Part 13
When one sees how uninteresting the play would be without her, how often virtue is rather fatiguing and not nearly so well dressed, and how the dramatist gives his favourite the most interesting talk and the most dramatic situations, one realises her importance, and that she is quite indispensable to the stage, whatever she is in real life. One only regrets, when society is a little fatiguing, that she is not occasionally permitted to pass through in her gorgeous toilette and her immoral slippers, and that bewitching side glance which one only sees on the stage, just to make society, like the stage, a little more thrilling.
Now in the days of the older dramatists when much was left to what in this material age is fast dying out, that is the imagination, if the dungeon of Lord de Smyth was wanted, the scene-painter nailed up a sign-post with the simple notice, "This is the Dungeon of Lord de Smyth," and the audience were as much thrilled as if they could hear the clanking of the fetters.
In these days we refuse to take our dungeons so absolutely on faith, and, still, if we see a too beautiful creature in red hair (fascinating crime always has red hair), gorgeous clothes, and slippers with Louis XV heels--that estimable monarch was responsible for so much sinfulness combined with singular good taste--and an opera cloak all lace and allurement, the kind for which virtue has neither the money nor the taste, then we can settle down to a good three hours' thrill, for those perfect garments are as much an indication of the dramatist's intentions as in less sophisticated days the sign-post which announced the dungeon of the de Smyths.
We have learnt by experience that certain kinds of clothes always come to a bad end, though never until the fifth act; while virtue, without any nice clothes to comfort her, has a very bad time for at least four acts and a half. One could wish the dramatists would give virtue a better chance!
A very charming woman regretfully confessed to me that the old proverb, that virtue is its own reward, is distinctly discouraging. She felt, with a perfectly blameless existence behind her, that she had a right to demand of fate jewels more precious than imitation pearls, and a mode of transit more patrician than a 'bus or the "tube," or a four-wheeler on state occasions. Her bitterness was enhanced by a picture in the "tube-lift" of a lovely creature ablaze with diamonds, who advertises a firm of philanthropists from whom one can get one's Koh-i-noors on the instalment plan.
If ever a young person looks as if she had had a chequered past, it is this young person, so radiant, so self-satisfied, and so prosperous. She is a painful satire on virtue in a mackintosh with a dripping umbrella, who has no earthly hope of diamonds, no matter how she may long for them, and who stares drearily at the lovely being until she is bounced out upon terra firma, and then pushed into the rain by other virtues with umbrellas and very sharp elbows. The charming woman further declared that virtue should be offered a more substantial reward than imitation pearls these days when the shoemakers, dressmakers and dramatists form a "combine" for the exclusive glorification of the lady in question.
But it is not only the eloquence of slippers, but the eloquence of petticoats! Are not our shop windows the Frenchiest of French novels, divided not into chapters, but into petticoats? Do they not form flamboyant rainbows behind those glittering plate-glass fronts? That there is no one inside of them takes nothing away from their charm. To see them out-spread against a window--a bewildering chaos of colours, frilly, fluffy and fantastic, is the outward and visible sign of an inarticulate poet who lives sonnets in silk without putting them on paper. How much more satisfactory to live poems than merely to write them!
So every shop window proclaims that this is the age of petticoats. Who buys them, who wears them? Why are they never seen again? Yet well may we ask what sylph can worthily wear those coquettish fantasies? It must be conceded, though it will hurt out national pride, that only the women of one nation have that sovereign right.
It is the Frenchwoman alone who can lift her skirts with that supreme elegance which turns even the worst mud puddle into an instrument for the display of her exquisite grace. She is the artist of the petticoat--and if she lifts her skirts rather high, it is because she does not feel it her duty to help the County Council to sweep the streets with the tail of a draggled gown.
Now when an English woman lifts her skirt, she does it as one on business bent; coquetry is not in it. She makes a frantic clutch at the back of her skirt, grabs a solid handful, and drags it uncompromisingly forward until she outlines herself with simple, cruel distinctness. Her silhouette is a curious study in angles.
Though she has no coquetry about her feet or her petticoats, the fatality of fate ordains that she should always wear high-heeled slippers and cobweb stockings in that downpour which Divine Providence reserves exclusively for the English nation. This opportunity she also takes to wear those lace petticoats which, having survived the terrors of the British laundry, succumb to British mud. Heaven, in its inscrutable wisdom, has denied to the Anglo-Saxons and Teutons that subtle turn of the wrist which makes the lifting of a skirt a fine art. Even the American woman, conqueror though she be of dukes and lesser things, has never yet conquered that Latin grace.
Now who buys those silken rainbows in the shops? Get the sphinx to answer that riddle if you can. Do they vanish into space, or are they bought by those radiant beings who flit about in electric landaulettes, and whom we never meet, because we flit about in 'buses?
