MISCELLANEOUS
Signor Borsa on the English Theatres
Those mere casual playgoers who may think that the articles on drama in
_The Westminster Gazette_ have been needlessly pessimistic ought to read
"The English Stage of To-Day," by Mario Borsa, translated by Mr Selwyn
Brinton, and published by Mr John Lane; a lively, interesting book, in
which are expressed vigourously the ideas of a very acute, intelligent
writer upon our modern theatre. "Hence it is no wonder that all that is
artificial, absurd, commonplace, spectacular, and puerile is rampant
upon the English stage; that theatrical wares are standardized, like all
other articles of trade...." "Still, in spite of all this booming and
histriomania, one of the greatest intellectual privations from which the
foreigner suffers in London is, I repeat, the lack of good comedy and
good prose drama." Such sentences are specimens of his views about the
current drama of London, and he endorses the sad phrase of Auguste
Filon, "_Le drame Anglais, à peine né, se meurt_."
In some respects the book is surprising. The author exhibits an intimacy
of knowledge that appears almost impossible in one who, for a long time
after his arrival in London, was "ignorant of the very language of the
country." He has learnt our tongue well enough to give us some literary
criticisms of value, notably upon the Irish theatre and the poetry of Mr
W.B. Yeats, and he has made himself acquainted in a remarkable way with
the plays of the last fifteen years or so, with the theatrical clubs and
the various movements of revolt against our puppet theatre. There are
slips, no doubt, such as the suggestion that the Independent Theatre
introduced Ibsen to London, it being the fact that several of his plays
had been presented before this Society was born.
Signor Borsa has something to say on most of the topics of the times.
For instance, he deals with the Censor! "And here we touch the root of
the evil--the Censor! It is the Censor who is the real enemy--the
ruthless, insatiable Cerberus." He writes upon the question of speeches
in the theatres. "In Italy a new play is sometimes so heartily hissed
after one or two acts that the manager is forced to cut short the
performance and proceed forthwith to the farce. This never happens in
England, partly because every 'first night' is attended by a _claque_,
judiciously posted and naturally well disposed. Not that these
'first-nighters' are paid to applaud, as in Paris or Vienna. Neither are
they labelled as _claqueurs_. They are simply enthusiasts, and their
name is Legion.... It is they who salute the actor-manager after the
curtain has fallen with persistent demands of 'Speech! Speech!' And it
is to the request of these good and faithful friends that he accedes at
last, in a voice broken by emotion, due to their spontaneous and
generous reception."
Of late some people have been suggesting gleefully that the vogue of
"G.B.S." is on the wane. His popularity has been the cause of great
annoyance to the mass of the public and those critics who stand up for
a theatre of "old scenic tricks which were long familiar to
me--sensational intrigues, impossible situations, men and women who
could have been neither English nor French nor Italian." They will be
glad to learn that Signor Borsa says: "Shaw's dramatic work is pure
journalism, destined to enjoy a certain vogue, and then to be swallowed
up in the deep pit of oblivion. Nor should I be surprised if this vogue
of his were already on the decline.... Shaw, with all his wit and all
his go, already shows signs of becoming terribly monotonous." According
to him, in "Shaw there were the makings of a writer of talent."
Let us add that no evidence exists to show the decline of the author's
popularity; it may also be said that much of "G.B.S." is quite
incomprehensible to a foreigner. What Signor Borsa calls the
"restaurateurs-proprietors," and also the actor-managers--with a few
exceptions--may hold aloof, but Mr Shaw has brought to the theatres a
new public, and taken a good many of the old as well. Apparently Signor
Borsa's hostility to "G.B.S." is founded on the fact that the dramatist
is a revolutionary and refuses to accept the theatrical formulae which
satisfy the Italian. One must, however, point out that whilst Signor
Borsa's general conclusions concerning the most remarkable person of the
English theatre are unsound, his remarks in detail are acute and
luminous, and some of them well deserve the consideration of the victim.
The curiosity of the book is the treatment of the acting. According to
Signor Borsa, "the acting has little to boast of. A century, or even
half-a-century, ago the case was different. But the glories of Kean,
Macready, Kemble, and Siddons now belong to history and but yesterday
Sir Henry Irving stood alone--the unique representative in England of
the great tragic art.... In conveying irony, the English actor is in his
element; in comic parts, he is simply grotesque. The buffoon may
occasionally be found upon the English stage--the brilliant comedian
never. In tragic parts he easily assumes an exaggerated gravity and
solemnity; in sentimental _rôles_ he is frankly ridiculous."
