When a 'sensational' case is being tried, the court is well filled by
lay persons in need of a thrill. Their presence seems to be rather
resented as a note of frivolity, a discord in the solemnity of the
function, even a possible distraction for the judge and jury. I am not
a lawyer, nor a professionally solemn person, and I cannot work myself
up into a state of indignation against the interlopers. I am, indeed,
one of them myself. And I am worse than one of them. I do not merely go
to this or that court on this or that special occasion. I frequent the
courts whenever I have nothing better to do. And it is rarely that, as
one who cares to study his fellow-creatures, I have anything better to
do. I greatly wonder that the courts are frequented by so few other
people who have no special business there.
I can understand the glamour of the theatre. You find yourself in a
queerly-shaped place, cut off from the world, with plenty of gilding
and red velvet or blue satin. An orchestra plays tunes calculated to
promote suppressed excitement. Presently up goes a curtain, revealing
to you a mimic world, with ladies and gentlemen painted and padded to
appear different from what they are. It is precisely the people most
susceptible to the glamour of the theatre who are the greatest
hindrances to serious dramatic art. They will stand anything, no matter
how silly, in a theatre. Fortunately, there seems to be a decline in
the number of people who are acutely susceptible to the theatre's
glamour. I rather think the reason for this is that the theatre has
been over-exploited by the press. Quite old people will describe to you
their early playgoings with a sense of wonder, an enthusiasm,
which--leaving a wide margin for the charm that past things must always
have--will not be possible to us when we babble to our grandchildren.
Quite young people, people ranging between the ages of four and five,
who have seen but one or two pantomimes, still seem to have the glamour
of the theatre full on them. But adolescents, and people in the prime
of life, do merely, for the most part, grumble about the quality of the
plays. Yet the plays of our time are somewhat better than the plays
that were written for our elders. Certainly the glamour of the theatre
has waned. And so much the better for the drama's future.
It is a matter of concern, that future, to me who have for so long a
time been a dramatic critic. A man soon comes to care, quite
unselfishly, about the welfare of the thing in which he has
specialised. Of course, I care selfishly too. For, though it is just as
easy for a critic to write interestingly about bad things as about good
things, he would rather, for choice, be in contact with good things. It
is always nice to combine business and pleasure. But one regrets, even
then, the business. If I were a forensic critic, my delight in
attending the courts would still be great; but less than it is in my
irresponsibility. In the courts I find satisfied in me just those
senses which in the theatre, nearly always, are starved. Nay, I find
them satisfied more fully than they ever could be, at best, in any
theatre. I do not merely fall back on the courts, in disgust of the
theatre as it is. I love the courts better than the theatre as it
ideally might be. And, I say again, I marvel that you leave me so much
elbow-room there.
No artificial light is needed, no scraping of fiddles, to excite or
charm me as I pass from the echoing corridor, through the swing-doors,
into the well of this or that court. It matters not much to me what
case I shall hear, so it be of the human kind, with a jury and with
witnesses. I care little for Chancery cases. There is a certain
intellectual pleasure in hearing a mass of facts subtly wrangled over.
The mind derives therefrom something of the satisfaction that the eye
has in watching acrobats in a music-hall. One wonders at the ingenuity,
the agility, the perfect training. Like acrobats, these Chancery
lawyers are a relief from the average troupe of actors and actresses,
by reason of their exquisite alertness, their thorough mastery
(seemingly exquisite and thorough, at any rate, to the dazzled layman).
And they have a further advantage in their material. The facts they
deal with are usually dull, but seldom so dull as facts become through
the fancies of the average playwright. It is seldom that an evening in
a theatre can be so pleasantly and profitably spent as a day in a
Chancery court. But it is ever into one or another of the courts of
King's Bench that I betake myself, for choice. Criminal trials, of
which I have seen a few, I now eschew absolutely. I cannot stomach
them. I know that it is necessary for the good of the community that
such persons as infringe that community's laws should be punished. But,
even were the mode of punishment less barbarous than it is, I should
still prefer not to be brought in sight of a prisoner in the dock.
Perhaps because I have not a strongly developed imagination, I have
little or no public spirit. I cannot see the commonweal. On the other
hand, I have plenty of personal feeling. And I have enough knowledge of
men and women to know that very often the best people are guilty of the
worst things. Is the prisoner in the dock guilty or not guilty of the
offence with which he is charged? That is the question in the mind of
the court. What sort of man is he? That is the question in my own mind.