If the rainbow ever touches earth it is on exceptional occasions which only prove the rule. And it is always when virtue, always elderly and stout, with big, flat feet in cloth boots, lifts her skirt and exhibits to the eye of the public a yellow or scarlet silk confection which hangs limp and dejected. Its melancholy flop and want of rustle plainly show its consciousness of being misunderstood and in a false position. The irreproachable petticoat, sacred to the eminently respectable, is usually black and of a material of the nature of horsehair. No shop boasts of it, and it is always pulled out of an ignoble pile when required, and is quite Spartan in its unadorned simplicity.
That virtue is best adorned by itself we concede; still virtue is a little handicapped. I put it to the dramatists: Why not give her better clothes and let her for once triumph in the second act? The dramatists, inspired photographers of manners though they are, have a great deal to answer for! At best they give her a white dress, a blue sash, ankle-ties and no conversation. One asks how is she to compete with a stately creature with dramatic red hair and that sinuous and glittering costume fraught with tragic situations? What a fatal contrast when studied by the youth of our land who have been taught to regard the stage as an educator!
The stage is conceded to be a great educational and moral force, and yet I beg of those excellent gentlemen who provide the lessons that the stage so eloquently recites not to lavish on the lady in question that bewildering wardrobe which must give her a sense of peace and calm security that even a good conscience cannot bestow. For once put her into a bargain coat and skirt left over from a sale at Tooting, adorn her with a tam o'shanter, the kind with a quill that sticks out in front, and put on her feet the boots of a perfect propriety, always short and broad, then see if the pit will adore her!
No, the pit will not adore her at all, for say what you will, it is the clothes that sway the earnest and indiscriminating lover of the drama. For once put virtue in a gossamer _peignoir_, the clinging, fascinating kind, and slip her number six feet into a number three satin slipper, and how the pit will rise at her as one man, as they have never done before, and take her to their hearts, for human nature is as yielding as putty to grief that wears nice clothes and is well scrubbed. Unfortunately the world is full of undramatic tragedies that are all the more tragic because of a dire need of soap and water.
As the educator of a public swayed by the eloquence of a slipper and moved to tears by the pathos of a petticoat, one can but beg and implore our dramatists, even at the risk of making their dramas less thrilling, to give virtue a tiny bit of a chance--for a change.
_On Taking Oneself Seriously_
Never has mediocrity been so triumphantly successful as now, and that is the reason we take ourselves so seriously. Never before has it attained such a high level of excellence, and if, for that reason, we miss those grand and lonely peaks that represent the supreme glory of the past, we can at least cheer ourselves by the comfortable reflection that we are each a glorious little peak. That being conceded it goes without saying that, occupied as we are with ourselves, we really have too much to do to bother about the greatness of our friends.
In the past the great man was surrounded by a band of ardent worshippers who circled about him and trumpeted forth his praise. In these degenerate days if there is a great man, he is not surrounded by satellites, for the satellites are practically employed circling about themselves. So the great man girds up his loins and wisely proclaims his own greatness.
Then, too, it is a bother to chant another man's praises if you are quite convinced, and you are probably right, that he is no greater than you are, so you abstain from the folly of it and devote all your energies to blowing your own little trumpet with seraphic vigour. In the past the little bands of ardent worshippers were quite disinterested, a merit to which the occasional ardent worshipper of the present cannot always lay claim. Our modern attitude is one of doubt, and so when we hear a pæan of praise we close one eye and ask "Why?" The fact is we decline to take anyone else seriously, but we make up for that by taking ourselves with redoubled seriousness. In previous ages there were no newspapers who took upon themselves the role of Fame, poising aloft a laurel wreath ready to drop it on the head of the best-advertised genius. In those blissful days, so little appreciated now, when the world could neither read nor write, hero worship was so popular that the lauded one found it unnecessary to take himself too seriously, for others kindly did it for him.
This is undoubtedly an age of emphasis and capitals. If you don't see the capitals in print you are sure to see them in the attitude. Woman, Millionaire, Poet, Statesman, Composer, Dramatist, Novelist, Artist--to mention only a few--may not be spelled with a capital, but one never has the honour of meeting any of these worthy people without recognising the capital in their haughty intercourse with their fellow men.
Possibly it even permeates the lower strata of society, but one can only judge by the experience that comes in one's modest way. The gentlemen, who are at this moment shovelling in our winter coal, may take themselves seriously. Possibly the one with the coal-sack lightly twined across his shoulders has his own opinion as to the superior way in which he shovels the coal down the hole. It is more than probable that the plumber who came this morning to screw up a leaking tap takes himself seriously. I think he does for he left a small boy and his tools to remind me of him, and he has proudly retired from the scene. Still I really think that the disorder generally attacks those who work with what "the reverend gentleman is pleased to call his mind," and it is most fatal where, besides dollars and cents, the sufferer demands the tribute of instant applause.
