and unforgiving heart +all the grievances he has experienced, follows him step by step, acquires +his property bit by bit, and becomes eventually his master's master. + +_Mammon_ is certainly a better made piece than _Montjoye_, but this was +not enough for Mr. Grundy. More than sixteen years later he took up the +same subject again, and subjected it to a new examination, from two points +of view. How had the type of the company-promoter been modified in the +course of thirty years? In what particulars does the English speculator +differ from his French compeer? The scene will be recalled in which +Montjoye, the positivist, laughs at the enthusiastic Saladin, his old +schoolfellow, who remained poor through having retained his illusions, his +belief in mankind. "That is all rubbish," Montjoye declares,--"_Tout +cela, c'est du bleu!_" Whatever is not practical, whatever cannot be +expressed clearly in black and white, he calls "Bleu." Poetical illusions, +childish preconceptions, romantic superstitions, sickly sensibilities, +sonorous and empty sayings--"_Voila le royaume de bleu!_" + +Thus Montjoye, "_ou l'homme fort_," declaimed, in language which now seems +somewhat out of date. For to-day he has changed roles with Saladin. He is +the enthusiast who gains the confidence of the simple and the credulous, +he is the _virtuoso_ of sickly sensibility--the Paganini of the sonorous +and empty sayings; he has found a mine of gold in the _Royaume du Bleu_. +His _Tartufferie_ is social rather than religious. He is not content to +issue shares in the port of Bohemia, and bonds on a railway from Paris to +the moon; he is anxious that these magnificent enterprises should serve +the interests of humanity. The modern Montjoye rides upon politics and +finance, the Bible and Socialism; he succeeds through chauvinism and +through philanthropy. Transport him to London, and clothe him in that +hypocrisy of which our neighbours have made an art, and you will have Sir +Philip Marchant, the hero of _A Bunch of Violets_. + +Thus Montjoye, who comes home at seven in the morning after a spree,--like +a college boy who has been out of bounds,--and who sacrifices his +financial eminence, his reputation, and his peace of mind to an +adventuress, escorted and aggravated by a Palais Royal husband, would +never go down in England, and I think the French public of to-day would +refuse to stand him. + +I had the honour of personal acquaintance with Octave Feuillet. He was a +man of delicate, nervous, solitary disposition. He depicted these aspects +of the _vie mondaine_ and _demi-mondaine_ of 1865 from afar and _de chic_. +Mr. Grundy eliminated this naive and old-fashioned Don Juanism of his. In +order to bring about the necessary crisis, he has recourse to bigamy. The +expedient is not new, and is even somewhat repellent, but I admit that it +gives a solidity to the English piece which the French piece lacks. + +Philip Marchant has married twice, Montjoye has not married at all. "What +would the world say if it knew you had allowed your mistress to invite it +to dinners and dances under the guise of being your wife?" The objection +is submitted to Montjoye by his unfortunate accomplice, and by the public +to the author who is no better able to reply to it than his hero. At all +events, Sir Philip Marchant has not been guilty of this blunder. His +second marriage is a crime certainly, but it is not a mistake. And then we +escape that ultimate conversion, a lamentable concession made by Feuillet +to the optimistic playgoers of the fair sex of thirty years ago. Sir +Philip swallows his laudanum (or is it strychnine?) without turning a +hair--a method of settling one's differences with social morality and the +criminal code resorted to, as we know, in every country, when no other +method is available. + +On one point Mr. Grundy has shown himself even more fanciful and +sentimental than Octave Feuillet. I refer to the little bunch of violets +which gives its name to the piece. Sir Philip, the bigamist, the swindler, +who has defrauded public societies, defrauded the poor, defrauded even his +own wife, refuses to give the little penny buttonhole of violets, his +daughter's present to him that morning, in exchange for a sum of five +thousand pounds--a sum which would enable him to keep up the fight for +another twenty-four hours and--who knows?--perhaps escape bankruptcy and +suicide. "These violets are not for sale," he thunders, and the audience +is carried away. The men applaud and the women weep. By this single trait +the criminal is redeemed and absolved. + +Even in his original plays, Mr. Grundy has been haunted by the memory of +his French studies, and no one will think of reproaching him for having, +now and again, made use of semi-unconscious reminiscences, floating, as it +were, between the regions of his imagination and his memory. A more +serious cause for complaint is, that having concerned himself for a great +portion of his life with the French theatre, he has ended by confounding +our dramatic types with characters from real life. At the same time, as he +is gifted with a very lively sense of humorous observation, which he has +employed in every direction upon things and people, he has managed to +produce some curious mixtures. Sometimes we have Scribe's marionettes +moving in an English atmosphere, sometimes we have English characters +unfolding themselves through the course of sentimental plots very much +like ours. Thus, in _The Glass of Fashion_, we have depicted for us the +havoc wrought by society journalism of the worst type. A silly fool who +has come in for a fortune has allowed himself to be persuaded into buying +a journal of this class. It traduces his best friends, and even his very +wife. A little more and he must institute proceedings against it for +libelling himself. The whole of this amusing picture of manners, +thoroughly racy of the soil, is framed in a melodramatic affair in which +women are juggled out of sight, like a thimble-rigger's peas, in +accordance with our traditional method. Mr. Grundy pins his faith to +Scribe, whom he looks upon with reason as a marvellous stage-carpenter, +and he cannot see the need for a divorce between ingenious scenic +contrivance and sincerity of dramatic emotion. And indeed, it is not +essential that a theatrical piece should be badly constructed that it may +contain human feeling and truth to life. But how to get nature and art to +combine together in the same work? That is the enigma, and there are many +still who have to search for the secret of this mysterious collaboration. + +In every play of Mr. Grundy's there is to be found an element which is +very old in the initial situation, and also an element which is very new +and very personal in the treatment, the working out,--the individual +note, in short, which relieves even the smallest points, and stamps them +with a special character that cannot be counterfeited. It is to Mr. Grundy +the writer that Mr. Grundy the dramatist owes his greatest success, and it +is the writer, too, who has covered the retreat when the dramatist has +entered the fray too rashly, and been threatened with disaster. + +This gift of writing is not displayed in rhetorical tirades, or in +brilliant discourses and philosophisings upon social problems, as with our +writers of the Second Empire; it is concentrated chiefly upon quick +rejoinders that are rapped out short and sharp. Humour flows in such +abundance through Mr. Grundy's theatrical work that it floods even his +serious dramas. _A Fool's Paradise_, that sombre story of poisoning, is so +saturated with gaiety that one laughs throughout, from start to finish; +and the murderess is so conscious of it that she betakes herself +considerately behind the scenes to die, in order not to dissipate our good +humour by the sight of her agonies. In _The Late Mr. Castello_ there is +nothing at all of tragedy--nothing but the whims of a pretty woman, whose +amusement it is to woo the lovers of all the rest of her sex; thus causing +general indignation. + +The author's wit follows her with rare agility through these dangerous +gymnastics, which the less nimble would attempt at the risk of a broken +neck. Coynesses, childishnesses, contrarinesses, moods of jealousy, +endearing terms used in earnest and in jest, outbursts of passion +artificial as well as real, shades and half shades and quarter shades of +expression, fibs, feint upon feint, nothing disconcerts the writer, +nothing finds this light, subtle, railing, emotional tongue at a loss--the +tongue which recalls Marivaux sometimes, and sometimes Musset. You can +understand, then, why Mr. Grundy's plays are popular with the public, +without satisfying the critics. The public is carried away by the charm of +his dialogue; the critics stop to discuss the age of his subject and the +truth of his thesis. + +One of Mr. Grundy's peculiarities--and, together with his fancy and his +originality as a writer, it is my chief reason for delighting in +him--consists in the strange contrast presented in his theatrical work +between the passions called into play and the impression produced. Severe +judges accuse him of being over-indulgent to the weaknesses of unlawful +love, and perhaps they are right. But of this I am sure, that you go from +one of his plays in an excellent frame of mind, with a genuine wish to +lead a good life, and to attain happiness through the giving of happiness +to others. How does he set about the management of this? He does not set +about managing it at all. There is something in the depth of his nature +that gushes out in good-will, a source of generous emotions which +strengthen and refresh and reanimate us. In place of the thousand little +rules and regulations by which conventional and machine-made morality hems +us in, a broader, if less clearly defined, morality is to be found, one +which contrives the avoidance of evil, not by the observance of laws, but +by the sparing of pain and suffering to our fellows. + +In _Sowing the Wind_, Mr. Grundy has pleaded the cause of illegitimate +children with a warmth and eloquence Dumas would not have been ashamed to +acknowledge. I am told that the third act, when a good actress has taken +part in it, has never failed to produce its effect, and I am not +surprised. The piece is well conceived and is touching; and there is a +suggestion of history in it, tactful and pleasing. You would say it had +really been written over sixty years ago, in this England of 1830, in +which the scene is laid. + +But I shall cite _An Old Jew_ as the best example of those plays of his +which do not satisfy ordinary morality, and which yet leave a man better +and more strong. It is a curious play. It would be easy to point out its +faults; it is very difficult to explain its charm. A man who has been +deceived by his wife, instead of showing her up, punishing her, driving +her from his house, condemns himself to exile, and allows himself to be +suspected at once of hardness and infidelity. Why? Because a father can do +without his children, a woman cannot. Left all alone, she would lapse into +despair or into shame; her children will be her safeguard, her redemption, +her virtue. This conduct of Julius Stern is magnanimous; but if he is +ready to ignore himself, should he not think rather of his innocent +children than of his guilty wife? Has he not run too great a risk in +confiding the education of a pure-minded girl to an adulteress? The +dangerous experiment succeeds, and if you ask me why, I can only say, +because Mr. Grundy so decided it. Julius has been mistaken only on one +point,--on the powers of endurance of a father deprived of his daughter's +caresses, and the companionship of his son. + +He returns therefore, and draws near to his deserted family; he remains in +concealment, but close beside them, ready to guard and help them. + +His daughter plays _ingenue_ parts in a London theatre, and although the +morality of the wings is a little better on the other side of the channel +than on ours, the girl is exposed to such proposals as that of a certain +Burnside, who asks her calmly and coolly, without any pretence of love or +any beating about the bush, to come and live with him. It is time for the +father to show himself. But Julius has a method all his own for watching +over his daughter. Every evening he goes to see her act, and, the piece +over, returns to bed. As for the young man, his dream is of literary +glory, and it is now that the second subject is introduced, a satire upon +the ways of contemporary English journalism, which is made to go side by +side with the domestic drama of the Sterns. How do we find Julius +intervening in the interests of his son? First he buys him a rare edition +of "The Dramatists of the Sixteenth Century," which he seems to recommend +to him as a model (a mistaken and ill-timed recommendation, as I think, +for the reasons I have indicated already in a previous chapter). The young +man has written a comedy. Without having read it, and, in consequence, +without knowing whether he is encouraging a real or only an imagined +vocation, Julius buys a theatre in which the piece may be performed, and +he buys also two or three newspapers wherewith to secure its success. Here +he assumes proportions that are almost fantastic. His sadness, his +wandering and mysterious life, his authority of voice and bearing, that +fatal gift of his for turning everything he touches into gold, point to +some symbolical intention in the author's mind, and to a _third_ subject. + +It is no longer _A Jew_; it is _The Jew_--the Jew rehabilitated, and +becoming now, in his turn, a dispenser of social justice. But how does he +set about it, this reformer? By loading rascals with gold. Not a good way, +truly, of closing the _marche aux consciences_. And then the whole +structure falls to pieces before a very simple reflection. The newspapers +that give success are not to be bought. Those that are to be bought don't +give success. + +I could proceed with these criticisms, but I am almost ashamed really, as +it is, of having gone so far, for they make me look ungrateful. If the +play be theoretically bad, how is it that we listen to it, moved or +amused, without a moment of fatigue? It is a play without love, for one +cannot regard the incident of Burnside's base proposal as a love scene. A +whole act passes in the smoking room of a club, in which we do not catch +sight of even the shadow of a petticoat. But one would not miss a line of +this frank, direct, live dialogue; one is thrilled by certain sentences, +strangely deep or bitterly eloquent, as by lightning flashes; one feels +that there are real souls behind these unreal incidents. And then,--shall +I acknowledge it?--one is keenly interested in the absurd but affecting +spectacle of this father, who thirsts for his daughter's forehead, as a +lover thirsts for the lips of his mistress. Why should not such love as +this have its drama and its romance, as it has its anguishes, its +sacrifices, and its joys? + +_The New Woman_, played in the autumn of 1894, gives us the same emotions, +without suggesting to the mind the same doubts and objections. It had a +well-merited success. It is, of course, open to criticism. It is a wholly +modern picture of manners, the _dernier cri_ of social satire, serving as +a background to the working out of a very old dramatic subject. Does the +play bear out the promises of its title? I see in it three episodical +types, of which two, at least, are caricatures; an impudent lady-doctor, +who takes herself very seriously; a sort of _garcon manque_, who smokes +and wears her hair short; and a sort of half-faded flirt, who is much more +taken up with angling for a husband in troubled waters than with the +reformation of society. + +I see also a married woman, who bores herself at home, and who tries to +appropriate another woman's husband, by collaborating, or pretending to +collaborate, with him on a book. But I have no difficulty in recognising +in her the everlasting would-be adulteress, of whom our drama has made +such abuse. Her case is complicated with literature; she is the old +Blue-Stocking darned anew. Thus escapes us once more the New Woman, this +obsessing phantom of which everyone speaks and which so few have seen. + +The real theme of the play is the folly of a man of the world in marrying +a little farmer's daughter, who has been brought up at home in the +country. I have said that it is an old subject, but it is well to remark +that it is generally approached from another side. The authors of a +certain epoch were fond of describing the origin of one of these passions +which level the differences of rank and education. They led the hero and +heroine up to the point of marriage, but it is the morrow of their +marriage, and the day after that still more, that one would like to hear +of. This is precisely what Mr. Grundy sets out to show us, but is his +representation of it accurate, lifelike, credible? + +In reality, were this marriage to come off, it is very likely that the +newly-wedded wife, made giddy by the sudden plunge, would surpass in +frivolity those who belong to the gay world into which she has been +introduced, and who have lived in it. But this idea would be too true and +too simple for the theatre. Or else this little country girl would show +herself inferior to the people amongst whom she has to mix, as much by the +vulgarity of her ideas as that of her manners. It is not the world who +would repulse her, it is she who would be unable to suit herself to the +world; whence it would come, that her husband must either cast her off or +become a pariah with her. This version, also, would fail to please the +pit. Mr. Grundy, therefore, has preferred to devote all his _savoir +faire_, his wit and his emotional power, to the task of making us accept, +as a compromise between realism and idealism, a solution as pleasing as it +is illogical and essentially theatrical. In the second act, Marjery +commits blunder upon blunder. Everybody makes fun of her, and her husband +declares she is "hopeless." In the third act she is the admired of all, +for her eloquence and dignity, her virtue and tact; those who made fun of +her have prostrated themselves at her feet. Is it possible that she has +learnt all this during the entr'acte, whilst the orchestra got through a +waltz? She takes refuge with her father, whose country dialect is just +strong enough to raise a smile. She milks the cows and plucks the apples, +the only occupations permissible on the stage to a pretty farmer's lass. +The youthful husband comes in search of her to this retreat, and obtains +her pardon. She will never be a lady, but she will be a "woman" _par +excellence_. The public seemed to me to be delighted with this conclusion. +An assembly of two thousand snobs will never stint its applause to an +author who chastises snobbery. + +To sum up, Mr. Sydney Grundy has never yet had the good fortune to utilise +all his gifts at once--to put his whole strength into one important work. +But he has not said his last word: he may give us to-morrow a vigorous +comedy, taken whole and entire from actual life, a drama palpitating with +living passion. Has he not everything required for the purpose? +Sensibility, humour, individuality, the knowledge of the theatre, and the +favour of the public.