knowledge that this old man passed every night with his lanthorn up and
down their street, and when they marked those pallid gleams gliding over
the motley prospect of cesspools and garden gates, over the sightless
hovels and the rich-carved frontages of their palaces; or saw them stay
their journey and remain suspended like a handful of daffodils held up
against the black stuffs of secrecy—they said:
“It is good that the old man should pass like this—we shall see better
where we're going; and if the Watch have any job on hand, or want to
put the pavements in order, his lanthorn will serve their purpose well
enough.” And they would call out of their doors and windows to him
passing:
“Hola! old man Cethru! All's well with our house, and with the street
before it?”
But, for answer, the old man only held his lanthorn up, so that in the
ring of its pale light they saw some sight or other in the street. And
his silence troubled them, one by one, for each had expected that he
would reply:
“Aye, aye! All's well with your house, Sirs, and with the street before
it!”
Thus they grew irritated with this old man who did not seem able to
do anything but just hold his lanthorn up. And gradually they began to
dislike his passing by their doors with his pale light, by which they
could not fail to see, not only the rich-carved frontages and scrolled
gates of courtyards and fair gardens, but things that were not pleasing
to the eye. And they murmured amongst themselves: “What is the good
of this old man and his silly lanthorn? We can see all we want to see
without him; in fact, we got on very well before he came.”
So, as he passed, rich folk who were supping would pelt him with
orange-peel and empty the dregs of their wine over his head; and
poor folk, sleeping in their hutches, turned over, as the rays of the
lanthorn fell on them, and cursed him for that disturbance. Nor did
revellers or footpads treat the old man, civilly, but tied him to the
wall, where he was constrained to stay till a kind passerby released
him. And ever the bats darkened his lanthorn with their wings and tried
to beat the flame out. And the old man thought: “This be a terrible hard
job; I don't seem to please nobody.” But because the Prince of Felicitas
had so commanded him, he continued nightly to pass with his lanthorn up
and down the street; and every morning as the saffron swan came swimming
overhead, to fall asleep. But his sleep did not last long, for he was
compelled to pass many hours each day in gathering rushes and melting
down tallow for his lanthorn; so that his lean face grew more than ever
like a sandwich of dried leather.
Now it came to pass that the Town Watch having had certain complaints
made to them that persons had been bitten in the Vita Publica by rats,
doubted of their duty to destroy these ferocious creatures; and they
held investigation, summoning the persons bitten and inquiring of them
how it was that in so dark a street they could tell that the animals
which had bitten them were indeed rats. Howbeit for some time no one
could be found who could say more than what he had been told, and since
this was not evidence, the Town Watch had good hopes that they would not
after all be forced to undertake this tedious enterprise. But presently
there came before them one who said that he had himself seen the rat
which had bitten him, by the light of an old man's lanthorn. When the
Town Watch heard this they were vexed, for they knew that if this were
true they would now be forced to prosecute the arduous undertaking, and
they said:
“Bring in this old man!”
Cethru was brought before them trembling.
“What is this we hear, old man, about your lanthorn and the rat? And in
the first place, what were you doing in the Vita Publica at that time of
night?”
Cethru answered: “I were just passin' with my lanthorn!”
“Tell us—did you see the rat?”
Cethru shook his head: “My lanthorn seed the rat, maybe!” he muttered.
“Old owl!” said the Captain of the Watch: “Be careful what you say! If
you saw the rat, why did you then not aid this unhappy citizen who was
bitten by it—first, to avoid that rodent, and subsequently to slay it,
thereby relieving the public of a pestilential danger?”
Cethru looked at him, and for some seconds did not reply; then he said
slowly: “I were just passin' with my lanthorn.”
“That you have already told us,” said the Captain of the Watch; “it is
no answer.”
Cethru's leathern cheeks became wine-coloured, so desirous was he to
speak, and so unable. And the Watch sneered and laughed, saying:
“This is a fine witness.”
But of a sudden Cethru spoke:
“What would I be duin'—killin' rats; tidden my business to kill rats.”