Supposing the greatest singer in the world were to sing to stolid faces and dead silence and were to receive no applause for two or three years; her attitude towards the public would become one of praiseworthy modesty. It is this frantic, ill-considered admiration which gives the good lady such a mistaken sense of her own importance.
If the last work of the last great mediocrity in the way of novelists were to be ignored, and only reviewed a couple of years after its publication, many an estimable gentleman and lady would step down from their pedestal and walk quite modestly on a level with their fellow beings.
If the poets received their meed of praise long after they were nicely buried instead of at afternoon teas, they would write better, indeed they would. Weak tea praise has never been good for the mental stamina, and it is awfully misleading. Because a gushing thing with an ardent eye protests over a tea-cup that your poems are the most beautiful poems she has ever read, it is not necessary to believe her. Do not on the strength of that go home and snub your old mother who, to her sorrow, has been educated to believe that among her goslings she has hatched a swan. Gosling or swan in these days at best you can reach no higher altitude than to be called a minor poet.
One wonders who was the first reviewing misanthrope who called the modern singers "minor poets"? Why should that branch of the writing Art have evoked his particular animosity? Do we say minor historian, minor novelist, minor painter, minor composer? Why should we belittle an artist who may be infinitely greater than all these, and damn his art with an adjective? It is not for us to judge if a poet be minor or major. That is usually the business of the future, and there is no prophet among us able to prophesy which of our poets will join the immortals. Thank Heaven, advertising is only a temporary product, and has no influence on immortality.
The misfortune of our age is that the tools for the divine arts have became so cheap and handy. Literature, especially, is at the mercy of every irresponsible infant with ambition and a penny to spare. Why, the snub-nosed board-school youngster down there skipping joyfully along the gutter has a sheet of paper and a lead-pencil, the excellence of which were beyond the imagination of Shakespeare. It is this cheap and fatal luxury which makes such triumphant mediocrity and so little greatness, and it is the fault of the newspapers, the publishers, too much education, and afternoon teas. May they all be forgiven!
The truth is the poets should not be published, nor should the newspapers be permitted to crown the singer with a laurel-wreath still dripping with printers' ink. The poet should be handed down as was old Homer and sung in the market place; if then in the future there is enough of him left to be considered at all, let him then be considered seriously, but let him not, O let him not, do it for himself prematurely, for fear. Remember the famous and classic tragedy of Humpty Dumpty who sat on a wall.
Once I came upon an editor--a great editor!--who in a moment of frenzy was sincere. I was looking respectfully at that tomb of fame, his wastepaper basket.
"Did you pass a fellow going down?" and he threw a scowl after the departed one. "That is Jones." He really didn't say Jones, but he mentioned a name so famous in literature that the tramcars proclaim it along with the best brands of whiskies, soap, corsets, and sapolio, and it adorns sandwich men in the gutter by the dozens; hoardings bellow it forth silently, and the newspapers devote pages to it as if it were the greatest thing in patent medicine.
"I made him," and the editor thumped his sacred desk. "I boomed him and I printed his first confounded rot," and he strode up and down the room with a full head of steam on.
"I've always said it is the advertising that does it, not the stuff one advertises. Proved it, too, and then sat back and watched their heads swell. He is the last. A year ago he sat in that very chair and gurgled obsequious thanks. Last week we invited him to dinner and he forgot to come. To-day he came in just to say if I don't pay him just double the rate I've been giving him he'll take his stuff to the "Rocket," for the "Rocket" editor has made him an offer. And this to me who boomed him and made him out of nothing. O, by Jove!"
"That is only the artistic temperament," I said soothingly.
"Artistic temperament! There is no such thing. It's only another name for d----d bad manners and a swelled head."
I was greatly interested in this artless definition of the artistic temperament, and I went off deeply pondering as to what constitutes a swelled head.
Now swelled head and taking yourself seriously are much the same, only that swelled heads are common in all grades of society. I once had a butcher who had it, being convinced that he was most beautiful to look upon. He used to put a great deal of his stock-in-trade on his curling brown locks. He was not a bit proud of the inside of his head, to do him justice, but he was so absolutely sure of the effect of his shiny hair, his big black moustache, his red cheeks and his round brown eyes.
He was a very happy man. Now you may take yourself seriously, but in a crevice of your mind you can still have the ghost of a doubt. But a swelled head never has a doubt. I have been told by those who have had an opportunity of studying, that swelled heads are not uncommon among shop-walkers, literary people, butlers and members of Parliament, and that musicians even are not all as great as they think they are. The last fiddler I had the joy of hearing scratched with so much temperament and so out of tune! What a mercy it is that so many people do not know a false note when they hear it!
