set to music, opinions are likely to differ widely. The majority of
people prefer _How we Beat the Favourite_ to _Doubtful Dreams_, but
then the majority of people have from time immemorial been the worst
judges of poetry. These verses that belong to the second class--the
class not of action, but of brooding fancy--are well represented by the
piece entitled _The Swimmer_. All the philosophy in them is contained
in the four lines:--
A little season of light and laughter,
Of love and leisure, and pleasure and pain,
And a horror of outer darkness after,
And dust returneth to dust again.
All the music of them is exemplified in the same piece, for example in
the lines commencing:--
I would that with sleepy, soft embraces
The sea would fold me, would find me rest
In luminous depths of her secret places
In gulfs where her marvels are manifest.
They are melancholy and mystic, and not hopefully inspiring, these
verses in which the writer seeks to link the unsatisfactory present
with the unknown beyond. Yet they have a sweetness of their own. The
strings that throbbed in Gordon to the touch of his mother, the Night,
have, indeed, a siren quality, akin to the lute of Orpheus when heard
on the eve of everlasting sleep in the garden of Prosperinë. Preferable
sometimes to the utterance of a noisy and blatant optimism--finer than
the blare of brass instruments or the shouting of crowds--is the voice
of the reed shaken by the wind.
As a final word something may be said of Gordon’s third and highest
class of achievement, namely his blending in verse of the active _with_
the melancholic temper. He could do two things: he could write of
action, and he could write of sadness. Now and again he combines in one
poem all that is best and most distinctive in these two sides of his
nature. There are times when he devotes his verse to enterprises of
some kind, to feats on horseback, or to feats in war. There are other
times when he discards action, and lets the sombre mood of the moment
envelop him. The hour of his greatest and rarest inspiration is when
he mixes the action with the sentiment; when he unites the warrior
with the poet; when he fuses in the same fire the contrasted (but not
necessarily antagonistic) temperaments of a Bayard and a Byron, of a
Lancelot and a Lamartine.
It is undeniable that _The Rhyme of Joyous Garde_ represents the summit
of Gordon’s poetic achievement. And the reason is that it brings
together in complete harmony the two spirits which alternately strove
for mastery in the life of the man. The movements in _The Rhyme of
Joyous Garde_ are varied, but they fit into each other, and grow out
of each other, as do the movements in a Beethoven symphony. First of
all there is the atmosphere of pure idealism, of pure romance. There is
the breath of the south wind, rich with the glory of the hawthorn and
the frankincense. It is the man of action, who is also a poet, that is
speaking. The setting is that of Arthurian England. Every line of the
opening verse is flooded with the sentiment of a romantic country--a
country in which brave men lived, and in which great deeds were done.
Against this rich, warm-tinted background is outlined a battle picture.
Here begins the second movement. First the country itself, with its
sunny fields and blossoming hedges; then the memory springing to life
of great daring and heroic achievement:---
Pardie! I nearly had won that crown
Which endureth more than a knight’s renown,
When the pagan giant had got me down,
Sore spent in the deadly grapple.
In a couple of resonant verses he explains why. The third movement
begins when the woman enters. It is romance again, but romance of a
more intense, more personal, more richly emotional kind. It forms the
dominant note of this varied theme:--
The brown thrush sang through the briar and bower,
All flushed or frosted with forest flower,
In the warm sun’s wanton glances;
And I grew deaf to the song-bird--blind
To blossom that sweetened the sweet spring wind,
I saw her only--a girl reclined
In her girlhood’s indolent trances.
The realism of the picture is carried no further. With fine artistic
sensibility Gordon recognises that he has said enough. The woman
has entered; the man has grown blind to the blossom and deaf to the
song-bird; the eternal tragedy, which is not altogether a tragedy, has
begun.