The Captain of the Watch caressed his beard, and looking at the old man
with contempt, said:
“It seems to me, brothers, that this is an idle old vagabond, who does
no good to any one. We should be well advised, I think, to prosecute him
for vagrancy. But that is not at this moment the matter in hand. Owing
to the accident—scarcely fortunate—of this old man's passing with his
lanthorn, it would certainly appear that citizens have been bitten by
rodents. It is then, I fear, our duty to institute proceedings against
those poisonous and violent animals.”
And amidst the sighing of the Watch, it was so resolved.
Cethru was glad to shuffle away, unnoticed, from the Court, and sitting
down under a camel-date tree outside the City Wall, he thus reflected:
“They were rough with me! I done nothin', so far's I can see!”
And a long time he sat there with the bunches of the camel-dates above
him, golden as the sunlight. Then, as the scent of the lyric-flowers,
released by evening, warned him of the night dropping like a flight
of dark birds on the plain, he rose stiffly, and made his way as usual
toward the Vita Publica.
He had traversed but little of that black thoroughfare, holding his
lanthorn at the level of his breast, when the sound of a splash and
cries for help smote his long, thin ears. Remembering how the Captain of
the Watch had admonished him, he stopped and peered about, but owing to
his proximity to the light of his own lanthorn he saw nothing. Presently
he heard another splash and the sound of blowings and of puffings,
but still unable to see clearly whence they came, he was forced in
bewilderment to resume his march. But he had no sooner entered the next
bend of that obscure and winding avenue than the most lamentable, lusty
cries assailed him. Again he stood still, blinded by his own light.
Somewhere at hand a citizen was being beaten, for vague, quick-moving
forms emerged into the radiance of his lanthorn out of the deep violet
of the night air. The cries swelled, and died away, and swelled; and
the mazed Cethru moved forward on his way. But very near the end of his
first traversage, the sound of a long, deep sighing, as of a fat man in
spiritual pain, once more arrested him.
“Drat me!” he thought, “this time I will see what 'tis,” and he spun
round and round, holding his lanthorn now high, now low, and to both
sides. “The devil an' all's in it to-night,” he murmured to himself;
“there's some'at here fetchin' of its breath awful loud.” But for his
life he could see nothing, only that the higher he held his lanthorn
the more painful grew the sound of the fat but spiritual sighing. And
desperately, he at last resumed his progress.
On the morrow, while he still slept stretched on his straw pallet, there
came to him a member of the Watch.
“Old man, you are wanted at the Court House; rouse up, and bring your
lanthorn.”
Stiffly Cethru rose.
“What be they wantin' me fur now, mester?”
“Ah!” replied the Watchman, “they are about to see if they can't put an
end to your goings-on.”
Cethru shivered, and was silent.
Now when they reached the Court House it was patent that a great
affair was forward; for the Judges were in their robes, and a crowd of
advocates, burgesses, and common folk thronged the careen, lofty hall of
justice.
When Cethru saw that all eyes were turned on him, he shivered still
more violently, fixing his fascinated gaze on the three Judges in their
emerald robes.
“This then is the prisoner,” said the oldest of the Judges; “proceed
with the indictment!”
A little advocate in snuff-coloured clothes rose on little legs, and
commenced to read:
“Forasmuch as on the seventeenth night of August fifteen hundred years
since the Messiah's death, one Celestine, a maiden of this city, fell
into a cesspool in the Vita Publica, and while being quietly drowned,
was espied of the burgess Pardonix by the light of a lanthorn held by
the old man Cethru; and, forasmuch as, plunging in, the said Pardonix
rescued her, not without grave risk of life and the ruin, of his
clothes, and to-day lies ill of fever; and forasmuch as the old man
Cethru was the cause of these misfortunes to the burgess Pardonix, by
reason of his wandering lanthorn's showing the drowning maiden, the
Watch do hereby indict, accuse, and otherwise place charge upon this
Cethru of 'Vagabondage without serious occupation.'
“And, forasmuch as on this same night the Watchman Filepo, made aware,
by the light of this said Cethru's lanthorn, of three sturdy footpads,
went to arrest them, and was set on by the rogues and well-nigh slain,
the Watch do hereby indict, accuse, and otherwise charge upon Cethru
complicity in this assault, by reasons, namely, first, that he
discovered the footpads to the Watchman and the Watchman to the footpads
by the light of his lanthorn; and, second, that, having thus discovered
them, he stood idly by and gave no assistance to the law.