[12] + + + + +CHAPTER X + +Henry Arthur Jones; his First Works--His Melodramas--_Saints and +Sinners_--The Puritans and the Theatre--The Two Deacons; The Character of +Fletcher--_Judah_--_The Crusaders_; Character of Palsam; the Conclusion of +the Piece--_The Case of Rebellious Susan_--_The Masqueraders_--Return to +Melodrama. Theories expounded by Mr. Jones in his book: _The Renascence of +the Drama_. + + +The start of Mr. Henry Arthur Jones was not less difficult than that of +Mr. Sydney Grundy. He could get only short and light pieces accepted at +first. The earliest play of his within the memory of London play-goers was +performed at the Court Theatre, and was entitled, _A Clerical Error_. The +second was an idyll in two short acts, called _An Old Master_. + +The young author found it necessary to seek refuge in provincial theatres. +The world remained unwilling to learn his name--a somewhat undistinguished +name, and easily forgotten. When, in 1882, Mr. Archer included him in his +_Dramatists of To-day_, there were many who asked, "_Who_ is this Mr. +Jones?" + +It was then he worked at melodrama. He served seven years with Laban, and +married Leah, upheld by the hope of one day obtaining Rachel. This was +his apprenticeship. As Mr. Grundy had learnt his craft by adapting our +French authors, Mr. Jones learnt his by writing great popular dramas. It +was in this _genre_, one which gives full scope to the imagination, that +he came to know his own individual temperament, and developed those +poetical faculties which were to be put to better uses; it was by this +unlikely pathway that he found the road to Shakespearian emotions. His +qualities and his defects date from this time. + +The great success of _The Silver King_ set Mr. Jones at liberty. I have +neither seen nor read the piece, which has not been printed. It is a good +melodrama, I understand. People found in it, together with some new types +and _coups de theatre_, observation, gaiety, a rare freedom of handling, +some really moving touches, and, here and there, flashes of imagination +and poetry. + +Mr. Jones thought he could now take a step further, and please himself, +having succeeded in pleasing the public. He wrote _Saints and Sinners_. +The little Margate Theatre was the scene of the first performance of the +new play in September 1884, this first performance having for object only +the perfecting of the actors in their parts, and the testing of the +public. The piece passed thence to the Vaudeville, where it held the bills +until the middle of the following year, much talked about and applauded. + +It marks an important date, not merely in the career of Mr. Jones, but in +the history of the English drama. It denotes the revival of active +hostility, in that ancient conflict between the Puritans and the stage, +which began in 1580, and will last as long as English literature and +English civilisation. This conflict had assumed a sluggish and inactive +character in the nineteenth century. Shattered by the scorn of the +Puritans, the stage had not dared to raise its arm for a blow. Suddenly it +took the offensive, and carried the war into the enemy's camp. _Saints and +Sinners_ is only the first of a series of dramas and comedies, in which +Mr. Jones has fearlessly attacked the hypocrisies of religion, in their +most characteristic form. He has let fly some darts, indeed, which have +sped even further, and which he has not shot at random. Has he not +declared, in his high-spirited and witty preface to _The Case of +Rebellious Susan_, that the theatre was perhaps destined to succeed to the +tottering pulpit, and to teach morality to the professional moralists? + +Already, in 1885, he had claimed energetically for the drama the right to +deal with any subject, even with religious subjects. Elsewhere, he +declared that the theatre was one of the organs of the national life, and +one of its essential organs; that one could no more imagine England +without the theatre, than England without the press and the platform. + +He seems to say--and this boldness does not displease in a man of +talent--"We want liberty. Free our hands; give us permission to produce +masterpieces, and the masterpieces will not be delayed." + +What Mr. Jones satirised in _Saints and Sinners_, was the money-making +spirit that went hand in hand with bigotry. This combination is incarnated +by Hoggard and Prabble, the two deacons of the dissenting congregation of +Steepleford. Hoggard is a business man on a small scale, and in a small +town; Prabble is an easy-going grocer. The one is repulsive, the other +merely comic; but, at bottom, they represent the same spirit, in different +degrees, and after different fashions. Hoggard is fully aware of his +rascality, and there is nothing sincere about him except his pride. He is +convinced that there is a special moral code for clever men of his own +stamp. + +Prabble, on the other hand, is of opinion that the minister would be doing +no more than his duty were he to denounce from the pulpit the co-operative +stores by which his shop is being ruined. "I keep up his chapel. He ought +to keep up my custom." Even in the last scene, in the midst of the tragic +emotions of the _denouement_, when he wishes to express to the minister +they have driven away the remorse of his ungrateful congregation, his one +fixed idea comes out again. If only Mr. Fletcher could manage, without +inconvenience, to slip in a word on Sunday--just one word about the +co-operative stores! + +Does this grocer, who would prop up his shop against his chapel, reason +and act otherwise at bottom, than did the great king when he allied his +throne with the pulpit of Bossuet? In both cases the policy proved +successful--at least, for a time. + +"You know, my dear Prabble," Hoggard says to his friend, "it is we who are +the greatness of England; it is we who have made her what she is." And +what is so terrible about it is, that he is not wholly wrong. Hoggard and +Prabble represent one of the various types of that Puritan democracy, +which accomplished great things in former days, but which has learnt +nothing for two centuries, except to make money. They belong to what is +called the middle class, and the middle class, so different from our +_Classe Moyenne_, is regarded with real contempt by superior +intelligences. Matthew Arnold congratulated Mr. Jones ten years ago on +having given it, in his admirable picture of these two deacons, one of the +hardest blows it had yet received. What neither Mr. Arnold nor Mr. Jones +took the trouble to point out is, that in ordinary life the minister +cannot belong to a different race of men from those who of their own +accord have placed him at their head. Like flock, like pastor, and--I +shall venture to add--like creed. + +In default of prudence, an artistic consideration (which I can understand) +would have strongly impelled Mr. Jones to offer us a pastor differing from +his flock, as the suave tenderness of the New Testament differs from the +harshness of the Old. This minister, who allows himself to be robbed by a +poulterer, and who says such sublime things, has not been taken from real +life, but from _The Vicar of Wakefield_,--Goldsmith's irrational, +delightful work. At times he rises to the height of Myriel, the bishop in +_Les Miserables_, and it is not at these times I like him best. I +acknowledge that he has tried my temper by his blindness, that I have been +aggravated by his meekness, have lost all patience with his patience. He +is very human, very virile, when before his assembled congregation he +makes the confession which is so cruel to him, of his daughter's sin, and +relinquishes the spiritual functions which have been his livelihood. There +is real grandeur in this self-abasement--a dignity full of impressiveness +in this confession of shame. The words are at once plain and delicate, +they come from the depths of his nature, and go straight to the soul of +his hearers. But when he hides his mortal enemy, in order to shield him +from the vengeance he has earned, and shares with him his last piece of +bread, I feel that he is going too far, and that pity, as sometimes +happens, is clashing with justice. Then, when he cries out, "Christians, +will you never learn to forgive?"--the words thrill me, and I change my +mind again--I tell myself that one must sometimes exaggerate beyond the +bounds of reason to bring even a little goodness into the souls of the +pitiless. + +Mr. Jones's talent achieved a fresh advance in _Judah_, produced on May +21, 1890. There is no longer any trace of melodrama, either in the +situations or in the characters. The nobility of mind, and the need of +spontaneous confession, which mark the finest scene in _Saints and +Sinners_, are used as motives again in _Judah_, with great power, and +form, so to speak, the mainspring of the play. A young girl named Vashti +Dethic, has been brought up by her father to the role of _clairvoyante_ +and miracle-worker. Extreme poverty, extreme youth, moral force carried +perhaps to the point of terrorising,--she has abundant excuses for +adopting this horrible career. Now, her interests, her pride, the +enthusiam of her stupid devotees, constrain her to persevere in an +imposture which she loathes. + +We pity her, and are grateful to the author for diverting our scorn to the +wretched Dethic. We are even willing to believe that a high-strung, +nervous girl may imagine herself to be the subject of miraculous +influences. When Vashti is subjected to a fast of three weeks, and when, +by the merciless vigilance of her watchers, this fast threatens to become +too real, the young girl's heroism touches us, in spite of ourselves, as +much as though it were devoted to a better cause. We form the absurd wish +that her father may succeed in smuggling some food to her--we are all for +the miracle against science, for charlatanism against the truth; which is +going as far as can be gone! Or rather, we have developed an interest in a +poor human creature in serious peril, and, without reflecting upon her +character, we hope she may escape. How would it be if we were +passionately in love with her? Thus it is with Judah Llewellyn. + +These two names are noteworthy; the author calls our attention by them to +the dual origin of his hero, Celtic and Jewish. This mixed ancestry +explains, doubtless, both the fanatic and the impulsive side of his +nature, and the mastery of the religious instinct in its conflict with the +ardours and passions of the imagination. Judah is endowed with a burning +eloquence, the secret of which he gives in the simple statement, "I +believe what I say." This faith, which carries away the uncultured, +inspires the respect of men of the world. One listens to him without a +smile, when he talks of the voices which have called upon him in the +night; some may not believe that the voices did so call upon him, but all +believe that he heard them calling. Thus his church becomes too small for +the multitudes who come to seek nourishment, or rather intoxication, in +his words. + +This man has to pass through various phases of mind before our eyes. At +first, he loves Vashti with a humble, ecstatic love, in which religious +enthusiasm seems to enter more than human passion. In his eyes she is a +superior being--privileged, the elect of God. He dares not defile her with +a carnal thought; it is enough for him to kiss the hem of her robe. But it +chances one evening that he is an involuntary witness of the desperate +efforts of Vashti's father to get some food to her during her fast. At +once, almost without transition, by the force of circumstances that permit +no time for deliberation, he becomes her accomplice, he saves her by a +lie, and a lie which carries the more weight in that his veracity has +never been called in question. A vulgar writer would not have failed to +show us Judah raising himself to his full height, and invoking curses upon +the woman he had protected, and fleeing afterwards to a solitude where he +would be tortured by the visions of lost happiness. Mr. Jones has done +just the opposite. Judah's first sensation is a burst of wholly human joy. +Vashti is not an angel or a saint, but a woman, a frail creature, like to +himself, whom he may love without thought of sacrilege! It is not until +later that remorse makes itself felt in his soul, and that his conscience, +terrible and tempestuous like passion, asserts its rights. + +To all appearances Judah and Vashti are triumphant: they are to be united; +Lord Asgarby's daughter, the subject of the imposture, is cured because +she believes herself cured; the world pays its homage at once to Vashti's +miraculous powers, and to the virtue and eloquence of the man she is to +marry. What is lacking? Peace of mind, self-respect. In what poignant +terms Judah recounts to Vashti his mental agony! With what imagination of +poet, or of the lost, does he give voice and form to all the terrors of +the Puritan mind,--those terrors which, for some mere trifle, some shadow +of a sin, so tortured Bunyan, and prostrated Cromwell, pallid, gasping, +on the bare boards of his chamber! Yet love has not gone from Judah's +heart. Better Hell with her than Heaven without! + +The champion of science, Dr. Jopp, for his part, has instituted an inquiry +into the whole thing; he is inclined to bracket Dethic and his daughter +together. Judah becomes aware of what is in preparation, is free to +separate his lot from that of Vashti; but he does not do so. Then when +Jopp, on the entreaty of his old friend Lord Asgarby, has consented to +spare Vashti, it would be easy for Judah to maintain silence, and to +accept, together with his wife, the favours with which they are being +overwhelmed. But no, he must speak; he must confess himself! The +confession issues with the explosive violence born of long compression, in +a strange frenzy of humiliation and of repentance, impetuous, vibrating, +almost triumphant, like a blare of trumpets. Beyond the awful but not +impassable ordeal, the guilty man and woman see the divine horizon of +paradise regained. + +"You won't? Then hear me, hear me, all of you! I lied! I lied! Take back +my false oath; let the truth return to my lips! Let my heart find peace +and my eyelids sleep again! You all know me now for what I am; let all who +honoured me and followed me know me too. Hide nothing! Let it be blazed +about the city. (_Pause. To_ LORD A.) Take back your gift. (_Gives deed +to_ LORD A.) We will take nothing from you! Nothing! Nothing! (_Goes to_ +VASHTI.) It's done. (_Takes her hand._) Our path is straight; now we can +walk safely all our lives." + +It is the pride of penitence, and this expression of feeling has never +been given a prouder tone. In the previous play, _Saints and Sinners_, old +Fletcher, on learning of his daughter's shame, had cried out, "How shall I +ever hold up my head again?" To hold up his head, that is an Englishman's +first need. And when Letty Fletcher had effaced her transgression by dint +of heroism and devotion, she said, not, "I have expiated my sin," but, "I +have conquered." By such expressions it is that I can see that the +artificial psychology of the drama is yielding place to a truer and more +real psychology. Hitherto, almost everything that has been written in +England, would seem to have had for object, to conceal and not to make +clear the English mind. A new generation of writers has come forth, whose +work it will be to depict this mind as it really is, and to make its +confession with the fierce sincerity of Judah. + +_The Crusaders_, produced on November 2, 1891, is a piece of quite another +stamp. It is not the unfolding of a character contending with +circumstances: it is a satirical representation of a _coterie_, a group, a +social movement. This kind of piece has but a first act, in which the +theme is expounded and a brilliant array of characters presented to the +audience. The plot of _The Crusaders_ is a mere imbroglio, fastened on +somewhat artificially to a satirical and ethical homily; it turns upon an +open window and shut door, which endanger the reputation of a young widow. +Unfortunately, we do not take much interest in this young widow, or in the +two men who love her; one of them is a faded copy of Judah, the other is +nothing at all. + +But what is a mere accessory in the view of the ordinary playgoer, +constitutes the essential part of the play for the critic, for the +historian of the drama and of life. + +When the time comes for depicting the state of English society during the +last years of the nineteenth century, this curious first act of _The +Crusaders_ will certainly be drawn upon for material. There will be found +in it the confusion of elements that stir and mingle, without uniting, in +the vague social movement of this period: enthusiasm lacking a clear end +in view, devotion lacking a definite object, a pilgrimage which leads no +one knows whither, and on which no single pilgrim will reach his +destination. It deals with the reformation of London; a programme so vast +and complex as to be none at all. This association counts amongst its +members a number of pretty women who play at charity; young idlers for +whom the reformation of London is merely an opportunity for flirting, just +like private theatricals, _tableaux vivants_, and garden parties; pushing +women who turn the occasion to their own profit by bringing about +relations with this "dear Duchess of Launceston," and who raise +themselves thus in the world, step by step. One of these good ladies, Mrs. +Campion Blake, invites an old statesman to dinner, to meet a kind of +apostle whom she defines as a "new variety of inspired idiot--something +between an angel, a fool, and a poet! And atrociously in earnest! a sort +of Shelley from Peckham Rye. He's rather good fun, if you take him in +small doses." After dinner, an American lady gymnast will give a +performance in the dining-room. "She's adorable. She gives drawing-room +gymnastics after dinner. It isn't the least indelicate--after the first +shock." Be sure the Minister will accept the invitation. He is quite ready +to reform London, provided only that no one calls upon him to alter his +own mode of life. He acknowledges that he has no ideals. No ideals! his +hearers exclaim horrified. Alas! no; had he not become a member of the +House of Commons in his twenty-second year! Which of the two is Mr. Jones +turning into ridicule? Idealism, or the House of Commons? Both, I fancy. +Why should there not be a double irony for the clever, just as there is a +_galimatias double_ for the dull? + +In this movement there are many who are in earnest. First of all we have +the credulous, ingenuous Ingarfield, dragging in his train Una, the +petticoated apostle of the prison and the house of ill-fame, the young +virgin whose joy it is to attempt the conversion of rogues and +prostitutes. But the most real type is that of Palsam. This individual is +wholly repulsive. A voluntary spy, a detective by his own choice, he is +the incarnation of that spirit of sneaking, which rages so cruelly in +certain sections of English society. Basile, in comparison with him, is a +"good sort," an amiable companion. He stoops to expedients to which an +_agent de moeurs_ would blush to have recourse against an _habituee_ of +Saint Lazare; and it is against women of the world, too, that he resorts +to them! He is so insensible to indignity that a box on the ear has no +effect upon him. How do people put up with him? How is it they let him +into their houses? In France we would throw him out without troubling +about his calumnies, which would be welcomed only by the lowest kind of +newspaper; or rather, a complete Palsam, a perfect Palsam could not be +found in France. In England he is a reality and a power. But is he so vile +as he seems, as at first we are inclined to regard him? No; his conduct +seems mean to the utmost degree; but consider, please, two things: first, +that he acts thus, quite disinterestedly; secondly, that he deprives +himself of those incorrect enjoyments of which he is so bent upon +depriving others. Give him the benefit of these two admissions, and, +little by little, the man will begin to wear for you a different aspect. +The ascetic will rehabilitate the spy, you will be forced to find a kind +of heroism in his meanness, and to admire, while you hate, his hideous +virtue, which is perhaps one of the hundred ways of doing good to men in +their own despite. + +Perhaps it was not Mr. Jones's intention to suggest so many reflections by +his Palsam, but whether he wishes it or no, his work is thus suggestive, +and it is the special note of this very straightforward, very masculine, +very generous satire, that it never ridicules the enemy without letting us +see the redeeming traits in his character, and the good motives which he +might plead in self-defence, thus putting the real man before us whole and +entire. + +Mr. Jones ridicules the would-be reformers of London, and represents their +efforts as resulting in a pitiable fiasco. But he has not contended, of +course, that London is all right as it is, and that the bringing of the +great city into a state of moral health has ceased to be one of the dark +problems which demand, and baffle, the good intentions of honest folk. He +himself has indicated a solution, and the true solution; "To reform +London, it is necessary, first of