And the answer to the other question has no bearing whatsoever on the
answer to this one. The English law assumes the prisoner innocent until
he shall have been proved guilty. And, seeing him there a prisoner, a
man who happens to have been caught, while others (myself included) are
pleasantly at large after doing, unbeknown, innumerable deeds worse in
the eyes of heaven than the deed with which this man is charged--deeds
that do not prevent us from regarding our characters as quite fine
really--I cannot but follow in my heart the example of the English law
and assume (pending proof, which cannot be forthcoming) that the
prisoner in the dock has a character at any rate as fine as my own. The
war that this assumption wages in my breast against the fact that the
man will perhaps be sentenced is too violent a war not to discommode
me. Let justice be done. Or rather, let our rough-and-ready, well-meant
endeavours towards justice go on being made. But I won't be there to
see, thank you very much.
It is the natural wish of every writer to be liked by his readers. But
how exasperating, how detestable, the writer who obviously touts for
our affection, arranging himself for us in a mellow light, and inviting
us, with gentle persistence, to note how lovable he is! Many essayists
have made themselves quite impossible through their determination to
remind us of Charles Lamb--'St. Charles,' as they invariably call him.
And the foregoing paragraph, though not at all would-be-Lamb-like in
expression, looks to me horribly like a blatant bid for your love. I
hasten to add, therefore, that no absolutely kind-hearted person could
bear, as I rejoice, to go and hear cases even in the civil courts. If
it be true that the instinct of cruelty is at the root of our pleasure
in theatrical drama, how much more is there of savagery in our going to
look on at the throes of actual litigation--real men and women
struggling not in make-believe, but in dreadful earnest! I mention this
aspect merely as a corrective to what I had written. I do not pretend
that I am ever conscious, as I enter a court, that I am come to gratify
an evil instinct. I am but conscious of being glad to be there, on
tiptoe of anticipation, whether it be to hear tried some particular
case of whose matter I know already something, or to hear at hazard
whatever case happen to be down for hearing. I never tire of the aspect
of a court, the ways of a court. Familiarity does but spice them. I
love the cold comfort of the pale oak panelling, the
scurrying-in-and-out of lawyers' clerks, the eagerness and ominousness
of it all, the rustle of silk as a K.C. edges his way to his seat and
twists his head round for a quick whispered parley with his junior,
while his client, at the solicitors' table, twists his head round to
watch feverishly the quick mechanical nods of the great man's wig--the
wig that covers the skull that contains the brain that so awfully much
depends on. I love the mystery of those dark-green curtains behind the
exalted Bench. One of them will anon be plucked aside, with a
stentorian 'Silence!' Thereat up we jump, all of us as though worked by
one spring; and in shuffles swiftly My Lord, in a robe well-fashioned
for sitting in, but not for walking in anywhere except to a bath-room.
He bows, and we bow; subsides, and we subside; and up jumps some
grizzled junior--'My Lord, may I mention to your Lordship the case of
"Brown v. Robinson and Another"?' It is music to me ever, the cadence
of that formula. I watch the judge as he listens to the application,
peering over his glasses with the lack-lustre eyes that judges have,
eyes that stare dimly out through the mask of wax or parchment that
judges wear. My Lord might be the mummy of some high tyrant revitalised
after centuries of death and resuming now his sway over men. Impassive
he sits, aloof and aloft, ramparted by his desk, ensconced between
curtains to keep out the draught--for might not a puff of wind scatter
the animated dust that he consists of? No creature of flesh and blood
could impress us quite as he does, with a sense of puissance quite so
dispassionate, so supernal. He crouches over us in such manner that we
are all of us levelled one with another, shorn of aught that elsewhere
differentiates us. The silk-gownsmen, as soon as he appears, fade to
the semblance of juniors, of lawyers' clerks, of jurymen, of oneself.
Always, indeed, in any public place devoted to some special purpose,
one finds it hard to differentiate the visitors, hard to credit them
with any private existence. Cast your eye around the tables of a cafe':
how subtly similar all the people seem! How like a swarm of gregarious
insects, in their unity of purpose and of aspect! Above all, how
homeless! Cast your eye around the tables of a casino's gambling-room.