For the rest, the poem plays upon two strings. Alternately there are
echoes from the fields of undying renown, and again voices of sad and
hopeless and unending regret. The well-known lines beginning:--
Then a steel-shod rush, and a glittering ring,
And a crash of the spear staves splintering
are a memorable piece of versification. They arrest and perpetuate the
fighting Arthurian spirit, they convey in words the actual clash of
arms, and they bring back the forgotten mood of the man of personal
valour as possibly no other verses have yet done. Such a word picture
might be expected to leave weak and tame anything that followed; but
with equal conviction, and with equal command of tone and touch,
Gordon strikes again the chord of intense spiritual shame and sorrow,
gradually merging it into one of religious appeal and exhortation. On
this latter note the poem closes.
The man who had done this great thing surely deserved something in
this existence, or in some other existence, in return for what he had
given to the people among whom he lived. Surely, one likes to think,
there must be, somewhere, at some time or another, a compensation, a
recompense, for the tragedy of a life that merited so much success and
vanished, or _seemed_ to vanish, in such utter dark.
VII
THEATRES AND AMUSEMENTS
Then to the well-trod stage anon,
If Jonson’s learned sock be on,
Or sweetest Shakespeare, fancy’s child,
Warble his native wood-notes wild.
Australians are fond of the drama, but have no drama of their own.
Even those people who talk occasionally of an Australian literature
have nothing to say on the subject of an Australian stage. Not only
the masterpieces, but the hack-pieces are borrowed; the star actors
and actresses are borrowed also. In nothing is the population more
imitative than in what pertains to theatres and theatre-going. It
is only the buildings that can be described as the country’s own,
and even here the great borrowing habit is illustrated by the names
that are blazoned on the outside of them. “His Majesty’s,” and “Her
Majesty’s,” and “The Princess,” and “The Royal” repeat themselves
with monotonous iteration. The appearance of the majority of these
theatres is fine and large, in the literal acceptation of the words.
There are not many things that impress the visitor more than the size
and the configuration and artistic finish of the places of amusement in
Australia.
So far as the audiences are concerned, they are in a transition
stage--the stage of development between being delighted with everything
and being satisfied with nothing. It is still comparatively easy to
attract a crowd to a performance that can boast of novel features, or
of moderately good credentials from abroad. In fact, the Australian is
willing, at the outset, to take a great deal on trust, even though he
is quick to resent what looks like an imposition on his good nature.
An indifferent company may have one successful tour of the continent,
but it will scarcely have a second. It is the failure to recognise this
fact that causes stranded actors to be plentiful as blackberries. The
local theatre-goer is good-natured up to a certain point; beyond that
point, it is impossible to move him.
Speaking generally, the country is not kind to its own theatrical
children. The actor, like the prophet, has to look for his honours
abroad. His fellow-countrymen find a difficulty in recognising him,
or at least in approving him, until he has broken in upon them
from over-seas. The stage in Australia is looked at, not through
opera-glasses, but through a telescope; the thing near at hand is not
clarified, but distorted. The man of purely local experience is in no
danger of being spoilt by adulation. However tolerated or even admired
he may have been, he is expected to seek the shades of a graceful
retirement the moment that Brown, of Jones’s English theatre, is
announced. There is not an Australian-born actor or actress who could
not testify to this fact; many of them resent it, but others have come
to accept it as a matter of course.
It is true, that there are among the four million people who inhabit
Australia, a certain number possessed of discernment. In the exercise
of this faculty they now and again perceive that an individual playing
a comparatively small part is endowed with special ability. Then, if
they are sufficiently interested, they may take steps to secure his
acquaintance; or disdaining this formality, they may buttonhole him,
remark that they have been impressed by his performances, and invite
him to discuss the situation over a glass of wine. An invitation of
this kind is seldom refused. The supporters of local talent remark to
the Thespian that he is being wasted in Australia; that there is no
scope for him in Australia; that he really ought to remove himself from
Australia at the first opportunity. It is then discovered that this
is the advice his friends and relatives have been tendering him for
months past. If he declines to go, or suggests that his own country is
quite good enough for him, he is set down as a man of no ambition, and
probably of very little soul. More often than not, he is persuaded to
go. The favourable opinion entertained of him is found, by a curious
chance, to coincide with his opinion of himself. He goes. Perhaps he
will be given a few small parts in London and return to Australia
a hero. Possibly he will be swallowed out of sight in the world’s
vortex, and that will be the end of him. More probably, he will return
disgusted and disillusioned, not with his own abilities, but with
the blasts of indifference and the _chevaux-de-frise_ of cosmopolitan
neglect that have met him abroad.