_Frankly_ is a mistranslation, or else the adjective is ridiculous, if
not "frankly" ridiculous. Signor Borsa falls into a very common error.
He thinks that because English actors do not gesticulate a great deal
they act badly. This might be true if they represented on the stage a
gesticulative race. The author points out carefully that we are not a
gesticulative race, and fails to see that it would be bad acting for the
player to represent an Englishman as being naturally gesticulative. The
English Jew is more gesticulative than the ordinary Englishman; the
Anglo-Jewish players--and there are many--curb themselves when they are
playing British characters, and of course they act artistically in so
doing.
The function of the actor is to impress the audience before him,
nine-tenths of which consist of people who would regard him as
ridiculous and unnatural if, when acting an ordinary English part, he
were to gesticulate very much. We have seen Italian players of ability
representing English characters, and, putting aside Duse, the obvious
and correct criticism was that they were very funny and quite incorrect
in their exuberance of gesture.
Irving is the only actor whom he discusses; Ellen Terry the one English
actress. This, of course, is absurd. It indicates, however, very
usefully the attitude of the foreign critic towards our stage. Also,
perhaps, it is a little chastening to our players. The foreigner is able
to understand and appreciate to some extent the best of our plays; the
acting says nothing to him, or at least nothing flattering. Our
comedians are "buffoons," our lovers are "frankly ridiculous," and the
Italian actors are superior in "temperament"--whatever that may mean.
Ours, it appears, are better than the Italians in some humble ways:
"They dress their parts better and wear their clothes better," and they
even know their parts--a vulgar quality which apparently is rare on the
Italian stage--also they are more cultured, and "possess to a greater
degree the dramatic literary sense."
One may accept, sadly, Signor Borsa's view, which is shared by most
Continental and many British critics, that the ordinary English drama is
utterly unworthy of the English people; but we certainly have abundance
of competent players, and a fair number of dramatists anxious and able
to give the public far better drama than they get, as soon as managers
are willing to produce it; the great trouble is that the managers are
afraid of the public, and although they might wisely be more
venturesome, they have, in the present mass of playgoers, a terrible
public to cater for. The facts and figures offered by Signor Borsa show
too eloquently that the managers attempt to deal with the difficulty by
a very short-sighted policy. Still, the position is less desperate than
the Italian critic supposes, and much of what has happened since Auguste
Filon wrote the line already quoted shows that he was too hasty in his
judgment.
"G.B.S." and the Amateurs
There is a story--its untruth is indisputable--to the effect that on a
death of a man of unconventional character his mournful family, after
much trouble, hit upon the happy thought of satisfying their desire to
leave an amiable and incontestable record concerning him by having
inscribed upon his tombstone the following epitaph:--"He never acted in
private theatricals."
A touch of acrimony seems discernible in certain utterances of Mr George
Bernard Shaw about amateur theatricals which makes one doubt whether
such a statement in his case would contain even the trifling percentage
of truth that is customary in epitaphs. Indeed, he causes an impression
that he has really done something worse than play in amateur
theatricals, and even, although an amateur, has appeared in a
professional performance. There has been a rather needless fury in his
remarks; it is a case doubtless of more sound than sentiment. This,
however, is pretty George's way; where some would use a whip he
"fillips" people with "a three-man beetle."
They say that all the amateur Thespians' clubs in the kingdom have
passed fierce resolutions about him, and a monster petition is being
prepared praying for his outlawry or excommunication. The cause was a
letter concerning the question whether dramatists ought to reduce their
fees for performance by amateur clubs of copyright works, and the trump
card of the opponents was the fact that many of the entertainments are
given for the benefit of charities. Mr Zangwill it was who observed that
"charity uncovers a multitude of shins"; perhaps one may add, clumsily,
that charity suffereth long and applauds.
Certainly, amateur performances rarely contain anything intentionally
so humorous as the idea of suggesting to "G.B.S." that he should reduce
his fees by way of an indirect contribution to the fund for the
restoration of some village church or the like. Apparently the common
answer to the author of _Mrs Warren's Profession_ is a sort of
paraphrase of the line "Nobody axt you, sir, she said."