“And, forasmuch as on this same night the wealthy burgess Pranzo, who,
having prepared a banquet, was standing in his doorway awaiting the
arrival of his guests, did see, by the light of the said Cethru's
lanthorn, a beggar woman and her children grovelling in the gutter for
garbage, whereby his appetite was lost completely; and, forasmuch as he,
Pranzo, has lodged a complaint against the Constitution for permitting
women and children to go starved, the Watch do hereby indict, accuse,
and otherwise make charge on Cethru of rebellion and of anarchy, in
that wilfully he doth disturb good citizens by showing to them without
provocation disagreeable sights, and doth moreover endanger the laws by
causing persons to desire to change them.
“These be the charges, reverend Judges, so please you!”
And having thus spoken, the little advocate resumed his seat.
Then said the oldest of the Judges:
“Cethru, you have heard; what answer do you make?”
But no word, only the chattering of teeth, came from Cethru.
“Have you no defence?” said the Judge: “these are grave accusations!”
Then Cethru spoke:
“So please your Highnesses,” he said, “can I help what my lanthorn
sees?”
And having spoken these words, to all further questions he remained more
silent than a headless man.
The Judges took counsel of each other, and the oldest of them thus
addressed himself to Cethru:
“If you have no defence, old man, and there is no one will say a word
for you, we can but proceed to judgment.”
Then in the main aisle of the Court there rose a youthful advocate.
“Most reverend Judges,” he said in a mellifluous voice, clearer than the
fluting of a bell-bird, “it is useless to look for words from this
old man, for it is manifest that he himself is nothing, and that his
lanthorn is alone concerned in this affair. But, reverend Judges,
bethink you well: Would you have a lanthorn ply a trade or be concerned
with a profession, or do aught indeed but pervade the streets at night,
shedding its light, which, if you will, is vagabondage? And, Sirs, upon
the second count of this indictment: Would you have a lanthorn dive into
cesspools to rescue maidens? Would you have a lanthorn to beat footpads?
Or, indeed, to be any sort of partisan either of the Law or of them that
break the Law? Sure, Sirs, I think not. And as to this third charge
of fostering anarchy let me but describe the trick of this lanthorn's
flame. It is distilled, most reverend Judges, of oil and wick, together
with that sweet secret heat of whose birth no words of mine can tell.
And when, Sirs, this pale flame has sprung into the air swaying to every
wind, it brings vision to the human eye. And, if it be charged on this
old man Cethru that he and his lanthorn by reason of their showing not
only the good but the evil bring no pleasure into the world, I ask,
Sirs, what in the world is so dear as this power to see whether it be
the beautiful or the foul that is disclosed? Need I, indeed, tell you of
the way this flame spreads its feelers, and delicately darts and
hovers in the darkness, conjuring things from nothing? This mechanical
summoning, Sirs, of visions out of blackness is benign, by no means of
malevolent intent; no more than if a man, passing two donkeys in
the road, one lean and the other fat, could justly be arraigned for
malignancy because they were not both fat. This, reverend Judges, is
the essence of the matter concerning the rich burgess, Pranzo, who,
on account of the sight he saw by Cethru's lanthorn, has lost the
equilibrium of his stomach. For, Sirs, the lanthorn did but show that
which was there, both fair and foul, no more, no less; and though it
is indeed true that Pranzo is upset, it was not because the lanthorn
maliciously produced distorted images, but merely caused to be seen, in
due proportions, things which Pranzo had not seen before. And surely,
reverend Judges, being just men, you would not have this lanthorn turn
its light away from what is ragged and ugly because there are also fair
things on which its light may fall; how, indeed, being a lanthorn, could
it, if it would? And I would have you note this, Sirs, that by this
impartial discovery of the proportions of one thing to another, this
lanthorn must indeed perpetually seem to cloud and sadden those things
which are fair, because of the deep instincts of harmony and justice
planted in the human breast. However unfair and cruel, then, this
lanthorn may seem to those who, deficient in these instincts, desire all
their lives to see naught but what is pleasant, lest they, like Pranzo,
should lose their appetites—it is not consonant with equity that this
lanthorn should, even if it could, be prevented from thus mechanically
buffeting the holiday cheek of life. I would think, Sirs, that you
should rather blame the queazy state of Pranzo's stomach. The old man
has said that he cannot help what his lanthorn sees. This is a just
saying. But if, reverend Judges, you deem this equipoised, indifferent
lanthorn to be indeed blameworthy for having shown in the same
moment, side by side, the skull and the fair face, the burdock and the
tiger-lily, the butterfly and toad, then, most reverend Judges, punish
it, but do not punish this old man, for he himself is but a flume of
smoke, thistle down dispersed —nothing!”