If the actor of purely local experience finds it hard to make a
living, the task is quite beyond the capacity of the local dramatic
_author_. One or two men born at the Antipodes have made their mark
in England as writers of plays. But that has only been after leaving
the country of their birth, and after surviving years of hard work and
discouragement. Where is the rising school of Australian dramatists?
Where are even the faint beginnings of it? And where are the supporters
of such a school? Echo answers to these questions. It is curious that
there should be such a blankness of enterprise and of inspiration in
this domain. The country is out of its literary swaddling clothes; it
can support any number of theatres; it can find minor parts for any
number of Australian actors and actresses; but it is incapable--in its
present frame of mind, it is totally incapable--of supporting a single
Australian dramatist. The idea that it might be asked to do so seems
never to have been seriously considered. There have, indeed, been a few
performances, mostly by third-rate, barn-storming companies, of plays
dealing with the Kelly Gang. And that excellent comedian and manager,
Mr Bland Holt, has given us a few stage pictures representing Sydney
and Port Philip harbours, and a few melodramatic incidents supposed to
have taken place in Australia. But if an audience, on being invited to
witness high-class comedy or tragedy of the more intellectual sort,
were to find itself confronted with Circular Quay and Darlinghurst, or
with Collins Street and Toorak, or with the people inhabiting them,
it would receive such a shock that it would not recover until it had
got outside the theatre door--and possibly not then. It would feel at
first amazed, and then insulted. The recognised understanding is, that
nothing worth looking at in the theatrical sense, and nothing worthy
of presentation to an enlightened public, can by any chance take place
unless it takes place in England, or on the continent of Europe, or in
America, or in Japan.
For the reasons mentioned, English actors usually do well in this part
of the world. The old country imposes now and then on the inexperience
of the new one. It has a habit of sending here, not merely its second
and third best, but its dead-beats and its derelicts. The celebrated
English actor of the play-bills is, as often as not, celebrated only
in the lively imagination of the _entrepreneur_ who brings him out.
He comes, however, with a certain flourish of trumpets and glamour of
romance. The very fact that he hails from a distance of 12,000 miles
is an aureole round his head. He can be sure of a good reception, of
an interested, expectant audience. If he has any colourable qualities,
they will be loudly, even rapturously, applauded. If he is very
indifferent, or if he is unspeakably bad, he will scarcely be told
so--at least not at first. The worst he will receive from the critics
of the great “dailies” will be a kind of faint questioning, a troubled
note of uncertainty, a dim reminder of some one else who played the
part differently. They may damn him with faint praise; but they
will be loth, at the outset, to do more. The fact that the actor is
understood to have won applause in England goes for a good deal, and
the commercial and social instincts of the big papers go for rather
more. A few of the week-end journals may bark out vituperation, but
they do not really count. It is well known that they are just as likely
to attack the supremely good as the atrociously bad. In the long run,
it may be--and perhaps before _very_ long--audiences will fall away
from the imported actor who is manifestly fourth and fifth rate; for
Australian play-goers are not naturally dull. They are, however, under
the spell of foreign associations; they are influenced, to a greater or
less extent, by newspaper criticism; and they have unquestionably given
a number of well-boomed and press-belauded visitors better support
than, on their merits and by comparison with the local substitute, they
deserved.
So far there has been no American invasion. The plays and the topical
allusions in vogue south of the Line are either English in origin,
or filter through an English channel. Productions hailing from the
United States have made their appearance and have fretted their hour,
but they have not succeeded in leaving a lasting mark. One reason
is, that the associations and atmosphere of the land of the dollar
are not sufficiently familiar. What do we know in Australia of the
Bowery? What do we know of Fifth Avenue? What do we know, or care,
for the Waldorf, or the Astoria? The local colour of Fleet Street,
of Westminster, of Petticoat Lane, and of Kensington, is, owing to
numerous stage acquaintanceships, something with which every audience
feels at home. But to talk to the average Melbourne or Sydney man of
the streets and hotels and public buildings of Boston and New York and
Philadelphia, is to talk to him in a foreign language. In the majority
of cases he does not know, and when he does know, he does not care.