It would be interesting to know how many performances, if any, have been
given by the great unpaid of pieces by the now successful theatrical
iconoclast. Who knows whether his wrath has not a touch of the _spretae
injuria formae_? Perhaps he is longing to have _Caesar and Cleopatra_
represented by some amiable association that has hitherto confined
itself to the comedies of Bulwer Lytton and farces by Maddison Morton.
It may be the dream of his life to see what people untrammelled by
considerations of filthy lucre, except so far as the benefit of the
charity is concerned, can make of _The Philanderers_.
Judging by the public press and the circulars, Mr Shaw is not inaccurate
in his view that the army of amateurs does comparatively little service
for drama. Its taste seems to be for showy, artificial plays, and its
tendency to seek out works that do not act themselves because of their
truth of characterisation but afford unlimited scope for originality on
the part of performers--generally half-baked performers.
This does not apply to all amateur societies; at least we know that
there are a number of associations not for the purposes of gain, such as
the Elizabethan Stage Society, now, alas! dead, which showed a very
stern enthusiasm for the higher forms of art. They appear to be the
exception. There was a time when it was difficult to find a man in the
street who had not acted in _Ici on Parle Français_ or played in _Money_
or appeared in _Our Boys_, and nowadays it seems that though there has
been some progress, the austere drama is still unpopular, and that when
funds are sufficient artificial costume plays are in vogue.
Mr Shaw apparently believes that vanity is the fundamental motive of
amateur performances. It may be that this is not wholly true, and that
the real impulse is the elementary instinct for dressing-up. Savages, we
know, have a craving for strange costumes which enable them to disguise
and even disfigure their persons. Children delight in dressing up.
Possibly one of the great joys of the amateur lies in the fact that he
has an opportunity of wearing clothes pertinent to somebody else, and,
if he be a male, is curious to see how he looks and is looked upon with
the whiskers of the mid-Victorian beau or the imperial of the Third
Empire, and so on.
The amiable philosopher would find a pleasanter explanation, would
suggest that the desire to "dress up" is based upon a modest doubt
concerning the charms of one's own individuality--how agreeable to
believe this! At the bottom of the matter lies this ugly contention on
the part of the cynic--he alleges that the amateur wants to act not for
the benefit of the charity, the name of which is invoked hypocritically,
but for the gratification of his vanity, and the authors are unable to
see why the clubs should gratify the conceit of their members at the
expense of those who write the plays.
After all, the matter is one of domestic economy, and the wisest thing
seems to be to leave people to make their own bargains; and if the
result is that the best plays are the dearest and the least performed,
the result may be somewhat advantageous. It is always uncertain whether
the individual spectator who has witnessed an amateur performance of a
piece will be anxious to see how it really acts or determine never to
suffer from it again. Perhaps it is rather cheap to scoff at the amateur
performances, some of which, no doubt, are excellent.
Moreover, it cannot be doubted that in a good many cases the amateur
stage provides recruits for _the_ profession, and some of our most
popular players--like Mr Shrubb and other famous runners--have begun
their careers by merely striving for "the fun of the thing." Probably
many who now stroll the Strand or haunt "Poverty Corner" fruitlessly,
were induced to embark upon their vain career by the polite plaudits of
amiable friends whose judgments were worthless even when honest. Perhaps
some of them, or of their friends, begin to believe that Mr Zangwill was
not quite untruthful in his phrase that "players are only men and
women--spoilt," which, of course, he did not intend to be of universal
application.
Still, it can hardly be denied that "G.B.S." was needlessly severe. The
amateur actors do very little harm and cause a great deal of innocent
amusement which outweighs the harm. It may be that, except in dealing
with serious plays, there is an unfair proportion of amusement on the
farther side of the footlights, but it must be recollected that the
performers have many trials and annoyances, and often make severe
sacrifices--of friendships.
If the authors of established reputation seem too greedy the clubs have
an easy remedy. At the present moment the cry of the unacted is
unusually bitter and loud. Why, then, should not these associations,
able as some are to give performances that are at least adequate if not
exactly brilliant, save as regards a few individual players, assist the
drama by giving a chance to the unacted of seeing their works on the
stage? In many cases plays now rejected by managers because they have an
instinctive feeling that there is some flaw which defies precise
indication might, after such a production, be corrected and rendered
acceptable and valuable.