So saying, the young advocate ceased.
Again the three Judges took counsel of each other, and after much talk
had passed between them, the oldest spoke:
“What this young advocate has said seems to us to be the truth. We
cannot punish a lanthorn. Let the old man go!”
And Cethru went out into the sunshine . . . .
Now it came to pass that the Prince of Felicitas, returning from his
journey, rode once more on his amber-coloured steed down the Vita
Publica.
The night was dark as a rook's wing, but far away down the street burned
a little light, like a red star truant from heaven. The Prince riding by
descried it for a lanthorn, with an old man sleeping beside it.
“How is this, Friend?” said the Prince. “You are not walking as I bade
you, carrying your lanthorn.”
But Cethru neither moved nor answered:
“Lift him up!” said the Prince.
They lifted up his head and held the lanthorn to his closed eyes. So
lean was that brown face that the beams from the lanthorn would not rest
on it, but slipped past on either side into the night. His eyes did not
open. He was dead.
And the Prince touched him, saying: “Farewell, old man! The lanthorn is
still alight. Go, fetch me another one, and let him carry it!”
1909.
SOME PLATITUDES CONCERNING DRAMA
A drama must be shaped so as to have a spire of meaning. Every grouping
of life and character has its inherent moral; and the business of the
dramatist is so to pose the group as to bring that moral poignantly to
the light of day. Such is the moral that exhales from plays like 'Lear',
'Hamlet', and 'Macbeth'. But such is not the moral to be found in the
great bulk of contemporary Drama. The moral of the average play is now,
and probably has always been, the triumph at all costs of a supposed
immediate ethical good over a supposed immediate ethical evil.
The vice of drawing these distorted morals has permeated the Drama to
its spine; discoloured its art, humanity, and significance; infected its
creators, actors, audience, critics; too often turned it from a picture
into a caricature. A Drama which lives under the shadow of the distorted
moral forgets how to be free, fair, and fine—forgets so completely that
it often prides itself on having forgotten.
Now, in writing plays, there are, in this matter of the moral, three
courses open to the serious dramatist. The first is: To definitely set
before the public that which it wishes to have set before it, the views
and codes of life by which the public lives and in which it believes.
This way is the most common, successful, and popular. It makes the
dramatist's position sure, and not too obviously authoritative.
The second course is: To definitely set before the public those views
and codes of life by which the dramatist himself lives, those theories
in which he himself believes, the more effectively if they are the
opposite of what the public wishes to have placed before it, presenting
them so that the audience may swallow them like powder in a spoonful of
jam.
There is a third course: To set before the public no cut-and-dried
codes, but the phenomena of life and character, selected and combined,
but not distorted, by the dramatist's outlook, set down without fear,
favour, or prejudice, leaving the public to draw such poor moral as
nature may afford. This third method requires a certain detachment; it
requires a sympathy with, a love of, and a curiosity as to, things for
their own sake; it requires a far view, together with patient industry,
for no immediately practical result.
It was once said of Shakespeare that he had never done any good to any
one, and never would. This, unfortunately, could not, in the sense in
which the word “good” was then meant, be said of most modern dramatists.