all, that each of us should reform +himself." Such is the moral of the piece; and this sermon is worth more +than many others. + +Through alternate successes and failures, Mr. Jones's popularity has gone +on increasing during the last four years. _The Tempter_, it is true, gave +the public something of a shock. Despite the intelligently devised +splendours of the _mise en scene_, and the admirable resources of his own +talent, Mr. Tree, who had a special liking for the piece, and was not +wholly unconnected, they say, with its conception, did not succeed in +bringing his audience round to his way of thinking. In the _Triumph of +the Philistines_, Mr. Jones resumed his campaign against Puritanism, but +after a pettier, less vigorous fashion than in his preceding works. The +hero and heroine of this comedy were empty, formless shadows, and the +public would not have known _a quoi se prendre_, had not the piece been +given a fillip quite unexpectedly by the appearance of an inessential +character, that of a whimsical little Frenchwoman, acted to perfection by +Miss Juliette Nesville. The study is a brilliant one, and at moments +really profound. It is the first time, if I mistake not, that an English +dramatist, in introducing a Frenchwoman into his work, has turned out +anything more than a collection of mere external peculiarities, tricks of +facial expression, mistakes in pronunciation and in language, and that he +has penetrated into the very soul, or at least into the _etat d'ame_, of +another nation, differentiating it from his own. + +_The Case of Rebellious Susan_ is a very amusing comedy. I know of none +with so lively a beginning. In his ironical dedication to Mrs. Grundy, Mr. +Jones begs of that good lady to find out a moral in his play. There should +be one in it, he tells her--indeed, there should be several; they have but +to be looked for. + +I don't know what will be the outcome of Mrs. Grundy's researches. I, for +my part, have searched also, but from a different standpoint, and have +found nothing, unless it be that Susan is Francillon with certain +differences, which transform both the character and the dramatic +situation. The idea of revenging herself against an unfaithful husband, by +paying him back in his own coin, must have taken shape, one thinks, first +of all in the mind of an Englishwoman, for the Englishwoman has in her +nature much more of pride than of love. Susan's grief is not a tearful +grief. She is violent, bitter, vindictive; she carries through her little +exploit with much self-possession and without a sob. How far has her +vengeance carried her? Has she been guilty or merely imprudent? No one +knows, and, lacking information upon the subject, neither Mrs. Grundy nor +I can solve the problem put before us. Her husband has been unfaithful to +her, her lover forgets her, and the last crime is worse than the first. +She returns, but dispassionately, to the domestic hearth. Oh! cries the +repentant husband, how I am going to love you! Yes, love me, she replies; +I need to be loved. But to judge by his hungry glances at her whilst he +helps her off with her opera-cloak, I am afraid we are witnesses of a +fresh misunderstanding. The love that she is offered and the love she +wants are not the same love. An omen full of menace for the future. It is +to the President of the Divorce Court, I fear, that it will fall in the +end to lay down the moral of the whole business. + +Very different is the heroine of _The Masqueraders_, who, as impersonated +by Mrs. Patrick Campbell, fascinated London during the season of 1894. +Dulcie Larondie is a coquette, at first ambitious, giddy, keen on +enjoyment, anxious to shine; become a mother, she adores her child; then +love takes possession of her; and then duty reasserts its claims. She is +the plaything of her own feelings, and of the passions she raises up all +round her. She obeys every voice that calls to her, abandons herself with +a kind of gracious pitiful passiveness to these unknown forces and these +mysterious fatalities, within her and without, which break her strength +and oppress her will. + +Mr. Jones had taken leave of melodrama in order to write _Judah_; he +returned to it in _The Masqueraders_, not from listlessness or +unwittingly, but deliberately and systematically. A husband staking his +wife at a game of ecarte--is not this melodrama? But what cares the author +of _The Masqueraders_, whether the incidents be improbable and his +situations artificial? Mr. Jones will not hear of the "well-made" piece; +he seems to have recognised that the architecture of a play does not count +for much, and that the science of Scribe and Sardou is a snare. Nor will +he hear of realism or of logic. He defends himself against the charge of +being a realist as though it were a disgrace, and ridicules those who pay +for admission to a theatre to see paper lamp-posts and canvas houses, when +they can see real lamp-posts and real houses in the streets for nothing. +Realism, he contends, is only a vast field of preliminary studies and a +store-room of materials. As for logic, it may be left to the professors +who teach it, and thus make a comfortable living. Why should the drama be +logical when life is not? A drama should contain four principal elements, +amongst which neither logic nor realism finds a place; and these elements +are--Beauty, Mystery, Passion, and Imagination. The drama, he is +convinced, is returning now to the mysterious and imaginative side of +human life. + +And if the critic press too hard upon the author of _The Masqueraders_, he +has recourse for his defence--and quite rightly--to the great name which +is worth ten thousand arguments. For it must be again asserted, +Shakespeare's plays, with the exception of four or five, are melodramas, +traversed and fertilised by streams of poetry, lit up by flashes of +thought, and here and there softened, brightened, animated, by some +passing glimpses of real life. + +To the lessons of Shakespeare, Mr. Jones has added those of Ibsen. They +are great masters, but there comes a time of life when no one can have any +master, save himself. I do not know whether the theories developed of late +by Mr. Jones will lead him on to works which shall throw _Judah_ and _The +Crusaders_ in the shade. But he is certainly passing through a crisis in +his career, and I cannot refrain from remarking that the structure of his +later plays has been less solid, and that their meaning has been apt to be +obscure and vexing to the mind. Whether or no he issue from behind this +cloud, he has already played a great part in the resuscitation of the +drama, and he is the most English of all the living English dramatists; +the one who expresses most sincerely and most brilliantly the mind of his +generation and of his race. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +Two Portraits--Mr. Pinero's Career as an Actor--His Early Works--_The +Squire_, _Lords and Commons_--The Pieces which followed, half Comedy, half +Farce--_The Profligate_; its Success and Defects--_Lady Bountiful_--_The +Second Mrs. Tanqueray_--Character of Paula--Mrs. Patrick Campbell--_The +Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith_. + + +Meanwhile, it was to Mr. Pinero that fell the lot of writing the most +human work yet known to modern English dramatic literature,--the work, +too, approaching most nearly to perfection. + +I have never gazed on Mr. Pinero in the flesh, but I have seen two +portraits of him which have struck me. In one I seem to discover the +pensive _bonhomie_ of a philosopher, who looks on at the world from afar; +the other suggests rather the frequenter of drawing-rooms--the look in the +eyes is more alive, the smile more knowing, less calculated to leave one +at one's ease. Which of these portraits tells the truth? Both of them +perhaps. There are aspects of Mr. Pinero's work which respond to these +different moods of a single mind. Then, the two physiognomies, which I try +to reconcile with each other, have this trait in common: they both show us +a man who observes and who reflects. + +And, in truth, a man must look about him and within him a good deal in +order to be able to pass, like Mr. Pinero, from the formless efforts of +his youth, or even from such pieces as _The Squire_ and _Lord and +Commons_, to a work like _The Second Mrs. Tanqueray_. His career as an +author has been a long-continued ascent, delayed by many incidents and +accidents, but from which the horizon of art has seemed larger at every +stage. To-day he is in the heights, almost at the summit. + +In his early youth he had felt his vocation and had written a play, but he +knew nothing of the theatre. He learnt his art, as Dion Boucicault and H. +J. Byron and Tom Robertson before him, by acting in the plays of +others.[13] He maintained a good position upon the Edinburgh stage, and +then came to London, where he became connected first with Irving's company +and then with the Bancrofts'. + +After getting some small pieces produced, he tried his hand at the kind of +plays then in vogue,--farces, melodramas, and sentimental comedies. He +adapted some French pieces also; and it was then he realised what was +lacking in his first models, in Robertson and his emulators. A play is a +living organism. Under the flesh one should find organs, muscles, an +articulated skeleton. It was this frame-work that Mr. Pinero wished to +give to his dramatic works; and his ambition did not, perhaps, aspire +beyond sustaining Robertson by means of Scribe. What he himself possessed, +and what was already recognised in his work, was a gift for the writing of +bright and natural dialogues, free from those tricks and artificialities +which until then had served as wit upon the stage. This dialogue was the +language really called for by the plot; but it was the plot, precisely, +that was weak in Mr. Pinero's earliest efforts. + +_The Squire_ was an unlifelike story of a case of bigamy, annulled by an +unexpected death. The piece pleased, by reason of its idealised +representation of rural life. There was a breath of the woods in it, and a +smell of hay. But even this attraction the author had borrowed from a +pretty novel, by Thomas Hardy, _Far from the Madding Crowd_. + +_Lords and Commons_ carries a degree further the romantic strangeness of +the Swedish drama, by which it is inspired. A great nobleman has married a +young girl of illegitimate birth, in ignorance of her history. He +discovers the fact, and drives her ignominiously from the house. After +some years, she comes across his path again, without his recognising her. +She has a double end in view--to win back her husband's love in her new +guise, and to awaken his remorse in regard to _that other_, thus torturing +him with conflicting emotions. Finally, she sends him, his heart torn in +twain, to a _rendez-vous_ with his former victim to obtain her pardon. +When Mr. Pinero was content to write a _denouement_ of this kind, who +could have divined in him the future creator of _Mrs. Tanqueray_? + +But at this very moment he had discovered another vein, which he worked +for a number of years with increasing success. This was a kind of hybrid +production, which partook of farce in regard to plot, and of the comedy of +manners in regard to ideas and to dialogue. In short, it belonged to the +same province of the drama as _Divorcons_, sometimes on a higher plane, +sometimes on a lower. You would say that characters from Dumas and +D'Augier had fallen by accident into a scenario of Labiche. _The +Magistrate_ is thoroughly French in character. A London Magistrate, who +finds it necessary to hide himself under a table in a restaurant of +doubtful reputation, and who, under this table, knocks up against his own +wife, and who, in the following act, having escaped by a miracle from this +fearsome situation, finds himself called upon to pronounce judgment upon +this guilty spouse of his (who, needless to say, is guilty only in +appearance),--this kind of thing does not belong to English life or even +to English humour. In _Dandy Dick_ and in _The Hobby-Horse_, I find, in +the midst of fanciful incidents, a number of delicate and noteworthy +sketches of provincial life, of clerical society, of the racing world, and +those who belong to it, including a queer kind of female centaur,--a +woman jockey,--whom Mr. Pinero has certainly not borrowed from our +_repertoire_. There are many brilliant features really, much ingenuity of +invention, as well as a real sense of fun and fertility of resource in +_The Times_ and _The Cabinet Minister_. I have read these two pieces a +number of times, and found them amusing in their deliberate exaggeration. +But when I look into them closely, I ask myself whether the phase of +social evolution through which we are passing is really like that which +the author holds up to ridicule, and whether his caricatures are not a +generation or two behind the time. And it is always thus. In the matter of +satire, it is the newspaper always that opens the way; the novel comes +after it, and then, after a long interval, the theatre. The manners it +describes have often ceased to exist; the types it portrays have +disappeared, or have become changed. We laugh over Egerton Bompas, the +rich shopkeeper, who wants to marry his daughter to a peer of the realm; +and over Joseph Lebanon, the vulgar little stockbroker, who dreams of +getting invited, through the influence of his sister, the fashionable +modiste, to a shooting-party at a castle in the Highlands. But we know +quite well that nowadays it is the other way about. It is the peers of the +realm who seek to ally themselves with Bompas; and, instead of trembling +before them in Parliament, he imposes his social and political programme +upon them, turning against land, which is in extremity already, the storm +which has been threatening capital. Mr. Joseph Lebanon's part is not to +accept invitations, but to give them. It is he who gives shooting-parties, +and invites the peers; he allows his house to be used for aristocratic +dances, and if he does not appear at them himself, it is from disdain, not +from discretion. If he be distinguishable from his new companions, it is +through his carefulness in aspirating his h's, his punctiliousness in the +matter of etiquette, of his dress, of his servants' livery, of his stud, +and of his table. And then if he does make solecisms, they are thought +delightful. The only failing for which he could not be forgiven would +be--failure. And he is on his guard. + +I am afraid, therefore, that Mr. Pinero's comedies, although very +pleasant, are already somewhat aged at their birth. It is in vain to get +them up in the latest fashions; their age is evident, especially when they +are looked at side by side with that first act of _The Crusaders_, in +which the satire is so modern and so full of life. + +Mr. Pinero had not renounced the serious drama, and all his theatrical +friends, watching his progress in light comedy, yet expected to see him in +this field in which, so far, he had achieved but half-successes. On April +24, 1889, the Garrick opened its doors with a drama of his, entitled _The +Profligate_. Marvels were expected from the new theatre which John Hare +had erected for himself and his company. As had been the case with the +opening of the Prince of Wales's, it was felt that the first night at the +Garrick ought to mark a date in the history of the drama. The critics, +"old" and "new," were enthusiastic. "At last," exclaimed Mr. Archer, "we +have a real play; a play which has faults, with a third act which has +none!" Those triumphant assertions, made in the heat of the moment, must +unfortunately be taken with a considerable discount. _The Profligate_ is a +melodrama, treated with delicacy and distinction, but incontestably a +melodrama in every aspect and in every part, that wonderful third act +included; it is even one of the most fanciful, most romantic melodramas +that have been written in England for fifteen years. + +Whom shall I recognise as an English character, or even as a human type? +Hugh Murray, the sentimental lawyer, who loses his heart at first sight to +a schoolgirl, and who buries this beautiful passion in the depths of his +heart, to disinter it just at the wrong moment? Janet?--who has given +herself, without the temptation of love, to a seducer in the forties, and +who, during the remainder of the piece perseveres in the accomplishment of +acts of delicacy, of renunciation and of self-abnegation without number, +veritable _tours de force_--_morale_. Leslie?--the heroine of the play, a +schoolgirl who giddily exclaims, a quarter of an hour before her wedding, +that she wonders whether the world will seem of the same colour when she +is the wife of Duncan Renshaw; and who, after a month spent _tete-a-tete_ +with her husband in a villa near Florence, where a fresco of Michael +Angelo is to be seen, seems to know life better than we do ourselves. I +know, of course, the explanation that is forthcoming: only a single moment +was required to alter this character, to bring light to that one. It is +precisely in this explanation that I find the mark of melodrama. In +serious psychology, it is not so easy to believe in these "moments"--in +these sudden revelations, these flash-like crises, which transform an +individuality completely, annulling nature and education. + +And what is one to say of the "Profligate" himself? He is just the +traditional libertine of all the innumerable English novels published +during the last fifty years, nor is he unknown to our own old Boulevard du +Crime. We see him coldly and deliberately cynical up to the moment when +love touches him with its magic ring. That is a kind of conception that +has passed its prime. Nowadays we are inclined to regard Don Juan as a +kind of dupe, the plaything of woman from puberty to decrepitude. We +picture him to ourselves more engaging when he first begins to sin, and +less easy to convert when he has become hardened to it. We find it +difficult to believe that thirty days of wedded bliss suffice to awake a +conscience which has lain dormant for forty years. If the sense of +morality were innate, it must have shown itself earlier; to have been +acquired and to have reached such a degree of perfection and +sensitiveness, it would have needed more time than the average duration +of a honeymoon. + +The situation which delighted so the English critics may be thus +described. The seducer's wife has, without knowing it, given shelter to +his victim. She wishes to help her to confront the man who has wronged +her, and her heart breaks when she sees upon whom the penalty has to fall. +I admit that the scenes leading up to this discovery, contrived with great +ability, produce a veritable anguish in the spectator's mind, and that the +scene between the husband and the wife, which follows after it, is on the +same plane of emotion. But by what a number of improbable coincidences had +this precious moment to be bought! Chance had to take Janet to Paddington +station at the same moment as Leslie and her brother; Chance had to give +this same Janet as "companion" to Miss Stonehay, Leslie's school friend; +to send the Stonehays travelling towards the environs of Florence and the +villa of the Renshaws; to synchronise Janet's illness and Dunstan's +departure so that the two women may interest themselves in each other. And +it is Chance again that makes Janet see Dunstan in Lord Dangars' company +in order that the confusion may arise regarding the two men, and that this +Lord Dangars, who is Dunstan's friend, may become engaged to Irene +Stonehay, the friend of Leslie. And even after Chance has made all these +thoughtful arrangements, Renshaw's happiness might yet be saved, and this +terrible danger by which it is threatened be avoided (and this great scene +of Mr. Pinero's never come to pass), if only Janet were allowed to go as +she desires, and as good sense and modesty make it right that she should. +What is it that makes her stay? Who is it that advises her to bring about +this scandal? No one but Leslie, and I cannot but think her ideas on the +subject singularly gross for so refined a person. This advice she gives is +grounded on the slenderest and most irrational of arguments; a score of +conclusive replies could be given to the pitiful considerations she puts +forward. But Janet has