Cant about Shakespeare
In a criticism upon the new Lyceum revival of _Hamlet_ there was a
sentence which impressed me greatly. It appeared in a morning paper of
prodigious circulation, and was in these words: "Mr Matheson Lang's
Hamlet ... is what may be called a popular one, and likely to be
extremely popular. And this is well, for 'tis better to see Shakespeare
in any form than not to see him at all, so that these performances
deserve every support, being in some ways not unlike the productions ...
which serve to keep alive the classics and old traditions of art." This
criticism, or rather statement, is popular--"extremely popular." People
seem to think that there is virtue in producing Shakespeare and in
acting Shakespeare and in reading Shakespeare. It would be pleasant to
feel confident that there is virtue in writing about him--I have written
so much--but probably nobody takes this extreme view. Now, some have a
different opinion.
A strenuous dramatist, namesake of a contemporary of the national
dramatist, ventures to call the "Swan of Avon" a "blackleg" instead of a
black swan, and ascribes his popularity with managers to the fact that
his name no longer spells bankruptcy, and that no royalties have to be
paid on performances of his plays, in consequence of which they are
often, or sometimes, produced where, otherwise, modern works would be
presented.
It is not necessary to go so far as this to reach a sane view on the
subject--a view which probably lies between the extremes. Certainly we
may well wonder whether and why it is a good thing to produce
Shakespeare plays unless the production is of fine quality. Everybody is
acquainted with Lamb's essay, with what one may call "Elia's" paradox,
on Shakespeare, the vigorous truth of which is partly counterbalanced by
the fact that few play readers have anything like his powers of
imagination, and that he probably underrated the knowledge of
Shakespeare possessed by playgoers, or at least by West End
first-nighters.
Indeed, one may go further and say that during any run of a
Shakespearean play it will be visited by some thousands of people well
acquainted with it and some hundreds who immediately detect any
alteration of the text. The enjoyment of these expert or semi-expert
playgoers of a performance of a Shakespeare play, when compared with
their pleasure in reading it, is probably much higher than Lamb
imagined. It is, however, hardly for them that these dramas are revived,
and clearly for quite a different audience that the Lyceum production is
given.
Is it a really good thing that _Hamlet_ should be offered to those who
have little or no acquaintance with the tragedy? A study of the audience
on the first night of _Hamlet_ at the Lyceum gave the idea that the
majority were far from appreciating the work, and did not, at any rate,
get a greater or different pleasure from it than they would have had if
instead of the Shakespearean dialogue they had been offered the blank
verse of any ordinary respectable writer.
Why should it be otherwise? Why should the hundreds of people in the
sixpenny gallery understand the conduct of Hamlet, which has puzzled the
most learned and acute critics of all countries for centuries? A person
hearing the play on the stage, and otherwise unacquainted with it, must
be bewildered. How is he to understand why Hamlet is so rude to Ophelia,
yet later on declares that he loved her prodigiously? What is he to
think of a Hamlet who takes so much trouble to find out whether his
uncle is guilty, and then tamely submits to be sent out of the country
by him, leaving his father unavenged? What opinion is he to form of the
perfectly idiotic, complex conspiracy between the King and Laertes to
get rid of Hamlet? Why should _Hamlet_ appeal to him, except as a
melodrama with a flabby hero, a feeble heroine, a very small amount of
comic relief, and far too much dialogue, much of which is almost
unintelligible? What can he make of the great soliloquies, of the purple
patches, written in involved sentences, embellished by curious archaic
terms of speech, elaborate figures, and puzzling inversions, which at
the best can only give him a vague idea of what is supposed to be said?
If you were to send a highly educated man, ignorant of the play--perhaps
an apparent contradiction--he would at first be bored or irritated. No
doubt his ear might catch and his mind retain some profound phrases, and
he would promptly recognize the grandeur of the verse in many passages,
so that his curiosity would be awakened, and cause him either to read
the play or see it time after time. What about the man in the street,
the railway guard, the 'bus conductor, the "shover," the humbler clerks,
and their womenfolk, who are patrons of the gallery; will they get
beyond one visit? Can they recognize profound thoughts at first hearing,
or at all? Are they able to distinguish beautiful blank verse from
bombast? Are the soliloquies of Hamlet likely to lure them to the severe
intellectual task of reading the play scrupulously?
Of course these questions do not concern members of the "Gallery
First-Nighters'" Club. They may or may not patronize the sixpenny
gallery or shilling pit of the Lyceum. No doubt the members of the club
are fully competent to appreciate the play, but they certainly formed
the minority last Saturday week, and will be rare during the later
performances. It was not they who laughed in the wrong places, or
laughed with the wrong laughter, or coughed, during the uneventful
scenes.