What an uniform and abject herd, huddled together with one despondent
impulse! Here and there, maybe, a person whom we know to be vastly
rich; yet we cannot conceive his calm as not the calm of inward
desperation; cannot conceive that he has anything to bless himself with
except the roll of bank-notes that he has just produced from his
breast-pocket. One and all, the players are levelled by the invisible
presence of the goddess they are courting. Well, the visible presence
of the judge in a court of law oppresses us with a yet keener sense of
lowliness and obliteration. He crouches over us, visible symbol of the
majesty of the law, and we wilt to nothingness beneath him. And when I
say 'him' I include the whole judicial bench. Judges vary, no doubt.
Some are young, others old, by the calendar. But the old ones have an
air of physical incorruptibility--are 'well-preserved,' as by swathes
and spices; and the young ones are just as mummified as they. Some of
them are pleased to crack jokes; jokes of the sarcophagus, that twist
our lips to obsequious laughter, but send a chill through our souls.
There are 'strong' judges and weak ones (so barristers will tell you).
Perhaps--who knows?--Minos was a strong judge, and Aeacus and
Rhadamanthus were weak ones. But all three seem equally terrible to us.
And so seem, in virtue of their position, and of the manner and aspect
it invests them with, all the judges of our own high courts.
I hearken in awe to the toneless murmur in which My Lord comments on
the application in the case of 'Brown v. Robinson and Another.' He says
something about the Court of Crown Cases Reserved... Ah, what place on
this earth bears a name so mystically majestic? Even in the commonest
forensic phrases there is often this solemnity of cadence, always a
quaintness, that stirs the imagination... The grizzled junior dares
interject something 'with submission,' and is finally advised to see
'my learned brother in chambers.' 'As your Lordship pleases.'... We
pass to the business of the day. I settle myself to enjoy the keenest
form of aesthetic pleasure that is known to me.
Aesthetic, yes. In the law-courts one finds an art-form, as surely as
in the theatre. What is drama? Its theme is the actions of certain
opposed persons, historical or imagined, within a certain period of
time; and these actions, these characters, must be shown to us in a
succinct manner, must be so arranged that we know just what in them is
essential to our understanding of them. Very similar is the art-form
practised in the law-courts. The theme of a law-suit is the actions of
certain actual opposed persons within a certain period of time; and
these actions, these characters, must be set forth succinctly, in
such-wise that we shall know just as much as is essential to our
understanding of them. In drama, the presentment is, in a sense, more
vivid. It is not--not usually, at least--retrospective. We see the
actions being committed, hear the words as they are uttered. But how
often do we have an illusion of their reality? Seldom. It is seldom
that a masterpiece in drama is performed perfectly by an ideal cast. In
a law-court, on the other hand, it is always in perfect form that the
matter is presented to us. First the outline of the story, in the
speech for the plaintiff; then this outline filled in by the
examination of the plaintiff himself; then the other side of the story
adumbrated by his cross-examination. Think of the various further
stages of a law-suit, culminating in the judge's summing up; and you
will agree with me that the whole thing is a perfect art-form. Drama,
at its best, is clumsy, arbitrary, unsatisfying, by comparison. But
what makes a law-suit the most fascinating, to me, of all art-forms, is
that not merely its material, but the chief means of its expression, is
life itself. Here, cited before us, are the actual figures in the
actual story that has been told to us. Here they are, not as images to
be evoked through the medium of printed page, or of painted canvas, or
of disinterested ladies and gentlemen behind footlights. Actual,
authentic, they stand before us, one by one, in the harsh light of day,
to be made to reveal all that we need to know of them.
The most interesting witnesses, I admit, are they who are determined
not to accommodate us--not to reveal themselves as they are, but to
make us suppose them something quite different. All witnesses are more
or less interesting. As I have suggested, there is no such thing as a
dull law-suit. Nothing that has happened is negligible. And, even so,
every human being repays attention--especially so when he stands forth
on his oath. The strangeness of his position, and his consciousness of
it, suffice in themselves to make him interesting. But it is
disingenuousness that makes him delightful. And the greatest of all
delights that a law-court can give us is a disingenuous witness who is
quick-minded, resourceful, thoroughly master of himself and his story,
pitted against a counsel as well endowed as himself. The most vivid and
precious of my memories is of a case in which a gentleman, now dead,
was sued for breach of promise, and was cross-examined throughout a
whole hot day in midsummer by the late Mr. Candy. The lady had averred
that she had known him for many years. She called various witnesses,
who testified to having seen him repeatedly in her company. She
produced stacks of letters in a handwriting which no expert could
distinguish from his. The defence was that these letters were written
by the defendant's secretary, a man who was able to imitate exactly his
employer's handwriting, and who was, moreover, physically a replica of
his employer. He was dead now; and the defendant, though he was a very
well-known man, with many friends, was unable to adduce any one who had
seen that secretary dead or alive. Not a soul in court believed the
story. As it was a complicated story, extending over many years, to
demolish it seemed child's play. Mr. Candy was no child. His
performance was masterly. But it was not so masterly as the
defendant's; and the suit was dismissed. In the light of common sense,
the defendant hadn't a leg to stand on. Technically, his case was
proved. I doubt whether I shall ever have a day of such acute mental
enjoyment as was the day of that cross-examination.