to be convinced. Otherwise, what would become of +the crisis of this "Faultless Third Act"? + +What surprises me most of all is the number of useless excrescences with +which the author has encumbered his piece. What is the point of this +solicitor who bores us, and who gives himself such important airs +throughout the play without having the slightest influence upon the +development of the plot? When, by a final stroke of chance, Leslie has +come to know of the absurd love of which he is the victim, why should she +let him see that she has heard? All she can find to say to him is, +"Good-night." And "Good-night" is all he has to say in reply. This scene +in four words could only be sublime or grotesque: I am inclined towards +the latter view of it. + +Had I been present at one of the first performances of _The Profligate_, I +should have imagined myself in the presence of a talent that had lost its +way, turning its back on the goal to which it should direct its steps, +seeking beyond the confines of reality for some imaginative source of +tears. I should have been wrong. Mr. Pinero is of a reflective turn of +mind; he learns from his mistakes, and is not blinded by his successes. +Before the echoes of the applause which greeted _The Profligate_ in London +had yet died out in the provinces and abroad, Mr. Pinero was at work upon +another drama, conceived after a fashion quite different--quite contrary, +in fact--a drama in half tints, with realistic touches; a sort of novel in +dialogue. This was _Lady Bountiful_, produced on March 7, 1891. + +In _Lady Bountiful_ there is no question of any great fundamental truth, +no great human interest. It is a very unequal piece of work, in turn very +moving and very irritating, for of the two women in whom its interest +centres, it happens unfortunately that one has the sympathy of the author +and the other that of the public. But it showed, at least, that its author +had found its way into the domain of psychological observation. + +It was on May 27, 1893, that _The Second Mrs. Tanqueray_ was performed for +the first time at the St. James's Theatre. It must be said, to the credit +of the public, that its success was immediate, universal, and continued. +The critic whom I have quoted so often exclaimed in a burst of joy, that +here was a piece "which Dumas might sign without a blush." No one is +entitled to speak in the name of our greatest dramatist; but quite +recently, when I re-read _The Second Mrs. Tanqueray_, I said to myself +that if the greatest gift of M. Alexandre Dumas was that of embodying deep +psychological and social observation in splendid eloquence or dazzling +wit, this rare faculty is to be found almost in an equal degree in +Pinero's masterpiece. + +"The limitations of _Mrs. Tanqueray_," Mr. Archer goes on to say, "are +really the limitations of the dramatic form." I would go further still, +and say that such a piece enlarges the province of the theatre. Minute +details are to be found in it, brought out by intelligent and carefully +thought-out acting, which one would have regarded as too small to attract +attention on the stage, shades that the theatre had left to the novel up +till then. _The Second Mrs. Tanqueray_ is, like _Lady Bountiful_, an acted +novel, but a novel excellently constructed. Its four acts are its four +chief chapters, and it should be noticed that the first two of these +chapters are purely analytical; but emotion is introduced imperceptibly +into the play, and we step from psychology into drama without being +conscious of the passage. + +It is not the old, old subject of the courtesan in love, but that of the +mistress raised to the dignity of wife. One of Mr. Pinero's clever notions +is that of having in a sense left passion out of the question. It is +clear, of course, that Tanqueray is very sensible of Paula's personal +attractions. Who would not be, in the presence of so charming a woman? +But there is another feeling mingled with this. He is neither a satyr nor +a stoic, he assures his friend Cayley; he has a quite rational affection +for "Mrs. Jarman"; hitherto she has never met a man who has been good to +her; he, Tanqueray, will be good to her, that is all. Is he absolutely +sincere? Is his affection quite so rational as he asserts? Cayley has his +own ideas upon the subject, and so have we. Mr. Pinero has been charged +with not having told us to what extent philanthropy--the craze for +redeeming--entered into Tanqueray's marriage, to what extent the desire to +have a pretty woman all to himself. But after all, was it incumbent on the +author to give us Tanqueray's psychology? Was it not rather an indication +of his aesthetic sense to keep the husband in the background, to leave him +in half-tints so as not to mar the effect of the principal figure? That +excellent actor, Mr. Alexander, seems to have felt this, for he effaced +himself in the presence of Mrs. Campbell, though quite capable of filling +the stage unassisted, as he showed in _The Masqueraders_ and many other +pieces. In regard to Tanqueray's character, this, however, should be +noted, that, being rich and young enough to keep a mistress without +looking ridiculous, he might, if he chose, have become Paula's lover. If +he decided to make her his wife, it was first of all to give her pleasure, +but also to satisfy a sense of devotion and of virtue in himself. This I +believe to be quite true to life. He was born to believe in women--not to +be deceived by them, but to deceive himself in their regard: which is a +different thing, and perhaps more serious. His first wife was like a nun. +He ends with a courtesan. The law of moral oscillation requires that he +should go from the iceberg (it is thus the first Mrs. Tanqueray is +described to us) to a volcano. Like all weak men, he would play the part +of _un homme fort_. With Paula's arm passed through his, he is ready to +look the world in the face; but when on the eve of their wedding she comes +to see him at eleven o'clock at night, his first remark is, "What will +your coachman say?" This remark lights up his whole character, and for my +part I require nothing more. + +But Paula! What a complex character is hers, and how true in all its +aspects! How important to the delineation of this character, and how +suggestive, is everything she says--even her most trifling remarks; with +what tact and cleverness are her very silences contrived! And with what an +infinity of deft and delicate touches has the masterpiece been brought to +perfection! She is a courtesan, but with an elegance of manners which +imparts to her an air of poetry, and which makes her more akin to a Gladys +Harvey than to a Marguerite Gautier. There are women who traverse muddy +ways with so light a step that they do not sink in them, and that one but +guesses where they have passed from little stains upon the tips of their +shoes. One or two traits reveal to us the irregularity of Paula's life; +the mobility of her impressions, the manner at once fanciful and passive +in which she allows chance to regulate her actions. She has forgotten to +order her dinner; her cook, a "beast" who "detests" her, has pretended to +believe that she was not dining at home, and has given himself an evening +out. So she has got herself up in _grande toilette_ and has taken up her +position in her dining-room, her feet on the fender. Here she has fallen +asleep and dreamt. She tells us her dream later, the while she sups off +the dessert of the farewell dinner Tanqueray had given to three old +bachelor friends. To sup instead of dining, does not this in itself +suggest a whole conception of life? Whoever gets into the way of it will +never be able to reconcile himself to the respectable regularity of the +family joint. + +Thus it is with her in everything. She has acquired a certain _ton_, now +brusque, now bewitching, an air of Bohemianism, and a whole host of +opinions which could never tally with the role of married woman; and these +characteristics have become embedded in her nature. Her irregularity of +word and deed goes with a like incoherence of thought and feeling. Sombre +moods succeed suddenly to extreme gaiety and vanish as suddenly again. The +idea of suicide comes to her; next moment she bursts into laughter at the +sight of the mournful expression she has evoked on Aubrey's countenance. +She has so serious a way of saying the wildest things, and says the most +serious things so frivolously, that you don't know what to believe; her +every word leaves you under her spell, and this effect is intensified more +and more. She is a really "good" woman, Tanqueray will declare just now to +his friend. It is neither an illusion on his part nor even an +exaggeration. Paula is "good" and loyal; she has kept back from Aubrey +nothing of her past. Better still, she has spent this last day writing out +a general confession, with a precision and scrupulousness in which there +is a touch of childishness, a touch of cynicism, and a touch, I think, of +heroism. She weighs the letter with a smile. It is heavy! She wonders if +the post would take all that for a penny! She says to Aubrey, quite +simply, without affectation of any kind, without any airs of tragedy about +her, that she wants him to read this letter and to think over it; and +then, on the morrow, at the last moment, if he changes his mind, let him +send her a line before eleven o'clock, and--"I--I'll take the blow!" +Aubrey puts the letter into the fire and she throws her arms round his +neck; she tells him quite frankly she had counted upon his doing so, an +admission which would quite spoil her "effect," had she sought one. + +Has the question ever been better set? Think of the _Mariage d'Olympe_. +The insolent and hypocritical _gueuse_ stood revealed before she had +uttered half a dozen words. We knew she could never become acclimatised to +that family of honest folk, amongst whom fortune had thrown her. Where, +then, was the problem? All Augier's wonderful cleverness hardly sufficed +to make us await during two hours the punishment of the wretched woman. +Paula is sincere; she is a woman of heart and brain; she is as good as the +women of that world in which she hopes to take her place. In the absence +of a _grande passion_, she feels a grateful tenderness for the gallant +fellow who would lift her up; she is fully resolved to be faithful to him +and to make him happy. We desire ardently her success. Why should she not +succeed? + +We learn in the second act. First of all, because, once she is married, +Paula gets bored. The world will not visit her, and custom does not permit +of her taking the initiative. She is a kind of prisoner in the beautiful +country-house in Surrey. The monotonous tranquillity of "home" oppresses +her after the feverish, exciting existence she has led; the quiet wearies +her to death. Here is her account of her day's occupations from hour to +hour. + +"In the morning, a drive down to the village, with the groom, to give my +orders to the tradespeople. At lunch, you and Ellean. In the afternoon, a +novel, the newspapers; if fine, another drive--_if_ fine! Tea--you and +Ellean. Then two hours of dusk; then dinner--you and Ellean. Then a game +of Besique, you and I, while Ellean reads a religious book in a dull +corner. Then a yawn from me, another from you, a sigh from Ellean, three +figures suddenly rise--'Good-night! good-night! good-night!' (_Imitating +a kiss._) 'God bless you!' Ah!" + +With Cayley she speaks out more strongly. He asks her how she is. + +_Paula_ (_walking away to the window_): "Oh, a dog's life, my dear Cayley, +mine." + +_Drummle_: "Eh?" + +_Paula_: "Doesn't that define a happy marriage? I'm sleek, well-kept, +well-fed, never without a bone to gnaw and fresh straw to lie upon. +(_Gazing out of the window._) Oh, dear me!" + +_Drummle_: "H'm, well, I heartily congratulate you on your kennel. The +view from the terrace is superb." + +_Paula_: "Yes, I can see London." + +_Drummle_: "London! Not quite so far, surely?" + +_Paula_: "I can. Also the Mediterranean on a fine day. I wonder what +Algiers looks like this morning from the sea? (_Impulsively_) Oh, Cayley! +do you remember those jolly times on board Peter Jarman's yacht, when we +lay off"--(_Stopping suddenly, seeing Drummle staring at her_). + +Has she ceased to love her husband and to appreciate the sacrifice he has +made for her? By no means. When he asks her tenderly what he can do for +her, she tells him he can do nothing more. He has done all he could do. He +has married her. She accuses herself. Fool that she was, why did she ever +want to be married? Because the other women of her world were _not_. The +title of married woman looked so fine, seen from afar. Instead of trying +to make her way into a circle of people who would have nothing to say to +her, why not have lived happily with Aubrey in her own sphere, in which +she would have experienced neither the cold insolences of well-bred people +nor the inexorable uniformity of well-to-do, respectable life? + +But these are Paula's least serious trials. There is another woman in the +house--the daughter by the first marriage. She has shut herself up in a +convent, but just when her father is marrying again she decides to resume +her place in his household. This young girl inspires in Paula a double +jealousy. Paula envies her the tenderness shown her by Tanqueray; she +feels that this tenderness is very different from the love she herself +inspires. Then she would fain win the love of this child, who, warned by +some instinct, draws away from her and shrinks from her caresses. It is a +shame, she cries, for after all the girl knows nothing--she ought to love +her. Then, forgetting that love does not come to order, that advice cannot +produce it, that it is begged for in vain, she exclaims to Tanqueray, that +he should command Ellean to love her. This love would do her so much good. +It would expel from her nature that mischievous feeling which carries her +into deeds of rashness and folly. + +A neighbour, a lady who has for long been a family friend of the +Tanquerays, comes to call on her at last, but it is only to take her +step-daughter to some extent from under her care. What is it intended to +do? To find some distractions for Ellean and get her married if possible +(it being obvious that Paula cannot take her into society), and thus to +bring about a freer and quieter time for Paula and her husband. But Paula +can see in all this nothing but a conspiracy formed behind her back, and +in which her husband is mixed up. Then ensues a passionate scene in which +bursts out all the terrible violence of this spoilt-child-like character, +embittered by a false position. Now there remains nothing more for us to +learn about her. + +When we see Ellean again in the third act, a great change has come over +her. On her travels she has come across a man whom she loves and who wants +her to marry him. Paula is overwhelmed with delight. She sees an +opportunity of playing the part of a mother. She will help on this +love-affair, and Ellean will love her out of gratitude. Already the ice in +which the young girl's heart has been locked is beginning to melt. She is +to be found acknowledging to Paula the feeling of repulsion she at first +had entertained for her, and trying to explain away, and express her +sorrow for, her conduct. But the man who has gained the love of the girl +is one of the former lovers of the woman! + +This is the situation which forms the subject of the last two acts, and +which leads Paula in the end to suicide. The circumstance which brings her +face to face with a man whom she had known before her marriage is likely +enough; that which makes of him a suitor for the hand of Ellean is less +natural, but not impossible, and it would be ungracious--after the author +has so richly catered for our psychological curiosity by his rare gifts of +analysis--to carp at the means he has employed of stirring our +sensibility. He has made it clear to us from out the close of the second +act that the domestication of the courtesan is an impossible dream; and +the appearance of Captain Ardale, bringing things to a crisis, does but +render the antagonism between Past and Present, visible, palpable, +crushing. And the Future, what of it? We are to be shown it; for nothing +has been overlooked by the stern logic which informs this play, underlying +and disguising itself, but not altogether hidden, under the aspect of +humour and emotion. Paula, her mind already full of those thoughts of +death she had, as it were, flirted with in the first act, replies to her +husband, who has suggested as a remedy their migration to some distant +land:--She sees her beauty, she tells him, fading little by little, her +beauty that was her one strength, her one unfailing excuse; she sees +herself _tete-a-tete_ with this cruel and insoluble problem, with the +bitter memory of her misdeeds, with the consciousness of the harm she had +suffered and had wrought.... I shall never forget this scene. How her +hoarse voice vibrated, and its accents of despair! How her every word went +to the heart and sank in it! The actress had her share in this great +triumph, and it was one of the strokes of luck attending this fortunate +play that it was the means of revealing a great artist. + +Mrs. Patrick Campbell is a woman of Society who was led by circumstances +and an unusually strong vocation to embrace the stage. She is said to have +Italian blood in her veins; hence, no doubt, that nervous delicacy of +hers, that _morbidezza_ which shades, veils, tempers, refines her talent +no less than her beauty. She has neither the originality, nor the +knowledge, nor the voice of Sarah Bernhardt, but she possesses that +magnetic personality of which I have spoken with reference to Irving, and +with which there is no such thing as a bad part. If this personality must +be described, I would say that Mrs. Campbell's province as an actress is +more particularly that of dangerous love. That voice of hers, though it +has but little sonorousness, power, or richness, produces in one a sense +of disquiet and distress, straitens the heart with a kind of fascinating +delicious fear that I would describe as the _curiosite de souffrir_. You +feel that if you love her you are lost, but once you have seen her it is +too late to attempt resistance. The generations which believed in the +human will, which asked for simple tenderness, pert coquetry or imperious +passion in a heroine, would never have understood her. She has come just +in time to lull our dolorous philosophy, to show incarnate in woman the +victim and the instrument of destiny. + +It was with the same ally that Mr. Pinero risked his next battle, in +January 1895, at the Garrick. I shall not analyse _The Notorious Mrs. +Ebbsmith_. I acknowledge that the piece is full of charming traits, and +that the melodramatic element has been carefully eliminated from it. But I +am obliged also to say that the author has seized one of the serious +questions of the time, the emancipation of woman, and her revolt, +justified in some respects, against marriage, and that this great subject +has been allowed to slip through his fingers. Agnes Ebbsmith is on the +point of seeking consolation in free love for the troubles and +humiliations of her married life. She has rejected a copy of the Bible +which a friend has offered as a last resource. She has thrown it into the +fire, then in a sudden reaction she rushes to the fireplace, plunges her +arm into the flame, rescues the sacred book, and falls upon her knees. The +scene is a very fine one, and Mrs. Patrick Campbell never failed in it to +bring down the house. But the conversion of Agnes is a _denouement_,--not +a solution, unless Mr. Pinero would have us believe that the modern woman +will find in the Bible a response to all her anxieties, a remedy to all +her ills. It is a delicate thesis, and not wishing to discuss it I shall +remain silent. I prefer to bring my account of his talent to a stop, +provisionally, with this admirable _Mrs. Tanqueray_, which submits and +solves a moral problem at the same time that it sets forth and brings to +its natural close a drama of domestic life. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +Ibsen made known to the English Public by Mr. Edmund Gosse--The First +Translations--Ibsen acted in London--The Performers and the +Public--Encounters between the Critics--Mr. Archer once more--Affinity +between the Norwegian Character and the English--Ibsen's Realism suited to +English Taste; his Characters adaptable to English Life--The Women in his +Plays--Ibsen and Mr. Jones--Present and Future Influence of +Ibsen--Objections and Obstacles. + + +"There is now living at Munich a middle-aged Norwegian gentleman, who +walks in and out among the inhabitants of that gay city, observing all +things, observed of few, retired, contemplative, unaggressive. +Occasionally he sends a roll of MS. off to Copenhagen, and the Danish +papers announce that a new poem of Ibsen's is about to appear." + +It was by these characteristic lines that England learnt of the existence +of the singular man who exerts to-day so great an influence over the art +and the thought and the moral life of the whole of Europe. He was shut up +at that time in his meagre Dano-Norwegian glory, like that genie whom the +Eastern tale shows us imprisoned in a bottle. As for the author of the +article which brought him before the English public, he was a quite young +man, a subtle poet and delicate critic, Mr. Edmund Gosse. Nowadays he +occupies in the literary world one of the foremost places amongst those +who create and who criticise, but the best pieces of good fortune fall to +one's youth. In his distinguished career as a critic, he has had no more +precious stroke of luck than that of the finding of Ibsen, at an age at +which as a rule one has been hardly able to find oneself. + +Mr. Gosse made known Ibsen's published works, his historical and +historico-legendary dramas, his first efforts towards taking up his +position in the domain of modern realism. He showed an indulgent +partiality towards _The Comedy of Love_, and justified it by ingenious +translations into verse of his own. He condemned _Emperor and Galilean_ as +only a half-success, although his faithful and penetrating analysis of it +did no wrong to any of the beauties of the piece. He rendered full justice +to the sombre grandeur of _Brand_ and the dazzling fancy of _Peer Gynt_. +In short, he heralded a poet and a satirist. Ibsen has long ago renounced +the first of these titles, and as for the second, Mr. Gosse must find him +somewhat _grele_ for the part. He could not, in 1873, foresee the +realistic dramatist, the reformer, the psychologist, and the symbolist, +who in turn have appeared before us. But he touched the right note, I +think, when he paid his homage to Ibsen as "a vast and sinister +genius"--"a soul full of doubt and sorrow and unfulfilled desire." + +Ibsen entered into correspondence with his young critic, as Goethe before +him had done under analogous circumstances with Carlyle. Mr. Gosse was one +of the first to be informed of the internal crisis which was transforming +the poet's talent, and which was to be a starting-point for the series of +social and psychological dramas. "The play upon which I am now at work, he +wrote,"--it was _The Pillars of Society_,--"will give the spectator +exactly the same impression as he would have watching events of real life +running their course before his eyes." The stage was to be merely a room, +one of whose walls had been taken down that two thousand people might look +on at what was happening inside it. Mr. Gosse entreated the author of +_Brand_ and _Peer Gynt_ not to abandon poetry, but Ibsen followed his +destiny. + +In England they began now to translate him. In 1876 Miss K. Ray gave an +English version of _Emperor and Galilean_; three years later the British +Scandinavian Society printed at Gloucester a selection of extracts from +his works. In 1882 Miss H. F. Lord translated _The Dolls' House_ under the +title of _Norah_, and prefixed to it an introduction in which she +represented Ibsen as a champion of Woman's Rights. Women like to form some +concrete picture of their friends, and Miss Henrietta Lord was careful to +inform her sisters that their defender has a powerful forehead, "a +delicate mouth which has no lips, but shuts energetically in a fine line," +small blue eyes that almost disappear behind his spectacles, and a nose +quite northern in its irregularity; that he speaks softly, moves slowly, +and rarely gesticulates, and that his "self-command amounts to coldness, +but it is the snow which covers a volcano of wild and passionate power." +In 1886 Mr. Havelock Ellis published in the Camelot Classics three of +Ibsen's plays, _The Pillars of Society_, _Ghosts_, and _An Enemy of the +People_, accompanied by a general study in which he passed in review the +dramas of the social and psychological series, indicative of a strong +sympathy with the new ideas and marked in an extreme degree by a fine +literary sense. To this library _Ondine_ was added in 1888, and Mr. Gosse +returned to the scene to take matters up where he had left them in 1877. +Arrived now at the full maturity of his talent, he offered in 1889 an +analysis and appreciation of these prose dramas which may be regarded as +final in some respects. + +It was in the year 1889 that a new period began for Ibsen's fame and +influence in England. People were no longer content to read him, they +attempted now to put him on the stage. He was tried at afternoon +performances, or, as a last resource, as a _fin de saison_, when there was +nothing any longer to be lost or gained, in some second-rate theatre which +was about to be closed, or which might be said to be only half open; a +little later he was played under the auspices of the Independent Theatre, +which is the _Theatre Libre_ of London, but which might be called even +more aptly the Nomadic Theatre, for it has no home of its own, and has to +take refuge, like a tramp, in houses that have no habitant. It may be said +that from 1889 to 1893 the Ibsenite drama lived in London a thoroughly +Bohemian life, never knowing whether it would dine nor where it would +sleep on the morrow. Yet there was a good side to this precarious +existence, namely, that there was involved in it no thought or care for +the question of shillings and pence. Business men have summed up an +undertaking or a man when they have said that it or he "does not pay." Now +Ibsen has never paid. If I might venture to invert that saying of Irving's +which I quoted in a previous chapter, I would affirm that artistic success +is most real when business is worst. + +Little by little a group of actors and actresses was got together who gave +themselves up to the work, and interpreted their author with faith, +passion, and courage, ready to "confess" him, and to endure for him, and +with him, not death but hisses: I may mention Mr. Waring and Miss Robins, +and above all Miss Achurch. An Ibsenite public was coming into existence +at the same time, having for its nucleus a small group of those who had +been devotees from the first. In addition, there was a great number of +hostile critics come to condemn, but behaving themselves on the whole very +respectably. Again, there were some who were merely curious, genuinely +curious, who brought to these moving representations minds entirely open +and unprejudiced. These returned in thoughtful mood and exchanged +opinions upon the remarkable productions they had witnessed. + +It was in the press that the great battles were waged. Many of the critics +lost their temper and their manners, and passed, without realising it, +from ridicule to mere rudeness. I do not confound these excesses either +with the serious discussion to which men of talent submitted Ibsen's +philosophy in lectures and in the Reviews, or with merry skits such as +those of Mr. Anstey, who gave us a "Pocket Ibsen" in the pages of _Punch_; +these parodies suggest, to my mind, a lack neither of comprehension nor of +respect. I refer to the furious and savage attacks which seemed to have +for object the driving back of Ibsen to Norway, much as the East-End +tailors would like to drive back to Hamburg those German immigrants who +lower the rate of their wages. + +Mr. Archer was the target for the fiercest volleys of these battles, in +which he commanded the courageous little phalanx of Ibsenites; but he +returned shot for shot, and with usury, for his fire was infinitely more +destructive than that of his foes. Just as Mr. Gosse had revealed Ibsen to +the literary world fifteen years before, Mr. Archer introduced him now +into the world of the theatre. + +If he entered into the Ibsen controversy so much later than his colleague, +it must not be concluded on this account that he was less well equipped +as regards preliminary study, or that he was upholding convictions that +were newly born. To him, also, Ibsen was an early love. So far back as +1873 he knew by heart, in the original, those admirable scenes in _Brand_, +which touch the soul to its depths. Before the performance of each new +play he would try to explain the Monster, and to get the public into the +way of looking it straight in the face; he would translate the symbolism +into the most intelligible terms, speaking as one speaks to children, with +an authoritative gentleness, a clearness of expression, and wealth of +exposition, to which his quick intelligence does not often have resort. +But the greatest service he has rendered to the cause, is his series of +translations, which are now in everybody's hands; not only do they convey +into English the intense realism of Ibsen's dialogues, but young authors +may learn from them, also, new flexions of familiar speech, and thus get a +step or two nearer to life. + +Mr. Archer has been followed, and perhaps outrun, in his apostolate by +other writers full of ardour and talent. Amongst these vanguard critics it +is impossible not to mention Mr. Arthur B. Walkley, known to the readers +of the _Star_ as "Spectator," and to those of the _Speaker_ by his +initials, "A. B. W." To his name must be added that of Mr. George Bernard +Shaw, whose articles in the _Saturday Review_ have attracted much notice +during the year 1895, and have constituted a veritable campaign in Ibsen's +honour. + +The theatrical managers, as you may suppose, gave Ibsen a wide berth. Mr. +Tree was the first of them who ventured to tackle him; this actor +possesses an inquiring mind, and a spirit ever ready to accept--even, at +need, to initiate--reforms. As long ago as 1891, in a lecture read before +the Playgoers' Club, he had given a very clever analysis of one of the +most striking of M. Maeterlinck's plays. In 1893 he produced a play of +Ibsen's at the Haymarket. The drama which he chose was _The Enemy of the +People_. He had supposed, not unreasonably, that the geniality, courage, +and invincible optimism of Stockmann would win the public. I imagine he +did not regret the experiment, for since then he has made a similar one +with a piece of Bjoernson's. Therein he has set a good example to a greater +actor, and in this connection I would venture to ask a question. Is Irving +to quit the stage without attempting an Ibsen part? However that may be, +the time is approaching when the Norwegian drama will pay. Not, of course, +like _Charley's Aunt_! One must not expect too much when one has only +genius. Ibsen can and should keep alive without robbing or coveting a +single one of lucky Mr. Penley's spectators. + +Now that Ibsen is known in England, what influence does he exert, or will +he continue to exert in the future, upon English dramatic literature? By +what racial affinities was the way for this influence prepared? By what +prejudices--religious, philosophical, aesthetic--has it been impeded? To +what does it owe its strength? To the dramatist's art, or to the ideas +which inform his work? This is the last big question I have to face before +bringing my study to an end. + +I do not wish to carry this question on to the moving bog of ethnography; +I should lose my life. I shall say only that the English turn towards the +Scandinavian world, much as we turn towards the Greco-Latin, with a vague +feeling of tenderness and of filial curiosity. If the Teuton is their +cousin, the Scandinavian is their brother; if not the eldest of the +family, at least the one who has best kept up his tradition. Thus it is to +him they have recourse when they would renew or seek inspiration in these +traditions. Is it not a significant fact that Mr. Gosse and Mr. Archer, +two of the most brilliant minds of their generation, should be familiar at +the age of twenty-five with the literary idiom of Denmark and Norway? Is +it not curious that the Sagas should have been the common source of +Carlyle's last work, and of the most important poem of William Morris? The +Sagas are the Commonplace Book, the _livre de raison_, in which this soul +of the North, free from all taint of the South, and from all antique +serfdom, has left its mark. For the Englishman, who reflects and ponders, +it is the real Bible of his race. + +Just because the Norseman was the incarnation in the mediaeval world of the +Teutonic genius in all its purity, a certain number of enthusiasts will +not allow his descendants to exist in the present, and play their part in +modern life. To make of this little country a museum of Runic relics, to +make a mere caretaker of this vigorous little race, is worse than +pedantry; it is cruelty. Will it be believed that it was from such a +standpoint that objection was first raised against the acceptance of +Ibsen? The idea was so curiously retrograde and artificial, that it could +not long hold up against the force of the current. These archaeologists, +strayed into the field of criticism, made two mistakes: they misunderstood +the law which imposes movement and progress upon all living organisms; and +they were unable to recognise in Ibsen, beneath his modern aspect and +present-day doubts, that valiant temperament, at once fearless and blunt, +of the ancient Vikings,--as brave before the enigmas of thought as _they_ +had been of yore before the perils of battle and the tempest. + +Thus it was that Ibsen, like Oehlenschlaeger before him and Bjoernson in his +own day, made the Sagas his starting-point. It is in the Sagas that the +Norse genius had its root, as in deep and tranquil waters, its stem rising +towards the light and flowering above the surface. Even to-day, Norway and +Denmark take more pleasure in Ibsen's historical and semi-legendary dramas +than in his more recent works; but whatever they themselves and the +devotees of Runic tradition may think, their national character has +undergone change since the twelfth century. Many races have contributed to +the formation of their character, just as they have to that of the +English, and it is worthy of remark that in both cases the elements are +almost identical. The vigorous and energetic Finn, the weak and mystical +Laplander, the blue-eyed, fair-haired Norseman, silent and profound, could +all find their equivalents, if not their like, amongst the ancestors of +the British people. Their history has been different, and yet has had +points in common. Like England, Norway has had religious and political +individualism for school or rather for model. Absolute independence under +a nominal monarchy; freedom of the press and religious intolerance; no +nobility and no class distinctions--Norway has been since 1814 very much +what England would have been, had the semi-republican establishment of +Cromwell and Puritan Democracy endured. + +In his strange poem, _Peer Gynt_, Ibsen intended to depict the Norwegian +type; and he has done so after a fashion which is the more intelligible to +a foreigner in that he has in some cases exaggerated the principal +features of this model to the point of caricature. The Norwegian mind is +full of wild dreams, which seem to him as real as actual facts. Leading a +hard and lonely existence amidst natural surroundings that seem to dwarf +and threaten them, the people learn to live in themselves and for +themselves. They have much pride and much ambition, and plenty of +political wisdom. It is their imagination that sends them into maritime +commerce, this being one of the ways left open to the spirit of adventure. +Peer Gynt sells idols to the Chinese and Bibles to the missionaries; this +second transaction redeeming the first. Twice he makes his fortune and +twice he loses it; but he is a spirited gambler, and a few oaths suffice +to comfort him for his most serious mischances. When, at the moment of his +death, he is enabled to rest his head upon the bosom of the woman he has +vilely betrayed, he accepts this final stroke of luck like all the +rest--grateful but unastonished. The most ludicrous scene of all is that +of a death agony! Peer Gynt's old mother is about to meet her end, and she +is seized with violent tremors. Her son, however, reminds her how, when he +was a boy, the two of them used to play together at horse and cart. +Supposing they had a game now? Where shall we drive to, mother? And off +they go to where God lives! They come to the gates and call upon St. Peter +for admission,--he's _got_ to let Peer Gynt's old mammy into Heaven! The +old woman breaks out into a guffaw, and in the midst of all this frolic, +cheered now and brightened up, she achieves the dread crossing. To French +readers this scene may seem a ghoulish farce: English humour accepts it +from Norwegian humour without demur. In copying from Peer Gynt the +portrait of one race, I had it in my mind to paint the portrait of a +second. The picture has two models. That is why Ibsen comes so easy to the +English mind--less difficult to understand than was Carlyle in his earlier +works. The Norwegian cosmopolitan is more intelligible than the Scottish +peasant, Germanized by a too long intimacy with Goethe and Jean Paul. + +Everyone knows that Ibsen has his own way of constructing a drama, a way +which differs sensibly from ours. Is it better or worse? That is a +question with which I am not concerned. What should be noted, however, is +that the English, who have proved such wretched pupils in our school, and +who, after fifty years have been unable to master their Scribe, have +grasped everything they could turn to their own account in Ibsen's +methods. To understand this, we must remember that the English have a +horror of our realism, even when toned down and filtered through America. +Their compatriot, George Moore, despite his incontestable talent, has been +unable to get them to accept him. They read his works with curiosity but +without pleasure. We have seen in the preceding chapters that of their +three most prominent dramatists, two turn their backs resolutely against +realism, one by instinct, the other of set purpose; whilst the third +cannot acclimatise himself to it, his temperament carrying him off towards +the realm of fancy and humour. On this point they are at one with the +public. _The Second Mrs. Tanqueray_ is an exception. It is a compromise +between the dramatic system of _Francillon_ and that of _Hedda +Gabler_--the second, I think, prevailing. Ibsen has brought to the English +the form, the kind, and the degree of realism they can put up with. Not +that they accept everything without demur, even in Ibsen's realism. They +draw the line at the brutality of certain details, and the almost childish +minuteness of others. Thus it was that Madame Solness's nine dolls +produced some tittering in the stalls.