It has even been whispered that some painters who paint very great pictures (in size) are really not so wonderful as they think they are. But if anyone is excusable for a too benevolent opinion of himself it is surely a painter who stands before an acre of canvas, and squeezes a thousand dear little tubes, and daubs away and has the result hung on the line. Then we go to the private view, turn our backs on it and say, "Isn't it sublime--did you ever!" Ah, me, it is no use being modest in this world!
Take yourself seriously, and clap on a swelled head and you will impress all such as have time to attend to you. Have we not come across the pretty third-rate actress who puts on the airs of the great, and refers to her wooden impersonations as "Art"? O art, art, what sins have been committed in thy name! Have we not met the pet of the papers, the celebrated lady novelist? How did she get her exalted position? Goodness knows! She sweeps through society with superb assurance, and she is really so rude at afternoon teas that that alone proves how great she is; she only relents when she meets editors and reviewers. She coos at them, and well she may for she is crowned with the laurel-wreath of the best up-to-date advertising.
Once I met a little politician who thought he was a statesman. A rare instance of course. Circumstances made me helpless, so to speak, and so he inflicted on me all the speeches he did not make in the "House." He gave me to understand that the Chancellor of the Exchequer consulted him on all intricate matters of finance; that he was in fact the power behind the throne. Now the truth was, and he knew it, and I knew it, that his serious work consisted in paying those little tributes his constituency demanded, to subscribe bravely to drinking fountains, almshouses, and fairs--the kind with the merry-go-rounds--and, in his enlightened patriotism, to open bazaars, and also to dance for the good of his party. His supreme glory was to write M.P. after his name, which made him much sought after at innocent dinner-parties that aspired to shine with reflected glory. On such occasions he was often in great form and delivered extracts from those tremendous speeches he never made. But everybody was deeply impressed and it was rumoured in the suburbs that he would certainly be in the next Cabinet.
If you have a grain of humour you can't take yourself too seriously, for then you do realise how desperately unimportant you are. The very greatest are unimportant; what then about the little bits of ones who constitute the huge majority? Was there ever anyone in the world who was ever missed except by one or two, and that not because he was great or even necessary, but only because he was beloved by some longing, aching heart? The waters of oblivion settle over a memory as quickly as over a puddle which is disturbed by a pebble thrown by a careless hand. Alas!
Perhaps the most tremendous instance of the unimportance of the greatest was Bismarck's discharge by his Emperor, with no more ceremony, indeed less, than a housewife employs to discharge her cook. The greatest man of his time, the creator of an empire, the inspirer of a nation! To whom in his very lifetime statues were erected, north, south, east and west. To whom the ardent hearts of the young went forth in adoration; whose possible death could only be reckoned on as a misfortune that would leave the country in chaos, when that iron hand should drop the reins. Then one memorable day he dropped the reins, not because death was greater than he, but simply because a young, untried man wished to do the driving himself. So he was discharged. What happened? Nothing. Since then who can believe in the importance of anyone? If the world can do perfectly well without such a giant, why take yourselves so seriously, you little second-rate people who have written a little book that is dead as a door nail in three months, you little second-rate spouters of talk on the stage, forgotten as soon as the light is turned out, you little second-rate musicians with your long hair, your bad nerves and your greed for adulation! Why, there have been greater folks than all of you put together, and they have been forgotten as a summer breeze is forgotten. Then what about you? Why even shop-walkers, and butlers and parlour maids, though undoubtedly very important, should think of Bismarck and not be so dreadfully haughty!
Then, too, how many people think themselves great who are only lucky, vulgarly lucky. There is that solemn puffed-up one! Would he be so important if he had not married a rich wife who can pay the bills? And there is that other dull piece of prosperity who owes all his success to his pretty and clever wife who knows just how to wheedle good things out of the really great. And yet how seriously he takes himself! There is the lucky parson who thinks he attracts such shoals of worshippers to God's house. Why it is not he at all, but a royal princess who has strayed in and whom the dear, unworldly sheep are following. Yet how seriously he takes his reverend self!
There is the great medical light, who, while curing an eminent personage of nothing in particular, interspersed a few racy anecdotes that made him roar. No wonder his waiting-room overflows, and that he is called in consultation all over the land. He is bound to be knighted. Why? Goodness knows.
There is the popular M.P. "I am the great I am," he all but says as he comes in. Once he was a modest man with modest friends, now he thinks he is a great man, and he wisely turns his back on his modest friends because he realises that he can serve his country best in the higher social circles. The first time I ever saw a real live M.P. was in America, and I held my breath I was so impressed.