Another reason is, that the typical American production lacks depth
and height. It catches something of what is flitting on the surface of
America; but it forgets that America, though topographically a large
place, is only a fraction of the intellectual and artistic world. The
country has not yet its Sardou, or its Sudermann, or its Ibsen, nor
yet its D’Annunzio, or its Pinero, or even its Henry Arthur Jones. A
dramatist spoken of as the American Sardou made his bow in Melbourne
a year or two ago, with a tragedy named _Nadjezda_. It was soon made
manifest that he had not come to stay. Neither have such productions as
_A Trip to Chinatown_ or _The Belle of New York_, or _Leah Kleschna_,
been responsible for much genuine success. The Yankee playwright is
clever with words and indifferent with ideas. As to emotions, he has
heard that they exist.
Yet there is one important, non-English product that has won a great
welcome from Australian audiences. This is the American actress. She
has not been able to acclimatise the works of her own countrymen;
she has usually refrained from attempting to do so. Clothing her
individuality in the language of Shakespeare and Sheridan, of Ibsen and
Bjornsten, of Sudermann and Maeterlinck, of Sardou and Rostand and the
Younger Dumas; heralded always by a tremendous flourish of trumpets,
and accompanied usually by an astute stage manager; restraining her
national prejudices and reducing her American accent to a few pretty
words and phrases, she has been enabled to accomplish a great deal. The
lady from the United States brings with her youth as a foremost asset.
She knows that it is difficult to “star” through a continent without
this ally. She has it proclaimed--loudly proclaimed--as part of her
equipment. Everywhere she plays the Young American Actress. It is the
first and the most effective piece in her repertoire. For the rest, she
finds it advisable to cultivate a manner, and a certain distinction
of style, when off the stage. Sometimes she is effusive, even
demonstrative, and inclined to be gracious to interviewers. Sometimes
she is magnificently cold and distant, with a coldness that is only
comparable to the fierce warmth of the characters in which she revels
behind the footlights. But always in Australia--whether she is on the
stage or off it--she is acting, acting, acting. Stage-struck people
send her flowers; infatuated people write her verses. She accepts them
all and welcomes them all as tributes to her artistic success. She is
brilliantly clever, with a cleverness that is all of the head. She gets
a great deal, and she deserves what she gets.
To come back to Australian audiences, it requires very little
argument to show there is only one kind of play that really appeals
to them. It is the kind of play that hovers about the confines of
a socially fashionable, and morally unorthodox, world. It is edged
round with impropriety; it is coloured, permeated, enlivened with
what the immortal author of _Bab Ballads_ calls “guilty splendour.”
In the background are the lilies and languors of virtue, but in the
foreground, placed there for the people to smile at and to condemn,
are the raptures and roses of vice. The theme, no doubt, has endless
variants: sometimes the end is tragic, and sometimes it is amusing;
sometimes a majority of the commandments suffer, and sometimes only
one. It is advisable that there should be a kind of supposed moral
purpose running through the production. It is an advantage to have
one or two high-minded characters as foils to the others; and as a
concession to custom, or as a salve to the uneasy British conscience,
it is always a wise policy to bring the immoral people to grief in the
last act. But no one can pretend to deny that it is these latter--these
fashionable rakes and brilliantly attired courtesans--who constitute
the real attraction of the Australian stage to-day. If any one doubts
this, let him attempt to run a theatrical season without them, and let
him put on the boards a drama dealing only with conventional or with
virtuous people. His downfall will be swift and convincing and sure.
For psychology, the typical Australian audience cares little. For
poetry on the stage, it cares less. For blank verse it has no
inclination. For sustained dignity it has no time. With intellectual
fireworks it is but indifferently and partially amused.