[14] In _Little Eyolf_, if Alfred +Allmers be allowed to make the avowal in the midst of his despair at the +tragic death of his little boy, that he had caught himself wondering what +he was going to have for dinner, I should not be surprised if there were, +at this point, a shudder of protest. But these moments in which the +dramatist and his English spectators are out of sympathy are rare. +Shakespeare taught them to be surprised in no way at seeing human nature +sink to the lowest depths after rising to giddy heights. What they want is +to pass quickly from facts to ideas, and from ideas to fancies, and then +to return suddenly to facts. The exact reproduction of life will never +seem to them, as at certain literary epochs it has seemed to us, the +supreme and final end of Art. It satisfies them only when it leads towards +the solution of some problem of conduct, towards the explanation of some +enigma of destiny, or of the fascinating secrets of this psychical world +in which we live without ever seeing it,--of what is in it, and beside it, +and beyond it. It must not be forgotten that symbolism is not a mere +pastime and amusement to the Northern races which are addicted to it, but +a real need born of their peculiar nature, a need which is not to be +replaced by that idolatry of forms and colours which prevails in the +joyous and sensuous South. When it is not satisfied, this need is +accentuated to the point of a longing, a craving. The fact translates and +suggests, follows or precedes, the thought; without the thought, it were +but an empty envelope, a dress without a wearer, a box containing nothing. +It serves, so to speak, as handmaid to the idea, and I would venture to +suggest this formula (which I believe truthful, though it seem strange): +In England, realism will be symbolical or non-existent. + +If Ibsen's art, then, is to prove to be to English taste, it is because +this art is subordinated to the expression of certain moral feelings, and +secret tendencies of the inner life; and also because all the questions +with which the dramatist is taken up, are precisely those by which the +English race is absorbed and divided into opposing camps; because in fine, +Ibsen's message, to make use of the expression of Carlyle, is addressed to +this race more than to any other. + +With regard to its bearing upon philosophy, let us take for instance that +theory of Atavism which is developed, first of all, in a lugubrious +episode in _The Dolls' House_, and which pervades _Ghosts_, and +_Rosmersholm_, and _The Lady from the Sea_; does it not find a fit and +well-equipped audience in the readers of Darwin, Huxley, and Herbert +Spencer? From a social standpoint, the ulcers which Ibsen cauterises are +the ulcers which eat also into the life of England. That tyranny of the +majority, that conventional and machine-like morality which stifles all +initiative, that cavilling, degrading charity which is not Christian, but +sectarian, are all well known to England. In Pastor Roerland and Pastor +Manders these things find expression,--in the former violent, impetuous, +fanatical, in the latter sheeplike and pusillanimous; the one is the +incarnation of intolerance, the other of human respect; and England is +well aware that she has both her Roerlands and her Manders. When, too, she +is shown a Consul Bernick upon the stage, who is full of fine sentiments, +but whose fortune is founded upon lies, and who sends out gallant fellows +on a ship destined to be wrecked, she must be reminded of her own +philanthropic ship-owners, enriched by the insuring of coffin-ships. And +just as she is capable of a Bernick, so she is not unequal to producing a +Stockmann, nor, in consequence, to understanding and loving this genial +_bavard_, this impassioned devotee of truth and virtue, this Don Quixote, +this Pangloss who would go to the martyr's stake, but prefers to stop on +the road. His enemies have broken his windows: what does he do? Sends for +a glazier! He picks up the stones that have been thrown at him, examines +them and criticises them. "Why, these are mere pebbles. There is hardly a +decent stone in the lot!" He has returned from a public meeting with his +trousers torn, and he comments thus philosophically upon the misadventure: +"When you propose to stand up for justice before men, you should be +careful not to wear your best pair of breeches." If these traits are not +English, I don't know what the English character is. + +Were I to pass Ibsen's types in review one by one, I should find it easy +to show with what ease they adapt themselves to English life. Engstrand, +the man of the people, always a sinner and always lamenting his sin, who +makes a career and a livelihood out of his repentance; and Loevborg, that +noble but feeble character whom drunkenness drags into debauchery, and in +whom the temptations of one night nullify years of virtue and honest +endeavour;--these would require no modification or commentary upon the +London stage. But it is English women that Ibsen seems to have divined +best of all. Nearly all those demands of the Anglo-Saxon woman which evoke +so much talk to-day are contained in germ in the last scene of _The Dolls' +House_, which dates from 1879. The woman is tired of being a servant and a +plaything to the man; she sees herself confronted with responsibilities +and duties for which she has had no preparation; she wants to live her own +life as a reasoning and thinking being. This note is being re-echoed +daily in the Reviews and on the platforms open to women, and thus Norah's +cry is indefinitely prolonged. + +It is more than fifteen years since Ibsen wrote: "In democracy will be +found the only solution of the social question. But the new state of +society should contain an aristocratic element, not the aristocracy of +birth or of the money-chest, not even the aristocracy of intellect, but +the aristocracy of character, of the will and of the soul. I expect much +in this direction from woman and from the working-man, and it will be to +the bringing nearer of their hour that my whole life-work shall be +devoted." I do not know whether this double promise has been kept. It +seems to me that the people have found in him but a wayward and +intermittent champion, and women a friend too pitilessly clear-sighted. + +Women, both the good and the bad, are given traits of character, in +Ibsen's dramas, which are common to the Northern races. That _joie de +vivre_, which in Norah gushes forth into affectionate sympathy, but which +in Regina (in _Ghosts_) takes the form of a cold and marble-like +indifference, which can be touched by nothing save self-interest and +self-love; the jealousy and pride of Hedda Gabler, who prefers to send a +man to his death, rather than see him repentant, and brought to happiness +through the agency of another woman, and who decides to die herself rather +than submit to the yoke or endure the scorn of the world; the naively +animal sensualism of Rita Allmers (in _Little Eyolf_), who puts her +husband before her child, and plays the wanton to rekindle the fire which +had gone from his heart--to secure the marital attentions which are her +due: these are all characteristics which are to be met with beyond the +fiftieth parallel and north of the Pas de Calais, no less than north of +the Sound. + +I shall not go so far as to say that Ibsen has taught the English +dramatists to understand the women of their race, but, at least, he has +brought out certain aspects of them which had remained unportrayed, +whether because the requisite psychological knowledge, or that rare +quality, pluck, had been lacking in those who had attempted to depict +them. Not all these dramatists accept Ibsen as their master; Sydney +Grundy, whilst disapproving most strongly of the insults with which a +certain section of the critics attack Ibsen and his partisans, has +declared outright that he himself is no disciple of the author of _The +Master Builder_. We can easily believe it; even without the declaration, +his work in itself would have told us as much. Mr. Pinero, also, does not +seem to me to have accepted any of Ibsen's ideas; but he must have +reflected upon his methods, and to some purpose, for if the brain which +conceived _Hedda Gabler_ is a powerful brain, the hand which constructed +its various parts, and wove them together, is a cunning hand. + +As for Mr. Jones, he indeed has followed both the artist and thinker in +Ibsen. In speaking of his plays, I omitted designedly the adaptation which +he made of _A Dolls' House_, in collaboration with Mr. Herman, an +Alsatian, resident in London since 1870, who died three years ago. In +certain respects the English piece is better constructed than the +original, in as much as it rids us of Dr. Rank, who is an excrescence, and +of the love-affair of Krogstad and Madame Linden, which is really wanting +in common sense. But Mr. Jones, ill advised, I fancy, by a collaborator of +rather a timid and commonplace order of mind, shrank from that last scene +which may be repellent to some people, but which is really the whole play. +For that terrible door which shuts with so inexorable a clang, in the +midst of the silence of the night, separating husband and wife perhaps for +ever, and leaving Norah to seek her way in the dark and the cold,--symbols +of a life of which nothing is known, save that hardships will be met in +it,--the authors of _Breaking a Butterfly_ substituted a general +reconciliation. They justified the optimistic _denouement_ by making the +husband rise to that act of heroic devotion, which, in the original, Norah +declares she hoped for from him. Ibsen did not intend this, and he was +right. It is necessary that Norah should look for this sacrifice, and that +she should look in vain. Thus the man and the woman maintain their +individual characters: the one remains faithful to his practical logic, +the other to her romantic conception of life; and if everything does not +turn out well, at least everything is true in this most disunited of +_menages_. + +Mr. Jones has been much happier when inspired by Ibsen than when he has +translated him. It is, above all, when he is depicting women that he seems +to me to be haunted by the memory of the Norwegian's heroines. It may be +said, speaking generally, that a breath of Ibsen has passed through all +his works during the last seven or eight years. But his dialogue is too +lively, he yields too much to the temptation of turning his wit to +account, he is of too gay a temperament, to be a veritable Ibsenite. It is +in these respects, indeed, that the divergence begins between the author +of _Hedda Gabler_ and his admirers on the other side of the Channel. The +English are ready to rail at life, but not to condemn it root and branch; +despite an apparent sombreness they know how to enjoy themselves, and they +consent to travel only as tourists in that world of Ibsen's, in which for +the few smiling and sunlit spaces, there frown such vast and mournful +solitudes, where nothing sings and nothing flowers. + +It has been said that Ibsen is the Winter of the North and Bjoernson its +Spring. This Bjoernson is a strange personality. Intellect and temperament +have made a battlefield of his life. Born to write idylls, he has thrown +himself heart and soul into the warfare of journalism. He has come under, +and even sought, a thousand influences, instead of trying to find himself. +The friendly antagonism with Ibsen has done him more harm than good. This +connection has made him known to readers in Western Europe, but it has +drawn him into channels for which his faculties did not fit him, and have +failed to support him. By his faith in the future, and by his confident +and combative spirit, he seemed destined to please the English. Long +before Ibsen's name had been even mentioned in London, his _Arne_ and +_Synnove Solbakken_ had been read there, two sketches of peasant life +which will bear comparison with _La Mare au Diable_ and _La Petite +Fadette_; and the idealist novels he has published during the last ten +years became popular with his countrymen only after they had first +achieved success in England. But his plays up to the present have made but +little show upon the English stage, and he shares only to an infinitesimal +degree in the sympathies and antipathies of his illustrious rival. + +When Ibsen attacks that class of puritans and hypocrites who turn away +their faces when they pass the entrance to a theatre, there is no +hesitation about applauding him and imitating him. But when he would shake +the whole edifice of society, and when he calls in question all the ideas +and customs upon which the edifice is based, the theatre hesitates to +follow him, for it feels that a portion of its clientele, and that the +best,--that which has always been constant in its support,--will be +startled and alarmed. The theatre is reactionary, and has good reason to +be: it is to its commercial interest to range itself alongside privilege +and tradition, against change and progress. It is on the side of those +who have money in their pockets, and who wish to amuse themselves, for +these are the people to whom it opens its doors. These people are +indignant when, having come to weep or to laugh, they are made to think; +when a man to whom they cannot but listen speaks to them of their rights +and their duties, of life and of death, of their most secret thoughts, of +what they would fain ignore or forget, and all this with a freedom, an air +of authority, a depth the theatre had never known before, the pulpit knows +no longer. Here is the key to the exclamations of surprise, the gusts of +anger, the broadsides of satire and ridicule, which Ibsen and his devotees +have had to face. But one gets used to everything, even to being insulted, +and gets even to like it. It is one of the amusements of the decadent. +Perhaps some day we shall see Ibsen's adversaries, fascinated by his +genius, follow his barque like the rats that followed the ratwife's in +_Little Eyolf_, and plunge into the deep waters to the music of his +flute.[15] + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +G. R. Sims--R. C. Carton--Haddon Chambers--The Independent Theatre and +Matinee Performances--The Drama of To-morrow--A "Report of Progress"--The +Public and the Actors--Actor-Managers--The Forces that have given Birth to +the Contemporary English Drama--Disappearance of the Obstacles to its +becoming Modern and National--Conclusion. + + +I have given an account of the beginnings of the contemporary dramatic +movement, have indicated the various influences from within and from +without which have affected it, by which it has been stimulated or held +back; have analysed what seem to me the most characteristic of those +dramas which have already seen the light. There remains nothing then for +me to do, except to ascend a tower, as it were, and to scan the horizon, +and to foretell, if I can do so, what we may expect from the drama of +to-morrow. + +There is a group of writers who keep near the confines of drama and +melodrama, torn between literary ambition and the very natural wish to +earn money. What will they do? Will they be artists or artizans? Will they +stoop to the conditions of the trade, or rise to the requirements of the +art? There are many of their kind whom Sir Augustus Harris has made away +with, and whom we shall never get back. + +I can remember the hopes given rise to by Mr. Buchanan. But, as Oronte +says in Moliere's _Misanthrope_--"_Belle Philis, on desespere alors qu'on +espere toujours_." The case of Mr. G. R. Sims is different. There has been +no apostasy with him; he has remained what he always was, and has given +what he was bound to give. Story-teller, journalist, or playwright, he is +an improviser, who does not aim too high, but who combines with a gift of +observation, a certain imaginative faculty and a kind of popular humour, +together with a touch of Zolaism. Above all, he is a Cockney, and nothing +that belongs to Cockneydom is unknown to him. The only play of the period +in which you can really smell the East End, as the _maitre_ of Medan would +say, is _The Lights o' London_, and that perhaps is why all the London +managers, one after the other, returned it to Mr. Sims, "with thanks." +_The Lights o' London_ got produced in the end, however, and had an +immense success, but a success that was not to endure. It is not towards +realism, as we have seen, that the English stage is making. + +Who will take the lead amongst the younger school of dramatists? Who will +write the _Judahs_, _The Second Mrs. Tanquerays_ of to-morrow? Will it be +Mr. Louis N. Parker, Mr. Malcolm Watson, or Mr. J. M. Barrie? Or will it +be Mr. Carton, author of _Liberty Hall_ (one of the successes of 1893) +and of _The Squire of Dames_, an adaptation, or rather an abridged +translation, of _L'Ami des femmes_, which has been attracting the public +to the Criterion? Up to the present, Mr. Carton has shown that he +possesses wit and talent, but neither observation nor the inventive +faculty. But in the near future he may give proof of both. + +Or will it be Mr. Haddon Chambers, who is already known in Paris, one of +his works, _The Fatal Card_, having crossed the channel? Since then he has +written a piece entitled _John-a-Dreams_, played at the Haymarket in 1894, +in which Mrs. Patrick Campbell and Mr. Tree joined their talents. It is +not a good play, but it is one in which the tendencies of the new drama +are clearly shown. I recall one scene of the utmost simplicity, the +restrained and sober emotion of which contrasts curiously with the fine +phrases a situation such as it contains would inspire in an author of a +quarter of a century ago. Kate Cloud loves, and is loved by, Harold Wynn. +Before consenting to marry him she gets herself introduced to Harold's +father, a country clergyman. + +"You do not know me, sir," she says to him (I quote from memory), "but I +know you. You came to preach ten years ago at the village of ----. I was +with Mrs. Withers then." + +"Oh, indeed,--an excellent person," he replies; "but it is strange that I +did not make your acquaintance." + +"No, it is not strange, really,--do you remember the kind of work she was +engaged upon?" + +"The redemption of unfortunates, was it not." + +"Yes, exactly. And you, doubtless--you helped her?" + +"No," Kate replies gravely, sadly, her voice trembling. "No, it was she +who helped me." She tells him her story, the sad, perennial story, or +rather, having begun it, she leaves him to divine the rest. "They came to +my help," she goes on, "but no one came to the help of my mother. She fed +and clothed me when I was little; I in my turn fed and clothed her later +on." + +Then had come years of endeavour, and the hard apprenticeship by which she +had made herself an honest woman. + +"Now, sir, if a man who had a heart wanted to marry me in full +consciousness of my past, should I have the right to accept him?" + +"Certainly, my child," the old man answers. + +"You would still be of the same opinion even though the man were of your +own rank, ... were a friend of yours, ... were your son?" + +Harold's father gives a gesture of anguish and horror, of physical recoil +and inexpressible confusion. Then he stammers, tries to recover himself, +seeks to call to his aid the merciful doctrine of the sacred Book which he +has all his life upon his lips, and which he thought he had within his +heart. But Kate does not give him time. A gesture has decided her future; +she holds herself bound by this instinctive display of a social prejudice +which has become his second nature, his second conscience, even to the +point of effacing the idea of pardon in him who should be its interpreter +and messenger. The title of the play is not misleading, the action being +pervaded and, as it were, impregnated by, steeped in, dreaminess. Mr. +Haddon Chambers dares to dream in the theatre, and the public seem to me +to be ready to keep him company. That anyone should go to the theatre to +dream will seem incredible to many Parisians. But we must remember always +that the English mind has literary needs, and to a certain point emotional +propensities, that are different from ours. We should have in our minds, +too, in the place of these theatres of ours so brightly lit, in which the +spectacle lies often as much in the boxes and balcony as on the stage, +those London theatres, plunged in a semi-obscurity which induces to +forgetfulness of oneself and of the ordinary conditions of life. The stage +appears like the fabric of a vision. The dull-looking, uninterested faces +of the musicians are no longer interposed between us and the scenery. The +jingling of a bracelet, a slight rustling of satin, the faint and delicate +odour of a rose, the quick breathing of some neighbour who is moved, bring +home to us only at moments the presence of other human beings. Perhaps it +is the place of all others where one gets furthest away from the thought +of reality, where one is readiest to wish for the unlifelike and to love +the impossible. + +After the writers whom I have named, there are others, and yet others +still, whose names the public hardly knows, and at whose manuscripts the +managers look askance. The Independent Theatre gave them an opening, but +this theatre itself has ceased its existence, beset with difficulties, and +there is nothing to suggest that it will come to life again. There remain +for them only those matinees in the