In truth, the good that Shakespeare did to humanity was of a remote,
and, shall we say, eternal nature; something of the good that men get
from having the sky and the sea to look at. And this partly because he
was, in his greater plays at all events, free from the habit of drawing
a distorted moral. Now, the playwright who supplies to the public the
facts of life distorted by the moral which it expects, does so that he
may do the public what he considers an immediate good, by fortifying its
prejudices; and the dramatist who supplies to the public facts distorted
by his own advanced morality, does so because he considers that he will
at once benefit the public by substituting for its worn-out ethics, his
own. In both cases the advantage the dramatist hopes to confer on the
public is immediate and practical.
But matters change, and morals change; men remain—and to set men, and
the facts about them, down faithfully, so that they draw for us the
moral of their natural actions, may also possibly be of benefit to the
community. It is, at all events, harder than to set men and facts down,
as they ought, or ought not to be. This, however, is not to say that
a dramatist should, or indeed can, keep himself and his temperamental
philosophy out of his work. As a man lives and thinks, so will he write.
But it is certain, that to the making of good drama, as to the practice
of every other art, there must be brought an almost passionate love of
discipline, a white-heat of self-respect, a desire to make the truest,
fairest, best thing in one's power; and that to these must be added an
eye that does not flinch. Such qualities alone will bring to a drama the
selfless character which soaks it with inevitability.
The word “pessimist” is frequently applied to the few dramatists who
have been content to work in this way. It has been applied, among
others, to Euripides, to Shakespeare, to Ibsen; it will be applied to
many in the future. Nothing, however, is more dubious than the way
in which these two words “pessimist” and “optimist” are used; for the
optimist appears to be he who cannot bear the world as it is, and is
forced by his nature to picture it as it ought to be, and the pessimist
one who cannot only bear the world as it is, but loves it well enough
to draw it faithfully. The true lover of the human race is surely he who
can put up with it in all its forms, in vice as well as in virtue, in
defeat no less than in victory; the true seer he who sees not only joy
but sorrow, the true painter of human life one who blinks nothing. It
may be that he is also, incidentally, its true benefactor.
In the whole range of the social fabric there are only two impartial
persons, the scientist and the artist, and under the latter heading such
dramatists as desire to write not only for to-day, but for to-morrow,
must strive to come.
But dramatists being as they are made—past remedy it is perhaps more
profitable to examine the various points at which their qualities and
defects are shown.
The plot! A good plot is that sure edifice which slowly rises out of
the interplay of circumstance on temperament, and temperament on
circumstance, within the enclosing atmosphere of an idea. A human being
is the best plot there is; it may be impossible to see why he is a good
plot, because the idea within which he was brought forth cannot be fully
grasped; but it is plain that he is a good plot. He is organic. And so
it must be with a good play. Reason alone produces no good plots; they
come by original sin, sure conception, and instinctive after-power of
selecting what benefits the germ. A bad plot, on the other hand, is
simply a row of stakes, with a character impaled on each—characters
who would have liked to live, but came to untimely grief; who started
bravely, but fell on these stakes, placed beforehand in a row, and
were transfixed one by one, while their ghosts stride on, squeaking and
gibbering, through the play. Whether these stakes are made of facts or
of ideas, according to the nature of the dramatist who planted them,
their effect on the unfortunate characters is the same; the creatures
were begotten to be staked, and staked they are! The demand for a good
plot, not unfrequently heard, commonly signifies: “Tickle my sensations
by stuffing the play with arbitrary adventures, so that I need not be
troubled to take the characters seriously. Set the persons of the play
to action, regardless of time, sequence, atmosphere, and probability!”
Now, true dramatic action is what characters do, at once contrary, as
it were, to expectation, and yet because they have already done other
things. No dramatist should let his audience know what is coming; but
neither should he suffer his characters to, act without making his
audience feel that those actions are in harmony with temperament, and
arise from previous known actions, together with the temperaments
and previous known actions of the other characters in the play. The
dramatist who hangs his characters to his plot, instead of hanging his
plot to his characters, is guilty of cardinal sin.
The dialogue! Good dialogue again is character, marshalled so as
continually to stimulate interest or excitement. The reason good
dialogue is seldom found in plays is merely that it is hard to write,
for it requires not only a knowledge of what interests or excites, but
such a feeling for character as brings misery to the dramatist's heart
when his creations speak as they should not speak—ashes to his mouth
when they say things for the sake of saying them—disgust when they are
“smart.”