It will be said that thousands have gone and will go to this revival and
enjoy it, and, therefore, these views must be wrong. These remarks are
not in disparagement at all of this particular revival. It is, however,
certain that the pleasure of the majority of those who visit this
revival would be none the less if the work had been written by a
second-rate playwright; indeed, Mr Cecil Raleigh who, compared with
Shakespeare, may, perhaps, be called second-rate, could write them a new
_Hamlet_ on the old plot which would give them far greater pleasure than
they get at present.
Critics ought to speak with perfect sincerity about the drama; great
harm is done by people who, with excellent motives, write insincerely.
The average schoolboy is prevented from enjoying the classics by being
bored with them when he is too young to understand them. The average man
never reads the Bible for pleasure, because he has been brought up to
regard it as a kind of religious medicine; and it is unlikely that the
great half-educated will be brought to a taste for Shakespeare by a
stage performance of his works. This is no plea against the performance
of his plays, but against writing carelessly and conventionally about
them. Nobody will deny Lamb's love of the dramatist. He would say that
if Shakespeare is to be played to the masses there should be some
preliminary training of them. At least they might be broken in gently.
To present _Hamlet_ as successor to the pantomime and not long after
some of the simple melodramas acted at this theatre seems rather
irrational.
A better service is done to the public and to drama by presenting modern
English plays, written sincerely and on a reasonably high standard of
truth, than by reviving works that can only appeal to most of the
half-educated despite, and not because of, their finer qualities.
Shakespeare, indeed, might ask the gallery in the phrase of Benedick,
"For which of my bad parts didst thou first fall in love with me?" The
important matter is to get rid of humbug, to try to see things truly.
Drama is worthy of serious consideration as a great branch of art and a
great force, but will never fulfil its mission if it is to lie in a
mortmain to dead dramatists, and if it is to be regarded as more
meritorious to try to make money by producing the non-copyright dramas
of the past than by presenting the works of living men who need a
royalty.
This is not a plea against revivals of the English classics, the
production of which under certain circumstances may be praiseworthy and
valuable, but against such propositions as "'tis better to see
Shakespeare in any form than not at all," which cause people to form
false judgments and push them to enterprises of little value.
Yvette Guilbert on Dramatists
Lately Yvette Guilbert has been making some strange remarks concerning
drama and dramatists. Her words demand attention since they come from
the lips of a woman of genius. In our time the domain between the
theatre and the concert-room has produced no artist of her rank. One
recollects her different styles. First, in the amazing delivery of
almost frankly indecent songs--a delivery so extraordinarily fine as to
convert them for the moment into works of art--the image of beautiful
iridescent scum on foul water suggests itself. Secondly, in the
presentation by short song and very sober gesture and facial expression
of grim tragedies, a presentation more vivid and poignant than the
ordinary theatre can give, despite its numerous aids to art. Then came
the charming utterance of quaint old songs--who can forget Béranger's
"La Grandmère" as it came from her?
Paris, insatiable in craving for novelty, is said to have grown tired of
her, but her place as the greatest of singers in the variety theatres
cannot be gainsaid. It is alleged that she intends to go upon the stage,
and imaginable that her search for suitable plays has caused her
outburst against playwrights. Whether she will be successful as actress
or not is a question of interest concerning which _a priori_ reasoning
is futile. Certainly she must be a difficult person for whom to write a
play.
Apparently she has gone to some fashionable dramatist and given him a
commission to write a drama as a vehicle for the exhibition of her
histrionic gifts, and is dissatisfied by the result. One is justified in
making the guess by her theories concerning the future of drama when the
"arenas" are again opened, and "histrionic" art is rejuvenated. "Let the
actors enter," she says, "with their ideas boiling over, their nerves
strung to the highest pitch, and let the public suggest to each the
action or character to be mimicked. Let a dozen different ideals be
impersonated, then real, true and original talent will be revealed, new
ideas will be discovered which will no longer be guided by the author
and stage manager and theatrical director, but which will be free,
untrammelled, and no longer ready-made emotions."
This sounds rather daring, and the lady, before kicking the dramatists
out of the theatre, might consider carefully what is to become of the
players who have not sufficient brains in their skulls for there to be
any "boiling over." Some actors, no doubt, are intellectual men, but not
a few of the best possess no ideas of their own. This quotation and
others that follow come from a translation which appeared in _The Daily
Telegraph_ of a letter written by Yvette Guilbert to _The Figaro_.