regular theatres which lend their +stage, more or less disinterestedly, for these ephemeral performances in +which young actors are to be found interpreting unknown authors to the +strangest of publics. The house is full of friends--if it be not empty +altogether. A certain number of long-suffering play-lovers attend these +tentative representations, sustained by the hope of being the first to +discover a talent in process of formation, or a new formula of art: they +have come across little up to the present except the _gaucherie_ which +feels its way, and the deliberate exaggeration which aims at exciting +wonder. + +Those who have followed me in this long study of mine, and who have +watched the evolution of the English drama through its successive stages, +are in a position to see for themselves what advance it has made already +during the last thirty years. There is the advance first of all in the +taste of the public. The democracy has gone through its course of +education; it has "settled," so to speak, and the dregs have sunk to the +bottom. Three classes of spectators have gradually been formed by a +process of natural selection. The music halls provide for the feasting of +the eye; melodrama and farce have attracted and retain an enormous mass of +clients; the literary drama and Comedy have secured their own homes, to +which one looks only for artistic emotions and refined amusements. + +In these are to be found that highest rank of actors and actresses whose +rise in fortune, talent, and esteem I have described. To the names already +mentioned I would add those of some to whom I have not had occasion to +refer in these pages, but whom I have often had the pleasure of +applauding: Mr. Willard, Mr. Wilson Barrett, and Mr. Forbes Robertson; Mr. +Charles Wyndham, whose confident and brilliant style would do honour to +the best of our _societaires_ of the Rue Richelieu; Mr. Robson, whose gift +of humorous naturalness almost made a realistic play out of _Liberty +Hall_; Lionel Brough, who for thirty years has set the stamp of his +whimsical originality upon all his roles; Miss Evelyn Millard, who recalls +Mrs. Patrick Campbell without imitating her; and Miss Kate Rorke, who is, +on the contrary, her exact opposite, and who incarnates the sweet +freshness of pure affection, the innocence which weeps and smiles, just as +Mrs. Campbell personifies the love that is disquieting and dangerous; Miss +Winifred Emery, an actress of varied and supple talent, capable of +depicting caprice no less than virtue and devotion. The list is far from +being complete. + +There have always been a number of good actors, but what was constantly +lacking before the Bancrofts' time was unison. To-day the _ensembles_ are +far better than they were, and they would be better still were it not for +that perpetual _va-et-vient_ in the theatrical world which is so injurious +to the homogeneity of the various companies. + +The art of _mise-en-scene_ did not exist. To-day it not merely exists: it +has reached a certain degree of perfection. I am not referring now to the +scenic splendours and illusions of Drury Lane, though I have no wish to +make light of these, but to that appropriate framing, that scrupulous +accuracy in the matter of historical details, no less than in the matter +of modern accessories, that living atmosphere, to use Irving's formula, +with which the intelligent stage-manager should clothe the action of the +piece. I have already alluded to the Shakspearian revivals at the Lyceum. +No one knows better than Mr. Tree, of the Haymarket, how to give us a +glimpse of the real world of fashion, and how to bring home to us the +poetry underlying the play which he is producing. Mr. Haddon Chambers must +have been grateful to him for that yacht which sped so swiftly past the +Needles, bathed in the pale radiance of the moon; and for the scenery in +the last act which imparted a sense of austere and solemn grandeur to the +conclusion of the play. In the same piece, when Harold, after a sleepless +night, threw open his window, and we saw the fields lying under their +covering of morning mist, and the fresh and joyous sunlight flooded the +room, and there came to our ears the song of the awakening birds, the +sensation was full of a rare charm, serving as _andante_ to the loftiest +feelings. + +It would seem that the dramatists have not so much influence in the matter +of _mise-en-scene_ as they might wish. But may this not be that for one +reason or another their competency, except in the case of some of them, is +inferior to their pretensions? It is the custom to abuse the +actor-managers, and to point to them as one of the obstacles to the +complete development of the drama. It is a domestic quarrel, and there is +no good in interfering between husband and wife. It is possible that some +actor-managers succumb to the temptation of ordering their parts to +measure, and call for even more docility than talent from the young +authors whom they employ. It is possible also that the ill-feeling of a +dramatist who has had his work refused, or of an actor who has been left +in the background, may have done something to exaggerate the evil. Make a +study of the author-manager who has to minister to his own personal +vanity, to his own literary prepossessions, and to the needs of his own +special circle of admirers and sympathisers; the commercially-minded +manager for whom questions of art find their answer in the yearly +balance-sheet; the worldly, pleasure-seeking manager, _amateur de theatre_ +and to an even greater degree _amateur de femmes_: you will find that +each has his faults, and that these faults are just as bad on the whole as +the actor-manager's. + +Another obstacle is the Censorship. I have shown how absurd it is in +principle; it is my duty to add that in practice it is not wholly +unreasonable, though it relapses into prudishness every now and then. I +have read lately a moving drama, from the pen of Mr. William Heinemann, +the celebrated publisher whose enterprising spirit is well known in the +world of literature, and who has it in him to make no less a mark in the +world of the theatre. The Censorship would not sanction _The First Step_: +this piece might have made it known to Londoners that there are couples in +their great city whom the registrar has not united and whom the clergyman +has not blessed, men of good position who get drunk and beat their +mistresses, young girls who leave home in the morning and don't return at +night. The Censorship thought it better to spare them this revelation. + +But such instances are rare. The Censorship is changing bit by bit, like +the beefeaters of the Tower, who replaced their hose by breeches some +years ago without warning. These breeches do not go, I am aware, with the +hood, doublet, and halbert, but this is our poor way of imitating nature +in her transformations. For the Censorship there is only one way of +adapting itself to modern life, and that is to disappear. Disappear it +will, but slowly and gradually, confining its action to essential cases; +and thus it will drag out its existence yet a little while. When, +finally, the time will come to give it its _coup-de-grace_, it will be +found to have already ceased to breathe. + +Who then will succeed to the censor? who will be censor when the +Censorship has been abolished? The public itself; the public represented +not only by those of its members who are the most refined, but those who +are strictest and most uncompromising. In other words, the Puritans will +be on the watch. And after all, why not? Are they not one of the forces of +the national mind, one of the reasons of England's existence? They are the +natural enemies of the theatre, and will last as long as it. When they +leave it free, their end or its end will be near at hand, and England's +end will be in sight. + +We live, not because we choose but because we must. It is thus with the +English drama as with everything else. The law that put the dramatic work +of foreigners upon the same footing in regard to copyright as their own +has made translation and adaptation almost impossible, by reason of the +double expense involved. Thenceforward it was necessary for the English +dramatist to invent plots for himself, to be original, to be himself. It +was thus the English drama came to life. + +The vote of Congress, which in 1890 secured copyright in America for +English authors, put an end to the old system of keeping plays in +manuscript. Once publication was no longer attended by risk, how could +they hold aloof from this new form of success? Accordingly they began to +print. But in order to be read, a play should be really written. The +drama, then, had to become literary. As yet it is literary only in a +moderate degree. I began with the question: Is there a living English +drama at the present moment? To be living it is necessary that it should +express the ideas and the passions of the time, and to be English it +should be a faithful likeness, a complete synthesis of all the elements of +the national character. The drama, from various causes, was behind the +times. These causes, which I have pointed out and discussed, were:-- + +1. The timidity resulting from excessive severity of manners. + +2. The dramatist's lack of opportunity for the study of social life. + +3. The Shakespeare cult, which paralysed the imagination by offering it a +model that was too big for it, and forms that had become antiquated. + +These causes have disappeared one after the other. The moral ideal has +become enlarged and has given over a wider field to the dramatist. The +dramatist himself has learned to know life outside the green-room and the +tavern back-parlour. He has studied from nature instead of copying +Goldsmith and Sheridan. Shakespeare has never been less imitated, perhaps +because he has never been better acted or better understood. + +But what prevented the drama from being "English"? It is we French who +have prevented it--it is from our drama that the English playwrights have +drawn for so long, at first with an indiscriminate eagerness for which +there is no parallel, later more modestly and with discernment. At the +risk of offending my compatriots, I must here express my absolute +conviction that, except in regard to acting, this French influence has +been harmful to the English stage. Our dramatists have enriched some +London managers; but they have lain for thirty years on top of the English +dramatists, and have stifled their originality--and without deriving much +profit from this involuntary tyranny. If only they could have taught their +pupils the secrets of their trade! But the English were maladroit +disciples of Scribe and Sardou, whilst the philosophy of Dumas and Augier +remained to them a closed book. + +The French influence has come at last to be what it should be. The two +theatres, placed upon the same footing, will lend each other from time to +time,--now, the idea of a play which, treated differently on either side +of the channel, will serve to measure the divergence or resemblance of the +two forms of society; now, a complete play which, translated literally, +will give to us a perfect representation of London life, or to the +Londoners a perfect representation of ours. Meanwhile the English drama, +freed from its leading strings, will find its own way for itself. It is +capable of doing so unaided, but I think Ibsen's plays will help it. In +this reference to Ibsen my readers may think they see a contradiction in +my reasoning. "What!" they will cry. "In order to bring back the English +drama to itself again, you say it must be freed from foreign influence, +and yet you send it to school to Norway!" + +But I have answered this objection by anticipation. I have shown that +Ibsen is not a foreigner to England. He seems to have written for +Englishmen; he has given them the kind of drama, more or less, that +Shakespeare, were he living now, would have given them. I write this +sentence, confident that if I am in the world, or, not being in the world, +am still read, a score of years hence, no one will be inclined to call me +to account for it. To the Northern races, at all events, Ibsen means not a +fashion but an era. + +What the English drama is in search of, what it is about to create,--with +or without Ibsen's assistance,--is a new form in which to reproduce that +dualism which has struck and disconcerted every observer, native or +foreign, Matthew Arnold, Emerson, Taine. For my part, I have sometimes +endeavoured to trace this dualism to the marriage, tempestuous but +fruitful, of Saxon and Celt, to the effort, ever vain but never ceasing, +of these two refractory elements to fuse and unite. The drama of the +sixteenth century came, in a moving and memorable hour, from one of those +unions between the young and strong in which there enters something of +violence and even of madness. The existing drama is the issue of parents +well on in years in a time of gloom and trouble. It is delicate and calls +for care. At the same time, it bears resemblances to those who gave it +life. A race of heroes who are also buccaneers, a race of poets and +shopkeepers, a race fearless of death and devoted to money, calculating +but passionate, dreamers yet men of action, capable of the charges of +Balaclava and the deal in the Suez shares, cannot possibly find its +literary expression either in pure idealism or in realism undiluted. The +"bleeding slice of life" awakes in it no appetite; "Art for Art's sake" +leaves it wonderfully indifferent; of moralising, it is tired for the time +being: it is passing through a stage of sensuous torpor which is not +without charm, and it waits open-eyed and, as it were, hesitatingly before +the labour of creating society afresh, of building up a new civilisation. +It does not wish, and is not able, to forget those problems--that terrible +To-morrow--by which we are everywhere threatened. Hence its sensuousness +is tempered, refined, saddened by philosophy. And in this mood, what it +asks of the drama is not to be amused, or to be excited, but to be made to +think. + + + + +INDEX + + + Achurch, Miss, and Ibsen, 281. + + Actor-manager on circuit, 49. + + Adaptations from the French, 77, 207; + law as to, 208; + process, 209; + S. Grundy's, 216. + + Adelphi, The, 41, 46, 63, 195. + + Albany, James, 133; + his _Two Roses_, 162. + + Alexander, Mr., in _Mrs. Tanqueray_, 266. + + Almaviva I. and II., 200. + + America, Macready in, 73. + + Anderson, Mary, 174. + + Anstey, Mr., and Ibsen, 282. + + Archer, W., on Kean and Macready, 42. + + ---- on Wills, 177; + on Tennyson, 178. + + ---- on Tennyson and Montanelli, 185, 299-207. + + ---- and H. A. Jones, 234; + and _The Profligate_, 260; + and _Mrs. Tanqueray_, 265. + + ---- and Ibsen, 282, 285, 290. + + Arnold, Matthew, in the English Drama, 204; + and H. A. Jones, 239. + + _Arrah-na-pogue_, 91. + + Art of _mise-en-scene_, 307. + + Arundel Club, The, 109, 115. + + Augier, 209, 257, 269, 312. + + Authors of 1850-65, 80. + + + _Bab Ballads_, 140. + + Bancroft, Mr., as Captain Hawtree, 119, 120; + his realism, 122; + revival of _School for Scandal_, 50, 123. + + Bancrofts, the, compared, 122; + and Robertson's plays, 133; + and the "cup and saucer" comedy, 134; + retirement, 136. + + Bancroft, Mrs., 101 (see Wilton, Marie). + + Barrett, Wilson, 306. + + Barrie, J. M., 301. + + Batemans, the, 156. + + Beauty in the Drama, 252. + + _Becket_, Tennyson's, 185, 188, 193. + + _Bells, The_, 164, 166. + + _Belphegor_, 100. + + Beringhiem in _Richelieu_, 69. + + Berlioz, 45. + + Berne, Treaty of, 208. + + Bernhardt, Sarah, 197, 275. + + Bjoernson, 406. + + ---- and Ibsen, 297. + + _Black-eyed Susan_, 61, 94. + + Bohemia, centre of, 109, 115; + in a nutshell, 116. + + Boucicault, Dion, 87, 88-92, 93. + + ---- Mrs. Dion, 90. + + _Brand_, Ibsen's, 278, 279, 283. + + _Breaking a Butterfly_, 296. + + _Broken Hearts_, Gilbert's, 142. + + Brooke, 156. + + Brough, Lionel, 306. + + ---- Robert, 110. + + Browning and Macready, 64; + his dramas, 192. + + Buchanan, Robert, 195, 301. + + Buckstone, 79, 80, 103, 112, 152. + + Bulwer, Lord Lytton, 64-72; + at Macready's banquet, 74; + portrayal of Riches and Rank, 116 (see Lytton). + + _Bunch of Violets, A_, 221. + + Burdett-Coutts', Baroness, present to Irving, 167. + + Burlesque, 93. + + Burnand's _Ixion_, 93-95. + + Byron, H. J., 96-99, 103, 104; + and Robertson, 134. + + ---- Lord, 96. + + Byronian Satanism and Bulwer Lytton, 65. + + + _Cabinet Minister, The_, 258. + + Campbell, Mrs. Patrick, 250, 266, 275, 276. + + ---- in _John o' Dreams_, 302, 306. + + _Cantab, The_, Robertson in, 112. + + Carlyle and the Sagas, 285; + and Ibsen, 288. + + Carton, 301. + + _Caste_, 117; + Howe in, 119; + Marie Wilton in, 121; + scene from, 129. + + Cavendish, Ada, 95. + + Censor's Successor, the, 310. + + Censorship, official, 83. + + ---- and Sydney Grundy, 214. + + ---- and _The First Step_, 309. + + Chamberlain, Lord, 84. + + Chambers, Haddon, 302, 307. + + Characters, limited types of, 80. + + _Charles I._, Wills's, 165, 166, 177. + + _Charley's Aunt_, 284. + + Chatterton, 198. + + Chedd, 116. + + Chippendale's present to Irving, 166. + + Cibber, Colley, 168. + + Circuit, on, 46-49. + + City elocution class, 159. + + Clarke, John, 104. + + Clary in _The Prisoner of War_, 59. + + Classical drama, death of the, 176. + + _Clerical Error, A_, 234. + + Coleridge on Kean, 42. + + _Colleen Bawn_, 90-92. + + Comedie Francaise, 197. + + Comedies, Robertson's, cause of their success, 122. + + Comedy, "Cup and Saucer," 134. + + Comedy, the, 196. + + Comic opera, 98. + + Commission, parliamentary, 64; + and Bulwer Lytton, 65. + + Compton, 80. + + Cook, 198. + + _Cool as a Cucumber_, 79. + + Copyright in dramatic work, 310. + + Coquelin, M., on Mrs. Bancroft, 101. + + Coriolanus, Macready as, 41. + + Court Theatre, The, 133, 196. + + Courtly, Charles, in _London Assurance_, 89. + + Covent Garden, 46, 62, 64, 76. + + Criticism, dramatic, 81. + + Critics, 81. + + ---- old and new, 198; + and Sydney Grundy, 226; + and Ibsen, 282. + + Cromwell and Richelieu, 68. + + Crumbs and Toby in _The Rent Day_, 57. + + _Crusaders, The_, 244-248, 259. + + "Cup and Saucer" comedy, 134. + + _Cup_, Tennyson's, 183. + + Cynisca, 150, 152. + + + _Dandy Dick_, 257. + + _Dan'l Druce_, 142. + + Darwin and Ibsen, 292. + + Delacour, 217. + + Delane, Mr., and John Oxenford, 82. + + Delaunay, 197. + + Democracy and the drama, 72. + + Deschapelles, Madame, in _The Lady of Lyons_, 66. + + Dick, Robert, 55. + + Dickens, Charles, 58; + letter on Marie Wilton, 102. + + Diderot's rules, 51. + + ---- paradox, 170, 206. + + Dillon, Charles, 100. + + _Diplomacy_, origin of, 210. + + _Dolls' House, The_, 279, 292, 293, 296. + + Drama, legitimate, 40; + a national, and Douglas Jerrold, 55, 156. + + ---- and democracy, 72. + + ---- the Boucicault, 93. + + ---- the classical, 176. + + ---- English and French, 204; + elements of the, 252. + + ---- German, in England, 299. + + ---- English, cause of its return to life, 310; + causes of its decay, 311; + Ibsen's influence, 313; + what it is seeking, 314. + + Dramatic verse, English, 44. + + ---- criticism, 81, 198. + + Dramatists of to-day, 212. + + Drury Lane, 40, 62, 76, 195. + + Dumas, Alexander, effect of Macready on, 46, 70, 209, 227, 257, 264, 312. + + Dundreary, Lord, 112. + + "Dust-Hole," The, 104. + + Dutton, 198. + + + _Ebbsmith, The Notorious Mrs._, 275. + + Eccles, 128, 129. + + Eccles, Polly, 120, 122, 129. + + Edgeworth, Miss, 51. + + Eily in _Colleen Bawn_, 91. + + Ellis, Havelock, and Ibsen, 280. + + Emery, Winifred, 306. + + _Emperor and Galilean_, Ibsen's, 278, 279. + + _Enemy of the People, An_, 280, 284. + + _Engaged_, Gilbert's, 144. + + English dramatic verse, 44. + + Ennery, d', 81. + + Evelyn, Alfred, 71. + + Examiner of Plays, 84. + + + _Falcon, The_, 180. + + Falconer, Edmund, 89. + + Farce, 194. + + Farren, 79, 80, 107. + + Farren, Nellie, 194. + + Father Tom in _Colleen Bawn_, 91. + + _Fatal Card, The_, 302. + + Faucit, Helen, 79. + + Favart, 197. + + Fechter in Hamlet, 78, 158. + + Feuillet, Octave, 222. + + Fielding and the Censorship, 83. + + Fielding Club, The, 109, 115. + + _Figaro, London_, 199, 200. + + _First Step, The_, 309. + + Forster, John, and Macready, 64; + at Macready's banquet, 74; + letter from Dickens, 102. + + France, Macready in, 45, 73. + + _Francillon_, _Hedda Gabler_, 