I suppose that the most famous cross-examination in our day was Sir
Charles Russell's of Pigott. It outstands by reason of the magnitude of
the issue, and the flight and suicide of the witness. Had Pigott been
of the stuff to stand up to Russell, and make a fight of it, I should
regret far more keenly than I do that I was not in court. As it is, my
regret is keen enough. I was reading again, only the other day, the
verbatim report of Pigott's evidence, in one of the series of little
paper volumes published by The Times; and I was revelling again in the
large perfection with which Russell accomplished his too easy task.
Especially was I amazed to find how vividly Russell, as I remember him,
lived again, and could be seen and heard, through the medium of that
little paper volume. It was not merely as though I had been in court,
and were now recalling the inflections of that deep, intimidating
voice, the steadfast gaze of those dark, intimidating eyes, and were
remembering just at what points the snuff-box was produced, and just
how long the pause was before the pinch was taken and the bandana came
into play. It was almost as though these effects were proceeding before
my very eyes--these sublime effects of the finest actor I have ever
seen. Expressed through a perfect technique, his personality was
overwhelming. 'Come, Mr. Pigott,' he is reported as saying, at a
crucial moment, 'try to do yourself justice. Remember! you are face to
face with My Lords.' How well do I hear, in that awful hortation,
Russell's pause after the word 'remember,' and the lowered voice in
which the subsequent words were uttered slowly, and the richness of
solemnity that was given to the last word of all, ere the thin lips
snapped together--those lips that were so small, yet so significant, a
feature of that large, white, luminous and inauspicious face. It is an
hortation which, by whomsoever delivered, would tend to dispirit the
bravest and most honest of witnesses. The presence of a judge is
always, as I have said, oppressive. The presence of three is trebly so.
Yet not a score of them serried along the bench could have outdone in
oppressiveness Sir Charles Russell. He alone, among the counsel I have
seen, was an exception to the rule that by a judge every one in court
is levelled. On the bench, in his last years, he was not notably more
predominant than he ever had been. And the reason of his predominance
at the Bar was not so much in the fact that he had no rival in
swiftness, in subtlety, in grasp, as in the passionate strength of his
nature, the intensity that in him was at the root of the grand manner.
In the courts, as in parliament and in the theatre, the grand manner is
a thing of the past. Mr. Lloyd-George is not, in style and method, more
remote from Gladstone, nor Mr. George Alexander from Macready, than is
Mr. Rufus Isaacs, the type of modern advocate, from Russell. Strength,
passion, sonorousness, magnificence of phrasing, are things which the
present generation vaguely approves in retrospect; but it would titter
at a contemporary demonstration of them. While I was reading Pigott's
cross-examination, an idea struck me; why do not the managers of our
theatres, always querulous about the dearth of plays, fall back on
scenes from famous trials? A trial-scene in a play, though usually
absurd, is almost always popular. Why not give us actual trial-scenes?
They could not, of course, be nearly so exciting as the originals, for
the simple reason that they would not be real; but they would certainly
be more exciting than the average play. Thus I mused, hopefully. But I
was brought up sharp by the reflection that it were hopeless to look
for an actor who could impersonate Russell--could fit his manner to
Russell's words, or indeed to the words of any of those orotund
advocates. To reproduce recent trials would be a hardly warrantable
thing. The actual participators in them would have a right to object
(delighted though many of them would be). Vain, then, is my dream of
theatres invigorated by the leavings of the law-courts. On the other
hand, for the profit of the law-courts, I have a quite practicable
notion. They provide the finest amusement in London, for nothing. Why
for nothing? Let some scale of prices for admission be drawn
up--half-a-guinea, say, for a seat in the well of the court, a shilling
for a seat in the gallery, five pounds for a seat on the bench. Then,
I dare swear, people would begin to realise how fine the amusement is.