[_1 July '09_]
I was discussing last week the insufficiency of the supply of intelligent
playwrights for the presumable demand of the two new repertory theatres;
and, almost as I spoke, St. John Hankin drowned himself. The loss is
sensible. I do not consider St. John Hankin to have been a great
dramatist; I should scarcely care to say that he was a distinguished
dramatist, though, of course, the least of his works is infinitely more
important in the development of the English theatre than the biggest of
the creaking contrivances for which Sir Arthur Wing Pinero has recently
received honour from a grateful and cultured Government. But he was a
curious, honest, and original dramatist, with a considerable equipment of
wit and of skill. The unconsciously grotesque condescension which he
received in the criticisms of Mr. William Archer, and the mere insolence
which he had to tolerate in the criticisms of Mr. A.B. Walkley, were
demonstrations of the fact that he was a genuine writer. What he lacked
was creative energy. He could interest but he could not powerfully grip
you. His most precious quality--particularly precious in England--was his
calm intellectual curiosity, his perfect absence of fear at the logical
consequences of an argument. He would follow an argument anywhere. He was
not one, of those wretched poltroons who say: "But if I admit _x_ to be
true, I am doing away with the incentive to righteousness. _Therefore_ I
shall not admit _x_ to be true." There are thousands of these highly
educated poltroons between St. Stephen's, Westminster, and Aberystwith
University, and St. John Hankin was their foe.
* * * * *
The last time I conversed with him was at the dress rehearsal of a comedy.
Between the sloppy sounds of charwomen washing the floor of the pit and
the feverish cries of photographers taking photographs on the stage, we
discussed the plays of Tchehkoff and other things. He was one of the few
men in England who had ever heard of Tchehkoff's plays. When I asked him
in what edition he had obtained them, he replied that he had read them in
manuscript. I have little doubt that one day these plays will be performed
in England. St. John Hankin was an exceedingly good talker, rather
elaborate in the construction of his phrases, and occasionally dandiacal
in his choice of words. One does not arrive at his skill in conversation
without taking thought, and he must have devoted a lot of thought to the
art of talking. Hence he talked self-consciously, fully aware all the time
that talking was an art and himself an artist. Beneath the somewhat
finicking manner there was visible the intelligence that cared for neither
conventions nor traditions, nor for possible inconvenient results, but
solely for intellectual honesty amid conditions of intellectual freedom.