289, 295. + + French actors in London, 78. + + ---- adaptations, 77, 207; + law as to, 208; + S. Grundy's, 216. + + ---- drama prevented English, 311. + + Froude, 88. + + _Fun_, Gilbert a contributor to, 140. + + + Gaiety, The, 194. + + Garneray's Memoirs, 59. + + Garrick, David, the role of, 112. + + Garrick and Hare, 117, 157. + + Garrick school, 40. + + Garrick Club, The, 109, 115, 196. + + Garrick, the first night at the, 259. + + Gautier, Theophile, 41, 78. + + Gerridge, Sam, Hare as, 119, 128, 131. + + German drama in England, 299. + + _Ghosts_, 280, 292. + + Gilbert, irony of, 111. + + ---- and Robertson, 138; + literary career, 139; + _Bab Ballads_, 140; + _Sweethearts_, 140; + _Broken Hearts_, 142; + his only woman's character, 144; + _Engaged_, 144; + _Palace of Truth_, 146; + his philosophy, 144-146; + _Wicked World_, 147; + _Pygmalion and Galatea_, 147-152; + _Trial by Jury_, combines with Sullivan, _Princess Ida_, _Patience_, + _Iolanthe_, 153; + _Pirates of Penzance_, _Pinafore_, 154; + a lawyer, 155. + + Globe, The, 133. + + Goldsmith, 50, 81, 88. + + Gosse, Edmund, and Ibsen, 277-280, 285. + + _Greatest of These, The_, 233. + + Grecian, The, 194. + + Grisi, 75. + + Grundy, Sydney, 212; + first appearance, 214. + + ---- _The Snowball_, 214; + _In Honour Bound_, 216; + _A Pair of Spectacles_, 217; + _Mammon_, 220; + _A Bunch of Violets_, 221; + influence of the French, 223; + _The Glass of Fashion_, 224; + _A Fool's Paradise_, _The Late Mr. Costello_, 225; + his peculiarities, 226; + _Sowing the Wind_, _An Old Jew_, 227; + _The New Woman_, 230; + _The Greatest of These_, 233. + + ---- and Ibsen, 295. + + _Grues_, 97. + + + Hamlet, Irving's, 166. + + Hardy, Thomas, and Pinero, 256. + + Hare, John, 117; + in _Ours_, 119; + in _Caste_, 119, 181, 259. + + _Harold_, Tennyson's, 185, 188, 190. + + Harris, Sir Augustus, 301. + + Hawtree, Captain, Bancroft as, 119, 122. + + Haymarket, The, 46, 101. + + ---- and the Bancrofts, 134, 196. + + Hazlitt, 49, 82. + + Heinemann's, Wm., _First Step_, 309. + + Her Majesty's Theatre, 76. + + Herman, Mr., and H. A. Jones, 296. + + Hippodrama, The, 76. + + _Hobby Horse, The_, 257. + + Homer, 54. + + Hood's _Model Men and Women_, 98. + + ---- supper-parties, 110, 111, 131. + + Horton, Priscilla, 102. + + Hoskyns, David, and Irving, 161. + + Hugo, Victor, and Bulwer Lytton, 65, 68, 70. + + _Humour of a Scholar_ and _Money's_ success, 71. + + Hunt, Leigh, 49; + and Macready, 64. + + Hutchinson, Colonel, 49. + + Huxley and Ibsen, 292. + + + Ibsen, 206, 253, 233. + + ---- England hears of him, 277; + translations by Edmund Gosse and others, 278-280; + played by The Independent Theatre, 280; + and the Critics, 281-283; + and theatrical managers, 284; + performed at The Haymarket, 284; + and the Sagas, 286; + _Peer Gynt_, 287; + more intelligible than Carlyle, 288; + his methods, 289; + realism, 290; + his message, 291-292; + his types, 293; + and democracy, 294; + and English dramatists, 295; + H. A. Jones's adaptation of _A Dolls' House_, 296; + divergence from English admirers, 297; + and the Puritans, 298; + influence on the English drama, 313. + + Icilius and Virginia, 51. + + Imagination in the drama, 252. + + Independent Theatre, The, 280, 305. + + _Iolanthe_, 153. + + Irving, Henry, first plays Hamlet, 159; + early days, 160; + in the provinces and debut in London, 161; + as Digby Grant in Albery's _Two Roses_, 163; + secures _The Bells_, 164; + in _Charles I._, 165; + as Hamlet, 166; + in _Richelieu_, 166; + on staging masterpieces, 167; + and Shakespeare's text, 168; + his roles, 168; + his method, 170; + his position as to realism, 171; + as a writer and lecturer, 172; + "Sir Henry," 172; + his success, 173; + and Tennyson's _Becket_, 188; + and Ibsen, 284. + + _Ixion_, Burnand's, 93-95. + + + Jean, Oliver Saint, 72. + + Jerrold, Blanchard, 79. + + Jerrold, Douglas, 55-62; + _Rent Day_, 56; + _Prisoner of War_, 59; + _Black-eyed Susan_, 61, 94; + and the Censorship, 85. + + _John-a-Dreams_, 302-304. + + Jones, H. A., 178, 212. + + ---- _A Clerical Error_, _An Old Master_, 234; + _The Silver King_, _Saints and Sinners_, 235-240; + _The Case of Rebellious Susan_, 236-250; + _Judah_, 239-244; + _The Crusaders_, 244-248, 259; + _The Tempter_, 248; + _Triumph of the Philistines_, 249; + _The Masqueraders_, 250, 252; + on realism, 251; + future work, 252. + + ---- and Ibsen, 295-297. + + Jordan, Mrs., 39. + + Josephs, Fanny, 104. + + _Judah_, 239-244, 251. + + + Kean, Charles, 79, 157; + his successor, 166. + + Kean, Edmund, 40-45; + death of, 63. + + Keeley, 79. + + Keeley, Mrs., 79. + + Kemble, Charles, 79. + + Kemble, John, 40, 45, 79, 157. + + Kendal as Pygmalion, 147; + in _The Falcon_, 181. + + Kendals in _The Greatest of These_, 233. + + Knebworth, Squireen of, 65. + + Knowles, Sheridan, 50, 54, 55. + + + "La Belle Smidson," 45. + + Labiche, 215, 217, 218, 219, 257. + + Lacy, the bookseller, 107. + + _Lady from the Sea, The_, 292. + + _Lady of Lyons_, 64, 65-67. + + Lamb, Charles, 49, 83. + + Lancival, Luce de, 45. + + Larkin, 104. + + _Late Mr. Costello, The_, 225. + + Law as to adaptations and translations, 208. + + ---- as to foreign dramas, 310. + + Legitimate drama, 156. + + Lemaitre, Jules, 201. + + Lemierra, 45. + + Lewes on Macready's Macbeth, 45; + on Macready's last performance, 73. + + _Liberty Hall_, 301, 306. + + Lind, Jenny, 76. + + _Little Eyolph_, 290, 299. + + _London Assurance_, Boucicault's, 88. + + _London Figaro_, 199, 200. + + _London, Lights o'_, 302. + + Lord, Miss H. F., and Ibsen, 279. + + _Lords and Commons_, 256. + + _Love, The Comedy of_, Ibsen's, 278. + + Lyceum, The, 100. + + ---- _The Cup_ at, 184. + + Lyceum, 196. + + Lytton, Lord, 64-72; + at Macready's banquet, 74; + on Riches and Rank, 116. + + + Macbeth, Kean as, 41; + Macready as, 45. + + Mackayers, Joseph, 214. + + Macready, 40-45; + and Dumas, 46; + and authors, 50; + and _Virginius_, 55. + + ---- manager of Drury Lane and Covent Garden, 62, 63, 64, 65; + in _Richelieu_, 67; + in Paris, 1846, 73. + + ---- work and farewell performance, 73; + last days, 74. + + ---- and Marie Wilton, 99, 157; + and Fechter's Hamlet, 158. + + Maeterlink, M., 284. + + _Magistrate, The_, 257. + + Man of the world type, 120. + + Managers, theatre, 77, 308. + + Manning, Cardinal, and Becket, 188. + + Martin, Lady, 79. + + _Master Builder, The_, 290, 295. + + Mathews, Charles, 79, 80, 123, 135. + + Melnotte, Claude, in _The Lady of Lyons_, 66. + + Melodrama, 154, 196. + + Memoirs, Marie Wilton's, 99. + + Merimee, 54. + + Merivale, Herman, 177. + + Merritt, 195. + + _Michael O'Dowd_, 91. + + Millard, Evelyn, 306. + + Mitchell, the Bond Street bookseller, 78. + + _Model Men and Women_, Hood's, 98. + + Moliere, 88, 236. + + _Money_, 64, 70-72; + Marie Wilton in, 121. + + _Moor of Venice_, Kean in, 42. + + Moore, George, 289. + + Morals of the stage, Byron's effect on, 97. + + Morris and the Sagas, 285. + + Mortimer, James, 199. + + Munich, Ibsen at, 277. + + Music, a rival to the drama, 75. + + Music halls, 194. + + Myles-na-Coppaleen in _Colleen Bawn_, 91. + + Myrine, 151. + + Mystery in the drama, 252. + + + Neilson, Adelaide, 159. + + Nesville, Juliette, 249. + + _New Woman, The_, 230-233. + + _Night's Adventure, A_, Robertson's, 107. + + _Norah_, Ibsen's, 279. + + Norway and England, affinities between, 287. + + _Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith, The_, 276. + + + Oakley, Macready as, 41. + + _Octoroon_, 91. + + Official Censorship, 83. + + _Old Jew, An_, 227-230. + + _Old Master, An_, 234. + + Olympic, The, 107. + + _Oonagh, The_, 90. + + Operetta, The, 93, 194. + + Origin of Official Censorship, 83. + + Orleans, Duc d', in _Richelieu_, 69. + + _Our American Cousin_, Sothern in, 112. + + _Our Boys_, 134, 178. + + _Ours_, 117; + Marie Wilton in, 121. + + "Owls' Roost," 115. + + Oxenford, John, 82; + on Irving, 164. + + + _Pair of Spectacles, A_, 217-220. + + _Palace of Truth, The_, 146. + + Pantomime, the, 76, 98, 194. + + Parker, Louis N., 301. + + Parliamentary Commission, 64; + and Bulwer Lytton, 65. + + Passion in the drama, 252. + + _Patience_, 153. + + Pauline in _The Lady of Lyons_, 66. + + _Peep o' Day_, 90. + + _Peer Gynt_, Ibsen's, 278, 279, 287. + + Penley, Mr., 284. + + Pettitt, 195. + + Phelps, 76, 157. + + _Pilgrim, The White_, 177. + + _Pillars of Society, The_, Ibsen's, 279, 280. + + _Pinafore_, 154. + + Pinero, Arthur W., letter to Mr. Bancroft, 136, 212. + + ---- personal, 254; + an actor, 255; + _The Squire_, _Lords and Commons_, 256; + _The Magistrate_, _Dandy Dick_, _The Hobby Horse_, 257; + _The Times_, _The Cabinet Minister_, 258; + _The Profligate_, 259-264; + _Lady Bountiful_, 264; + _The Second Mrs. Tanqueray_, 264-274, 276; + _The Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith_, 276; + and Ibsen, 295. + + _Pink Dominoes_, 178. + + Pippo, Marie Wilton as, 102, 103, 121. + + _Pirates of Penzance_, 154. + + Plautus, 88. + + Playgoers' Club, Mr. Tree at, 284. + + Plays, Examiner of, 84. + + Plessy, Madame Arnould, 78. + + "Pocket Ibsen," A, 282. + + Polhill, Captain, 62. + + Prices under the Bancrofts, 135. + + Prince of Wales's Theatre, 105 (see Queen's), 113. + + ---- Robertson's plays at, 114. + + ---- last visit to, 137. + + _Princess Ida_, 153. + + Princess's, The, 195. + + Princess's translator, The, 78. + + _Prisoner of War_, Jerrold's, 59. + + "Privileged" theatres, 40, 62-64, 156. + + _Profligate, The_, 259-264. + + _Promise of May, The_, 182. + + Provincial touring, 46-49. + + Ptarmigant, Lord and Lady, 116, 127. + + Puckler-Muskau, Price, 63. + + Puritans and the Stage, 236. + + ---- and the Censorship, 310. + + _Pygmalion and Galatea_, 147; + the critics on, 148-152. + + + _Queen Mary_, Tennyson's, 178, 185, 187, 190. + + Queen's Theatre, 104 (see Prince of Wales's). + + _The Promise of May_, 182. + + + Raval, 79. + + Ray, Katharine, and Ibsen, 279. + + Realism, H. A. Jones on, 252. + + ---- English horror of, 289; + Ibsen's, 289. + + _Rebellious Susan, The Case of_, 236, 250. + + Rehan, Ada, 174. + + Rejane, 197. + + _Rent Day, The_, Jerrold's, 56. + + Reynolds, 50. + + Rhythm of English dramatic verse, 44. + + _Richelieu_, 64, 65-70. + + Richelieu and Cromwell, 68. + + _Richelieu_, Lytton's, 69. + + Robertson, Forbes, 306. + + Robertson, Madge, as Galatea, 147; + in _The Falcon_, 181. + + Robertson, T. W., early life, 106; + quarrel with Farren, 107; + at journalism, 109; + in Bohemia, 109-111; + writes a play for Sothern, 112; + _Society_ and Marie Wilton, 112, 113; + success, 117; + a wonderful reader, 118; + his insight into Marie Wilton's genius, 121; + cause of the success of his comedies, 122; + only half a realist, 123; + characteristics exemplified from _School_, 124; + method of character-drawing, 127; + his characters, 127-132; + marriage, 132; + death, 133; + and Byron, 134; + and Gilbert, 138. + + Robins, Miss, and Ibsen, 281. + + Robson, Mr., 79, 306. + + Roche, Madame, 158. + + Romanticism in France, 45. + + _Roses, The Two_, 133. + + _Rosmersholm_, 292. + + Rorke, Kate, 306. + + Royalty, The, 95. + + Ryder, 79, 158. + + + Sadler's Wells, 76, 157. + + Sagas, The, 285. + + Saintine, X. B., and _Richelieu_, 68. + + _Saints and Sinners_, 235-240, 244. + + Salaries of actors, 135. + + Sarcey, Francisque, 201. + + Sardou and the Bancrofts, 134, 209, 210, 215, 252, 312. + + Savage Club, The, 109, 115. + + Scandinavian Society, British, and Ibsen, 279. + + School of Common Sense in France, 51. + + _School_, 117; + Marie Wilton in, 121; + scene from, 125. + + Scott, Clement, and _The Oonagh_, 90; + and Tom Hood's parties, 110; + on Robertson's reading, 118; + on Irving, 164, 197, 198, 199, 200. + + Scribe, 81, 215, 216, 224, 252, 312. + + Sedaine's _drame bourgeois_, 51. + + Shakespeare, 40, 42, 44, 45, 48, 50, 63, 73, 76; + and French actors, 78; + in Irving's hand, 173; + resuscitation, 175; + and melodrama, 196. + + "Shakespeare made Easy," 156. + + _Shaugraun_, 91. + + Shaw, G. B., and Ibsen, 283. + + Shelley, 64. + + Sheridan, 50, 81, 88. + + Shylock, Kean as, 43. + + Siddons, Mrs., 40. + + _Silver King, The_, 235. + + Sims, G. R., 195, 301. + + Smith, Albert, 109. + + Smithson, Miss, 45. + + _Snowball, The_, 214. + + _Society_, Robertson's, 112; + first performance, 114; + success, 117. + + "Song of the Gentleman," by Brough, 111. + + "Songs of the Governing Classes," by Brough, 111. + + Sothern and Robertson, 112, 118. + + ---- and Irving, 162. + + _Sowing the Wind_, 227. + + Spanker, Lady Gay, 75. + + Spectators, three classes, 305. + + Spencer, Herbert, and Ibsen, 292. + + _Squire of Dames_, 302. + + _Squire, The_, 256. + + St. James's Theatre, 78, 181, 196. + + Standard, The, 194. + + Strand, The, 96, 99, 101; + Dickens at, 102, 104, 112, 121. + + Stirling, Mrs., in _Caste_, 135. + + Sullivan and Gilbert, 153. + + Surface, Joseph, Macready as, 41. + + Surrey, The, 194. + + Swanborough, Mrs., 96, 112. + + _Sweethearts_, Gilbert's, 140. + + Swinburne's dramas, 192. + + + Talma on the actor's emotions, 170. + + _Tanqueray, The Second Mrs._, 264-274, 276, 289. + + Taylor, Tom, 87. + + ---- _Our American Cousin_, 112. + + Taylor, Tom, on Marie Wilton and Robertson, 118. + + _Tempter, The_, 248. + + Tennyson and Macready, 74; + and Gilbert's _Princess Ida_, 153. + + ---- as a dramatist, 178; + and the critics, 178; + _The Falcon_, 180; + _The Promise of May_, 182; + _The Cup_, 183. + + ---- _Queen Mary_, _Harold_, _Becket_, 185; + his sense of history, 186. + + Terence, 88. + + Terry, Miss Ellen, 167, 174, 178, 189. + + Theatre-goers of 1850, 77. + + Theatres, number of, 86. + + Theatre, commercial decadence of the, 62. + + Theatres, "Privileged," 40, 62-64, 156. + + Theatre managers, 77. + + Thomas, Henry, 159. + + Thomas, Moy, 198. + + _Ticket of Leave Man_, origin of, 207. + + _Times, The_, Pinero's, 258. + + Toby and Crumbs in _The Rent Day_, 57. + + Toole, John, first appearance, 100. + + Tour, on, 46-49. + + Translations of foreign plays, law as to, 208. + + Travelling companies, 46-49. + + Treaty of Berne, 208. + + Tree, Mr., and _The Tempter_, 248. + + ---- and Ibsen, 284. + + ---- in _John-a-Dreams_, 302; + his staying, 307. + + _Trial by Jury_, 153. + + _Triumph of the Philistines_, 249. + + Tussaud's, Madame, Kean and Macready at, 41. + + + Van Ambrugh, 76. + + Vaudeville, The, 133. + + Victoria, 39. + + Victoria, The, 194. + + Virginia and Icilius, 51. + + _Virginius_, Knowles's, 50-55. + + Virginius's character, 52. + + + Walkley, A. B., and Ibsen, 283. + + Wallington, Nehemiah, 49. + + Wallis, Miss, as Cleopatra, 159. + + Walpole and the Censorship, 83. + + Waring, Mr., and Ibsen, 281. + + Watson, Malcolm, 301. + + Wells and the classical drama, 177. + + _Wicked World, The_, 147. + + Willard, Mr., 306. + + Wills's _Charles I._, 165, 177; + _Claudian_, 177; + his conceptions, 178. + + Wilton and Kean, 43. + + Wilton, Marie, and Macready, 99; + at the Lyceum, 100; + at the Haymarket, 101; + Coquelin on, 101; + Dickens on, 102; + partnership with Byron, 103; + her first company, 104; + secures _Society_, 113; + and Robertson, 118; + her parts in Robertson's plays, 121; + early days in Liverpool, 138. + + Wilton, the Sisters, 104. + + Wingfield, Hon. Lewis W., 95. + + Woman, the English, and Ibsen, 293. + + Wyndham, Charles, 196, 306. + + + Yates, Edmund, 62. + + Yates, Frederick, 41. + + + + + PRINTED BY + MORRISON AND GIBB LIMITED + EDINBURGH + + + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] Berlioz did so literally, and married her. + +[2] William Archer, _Life of Macready_. + +[3] "Write me a drama," said Macready to young Browning, "and save me +having to go off to America." The drama was written, but attained only a +fourth performance, and did not save the actor from his impending +expedition. + +[4] As a matter of fact, Bulwer had not even the merit of inventing this +arrangement for himself. His play was founded on the novel by X.-B. +Saintine. + +[5] Charles Mathews played at the _Varietes_, in French, in _L'anglais +timide_, an adaptation of _Cool as a Cucumber_, by Blanchard Jerrold. + +[6] 10 George II. cap. 19. + +[7] In _Thirty Years at the Play_, Clement Scott gives an account of the +first night of _The Oonagh_, which has come down to us as a tradition. At +two o'clock in the morning the play was still in progress. The house was +empty save for a few critics slumbering in their stalls. The actors were +on the stage all in a line facing the public, as was then the custom, and +there was no sign of the ending, when suddenly the machinists pulled back +the carpet on which the chief characters were standing. They collapsed +simply!--with the piece, which was never brought to its real conclusion. + +[8] T. W. Robertson in _The Illustrated Times_. + +[9] Founded on the famous French play _Paillasse_. + +[10] To the fourth line he added a footnote to the effect that the name +was _not_ Johnson really. + +[11] Henry Morley, _Journal of a Playgoer_. + +[12] These lines appeared in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_, on September 15, +1895. Less than three months later the Kendals produced, for the first +time in the provinces, a new drama by Mr. Grundy, _The Greatest of These_. +This play, which was performed later in London, is a work of real value. +In it Mr. Grundy has forgotten his French models, and has painted English +life and English characters with a freedom, a fidelity, a power, worthy of +that Ibsen to whom he will not have it that he owes anything. He has put +aside his wit in order to be more moving. There is not a weak spot or a +trace of bad taste in the whole piece. The scene which takes up most of +the third act is equally beautiful, whether regarded from a psychological, +a literary, or a purely dramatic standpoint. + +[13] His debut was in 1874, when he was nineteen. He has given an account +of some of his Edinburgh experiences about this time in a pleasant Preface +to Mr. William Archer's _Theatrical World in 1895_. + +[14] When this episode was reached on the night of the first performance +of _The Master Builder_, a critic turned to Mr. Archer and said, "Will you +explain _that_ symbol to us?" "I am not sure," Mr. Archer replied quietly, +"that it _is_ a symbol." Upon which, a lady sitting near them interposed: +"Excuse my breaking in upon your conversation," she said, "but you may be +interested to know that many women are like Mrs. Solness in this. I myself +have all the dolls of my childhood safely preserved at home, and I look +after them tenderly." It is well known, too, that the Queen's collection +of her dolls is preserved at Windsor Castle. + +[15] I should have wished to determine the influence exerted by the +contemporary German drama upon the dramatic movement in England, but I can +find no trace of any such influence at all. Only a single work of +Sudermann's has so far been translated, and this came from America. An +attempt was made in 1895 to found a permanent _Deutsches Theater_ in +London, and works by Freytag, Sudermann, Hauptmann, Otto Hartleber, Max +Halbe, and Blumenthal were produced there. I do not know whether the +attempt, made under modest, and indeed almost mean, conditions, will be +renewed. The critics attended the performance, but the general public paid +but little attention to them. + + + + +Transcriber's Notes: + +Passages in italics are indicated by _italics_. + +Punctuation has been corrected without note. + +The following misprints have been corrected: + "had had" corrected to "had" (page 112) + "uninterruped" corrected to "uninterrupted" (page 115) + "made" corrected to "make" (page 117) + "Pgymalion" corrected to "Pygmalion" (page 151) + "protraits" corrected to "portraits" (page 166) + "aquainted" corrected to "acquainted" (page 200) + "is is" corrected to "is" (page 277) + "105" corrected to "50" (index) + "succces" corrected to "success" (index) + +Other than the corrections listed above, inconsistencies in spelling and +hyphenation have been retained from the original. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The English Stage, by Augustin Filon + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ENGLISH STAGE *** + +***** This file should be named 36590.txt or 36590.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/6/5/9/36590/ + +Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images +generously made available by The Internet Archive.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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