Comedy that lies hid in delicate shades and _nuances_, comedy that
is chiefly a matter of scintillating words and phrases, is not asked
for by the multitude. Even the brilliancy of Mr Bernard Shaw at his
best can command but a limited circle of admirers. Even the problem,
considered merely as a problem, is devoid of drawing power. When it
attracts, it attracts because of its dazzling pictures of luxury and
licentiousness.
Tragedy requires to be carefully handled. It is only when it is decked
out in certain robes, only when embroidered with certain trappings,
only when set to certain music, that it will crowd the benches. The
merely sordid themes have lost their hold, if they ever had one. An
immoral play that persists in showing its characters in a garb of
sackcloth and ashes has little chance of gaining an extended hearing.
One play that has had a marvellously successful run in Australia is
entitled _Woman and Wine_. The name might just as appropriately have
been given to nine out of every ten productions that have held, for
any length of time, the local stage. Whether it is _Camille_, or _The
Second Mrs Tanqueray_, or _The Gay Lord Quex_, or _Dolores_, or _Zaza_,
or _Quo Vadis_, or _Sweet Nell of Old Drury_, or _The Country Mouse_,
or _The Marriage of Kitty_, or _The White Heather_, or any other
melodrama of the unfailing Bland Holt and Anderson pattern, the title
might, with equal appropriateness, have been that of the popular piece
of work already mentioned. A theatre-going public--any theatre-going
public--is reached less easily through its intellect than through
its senses. What wonder, therefore, that a management should find it
advisable to stage _Woman and Wine_?
Caring only for one kind of play, Australian audiences are quite
willing, in their restless desire for novelty, to coquet with others.
That last expression of national boredom and ineptitude, musical
comedy, has its following at the Antipodes. This form of amusement,
like the others, is borrowed. It is doubtful whether Australian
audiences would ever have taken to it, had they not been assured that
it was regarded in England as the correct thing. Now that it has
obtained a footing, it is found to have a certain attractiveness. It
has become almost a rage. The reason is to be found in the circumstance
that it relieves the onlooker from the necessity of having to think.
This is a consideration that cannot well be over-estimated. For the
rest, it boasts a number of shapely-looking chorus girls, and a funny
man, whose business it is to be as mirthfully suggestive, and as
suggestively mirthful as possible. There is also some music, but this
scarcely counts. The comedy that is dubbed musical is not seriously
vicious, but then it has nothing to do with virtue. The latter
circumstance, combined with its gaudy colours, its short skirts, and
its chorus girls, helps it joyously on its way.
The claim is occasionally made, that one part of the continent
is more favourable to high dramatic art than another. Melbourne,
which is always endeavouring to be superior to every other city in
Australia, is accustomed to delude itself with the idea that it is
fond of intellectual plays. It makes a decent pretence, now and
again, of attending a revival of Shakespeare. If the brief season
proves a failure, as it usually does, the critics unkindly tell the
performers that it is they, and not the Bard of Avon, or the taste of
the Melbourne public, that are at fault. Sydney, to do it justice,
is given over to no such unnecessary make-believe. Shakespeare has
been expurgated so much that there is no risk, and consequently no
excitement, in going to see him, and Sydney stays away.
Outside the drama there are amusements which, between them, take up
most of the thought and most of the spare time of the people. But
little requires to be said of them, because, while they resemble the
drama in that they are borrowed from abroad, they give much less scope
for the play of individual taste and temper and sensibility. Racing is
the national recreation, just as gambling is the national vice. The
two insensibly melt into each other. It is a great sporting continent.
When the word “sport” is used--when a certain individual is called a
sportsman, and another individual is referred to as a follower of “the
game”--the reference is invariably to the game in which the horse and
the bookmaker play the leading parts. No writer, however admirable his
intentions, and however lurid his language, has been able to exaggerate
the hold which racing has over the whole population from Port Darwin to
Cape Otway, and from Brisbane round to Perth. The office boy reads his
racing intelligence in the papers with as much zest, and usually with
as much critical discernment, as does the man of wealth and leisure.
The man who never goes to horse races and never talks horse, is to
be met with, but he is distinctly uncommon. He stands apart from the
rest of the community. He is a modern Isaac Newton, given to voyaging
through strange social seas alone.