It is noteworthy that this idea of dispensing with dramatists is not
new. Efforts were made in the days of _Le Chat Noir_ to evolve a new
kind of drama, in which the playwright had little concern. Moreover, Mr
Gordon Craig, one of the forces of the future--and of the present--has
revolutionary ideas on the subject.
Let us now see what the great _diseuse_ thinks of dramas and dramatists.
Here is a strong sentence by her: "The author ignores, or will not
admit, that, despite all his efforts, he never produces anything but a
half-dead child. The talented actor animates, nurses, consolidates,
fortifies and clothes it, suggests the proper gestures and attitudes,
infuses his own health and strength into this weakling, gives it blood
and, so to speak, makes it live. The playwright contributes the soul, it
is true; but, the soul being intangible, it is only a pitiable gift so
far as the dramatic art is concerned."
To anticipate an obvious objection she says, "Of course I know there
were a Shakespeare, a Racine, a Molière, and some others.... What a pity
they had no descendants!" It is permissible to wonder whether the lady
has read much drama. Possibly she would ask why she should spend time in
reading mere "souls," and admit that her acquaintance with plays is
almost confined to works witnessed by her; and, indeed, seeing that,
according to her, "the _rôle_ of the comedian is superior to that of the
author," she may believe that a play only exists when it is acted, and
be quite unaware that an imaginative, intelligent person can get a high
degree of pleasure from reading a play.
The dramatist may well rest content with the suggestion that his work is
the soul, the immortal, noble part of drama, and that the players form
only the gross, corporeal element.
There may be some truth in Guilbert's remarks: "The dramatic is the most
inferior of all arts. The play passes through too many channels, and
comes before the public as a cramped, crushed and faded form. The writer
... sees his play in one light, the theatrical manager receives it and
sees it in another, the stage-manager adds his own way of understanding
it, the actor takes it up according to his own temperament and talents,
and the public sees it from a fifth point of view. Add to this ten or
twelve subsidiary characters. How can an author claim, under such
circumstances, to remain the absolute master of his work?"
The term "subsidiary characters" to some extent explains the attitude of
the actress. It is a suggestion of the famous "_moi-même et quelques
poupées_" which exhibits the clash of ideas that forms the basis of the
ineradicable antagonism between the original author and the actor. Each
naturally thinks himself the master.
To the true dramatist the players are as the colours on the palette, the
instruments in the orchestra--or, perhaps, the players of them--the
stone of the sculptor; their task is to give bodily form to his ideas,
clothes and flesh to the "soul" of his drama, and, as far as possible,
to efface themselves in doing their duty.
The player, on the other hand, regards the dramatist as someone intended
to write splendid parts for him--parts in which, to use the stock
phrase, he "sees himself"--sees _himself_. Unfortunately the dramatists
have, on the whole, been the sufferers, the slaves.
Sardou enslaved himself to Bernhardt; there are grounds for thinking
that but for this slavery he might have been a great dramatist and not
merely a rich, supremely skilful play fabricator. For a long time the
players have had the upper hand, mainly because of the servility of the
dramatists, but there are signs of a change. Already the "ten or twelve
subsidiary actors" phrase is becoming out of date. We have seen play
after play at the Court with parts of different degrees of importance,
but hardly any "subsidiary" characters in the sense in which Yvette
Guilbert uses the term.
There are moments when the letter of Guilbert seems a joke or a hoax.
One does not like to think that she said, "The true comedian finds his
success in himself, and can do without the dramatic author. He easily
utilizes his own comic or tragic gifts, as is witnessed in Shakespeare,
Molière, and a hundred others." To think that we do not know whether
Shakespeare was "a true comedian," and that it is not unlikely that he
was a poor actor! The lady is wise not to attempt to name the "hundred
others" presumably _ejusdem generis_ with Shakespeare and Molière.
"There have always been, since the beginning of the ages, mimics and
improvisators who did without the text of others." Possibly this is true
but it does not follow that there are many players who could hold an
audience by their mimicry or improvisations; not a few of the greatest
actors and actresses might starve if they had to rely upon their own
ideas. It is even notorious that some of our most illustrious actors
have had their brilliant after-dinner impromptu speeches written for
them.
After reading the whole letter one may hint that Guilbert's own ideas
might not serve her very well if she tried to appear as improvisator.