[_25 May '11_]
Driven by curiosity I went to hear Mr. H.G. Wells's lecture last Thursday
at the _Times_ Book Club on "The Scope of the Novel." Despite the physical
conditions of heat, and noise, and an open window exactly behind the
lecturer (whose voice thus flowed just as much into a back street as into
the ears of his auditors), the affair was a success, and it is to be hoped
that the _Times_ Book Club will pursue the enterprise further. It was
indeed a remarkable phenomenon: a first-class artist speaking the truth
about fiction to a crowd of circulating-library subscribers! Mr. Wells was
above all defiant; he contrived to put in some very plain speaking about
Thackeray, and he finished by asserting that it was futile for the
fashionable public to murmur against the intellectual demands of the best
modern fiction--there was going to be no change unless it might be a
change in the direction of the more severe, the more candid, and the more
exhaustively curious.
* * * * *
Of course the lecturer had to vulgarize his messages so as to get them
safely into the brain of the audience. What an audience! For the first
time in my life I saw the "library" public in the mass! It is a sight to
make one think. My cab had gone up Bond Street, where the fortune-tellers
flourish, and their flags wave in the wind, and their painted white hands
point alluringly up mysterious staircases. These fortune-tellers make a
tolerable deal of money, and the money they make must come out chiefly of
the pockets of well-dressed library subscribers. Not a doubt but that many
of Mr. Wells's audience were clients of the soothsayers. A strange
multitude! It appeared to consist of a thousand women and Mr. Bernard
Shaw. Women deemed to be elegant, women certainly deeming themselves to be
elegant! I, being far from the rostrum, had a good view of the backs of
their blouses, chemisettes, and bodices. What an assortment of pretentious
and ill-made toilettes! What disclosures of clumsy hooks-and-eyes and
general creased carelessness! It would not do for me to behold the
"library" public in the mass too often!
* * * * *
I could not but think of the State performance of "Money" at Drury Lane on
the previous night: that amusing smack at living artists. There has been
a good deal of straight talk about it in the daily and weekly papers. But
the psychology of the matter has not been satisfactorily explained. Blame
has been laid at the King's door. I think wrongly, or at least unfairly.
Besides being one of the two best shots in the United Kingdom, the King is
beyond any question a man of honourable intentions and of a strict
conscientiousness. But it is no part of his business to be sufficiently
expert to choose a play for a State performance. He has never pretended to
have artistic proclivities. Who among you, indeed, could be relied upon to
choose properly a play for a State performance? Take the best modern
plays. Who among you would dare to suggest for a State performance Oscar
Wilde's "The Importance of Being Earnest," Bernard Shaw's "Man and
Superman," John Galsworthy's "Justice," or Granville Barker's "The Voysey
Inheritance"? Nobody! These plays are unthinkable for a State performance,
because their distinction is utterly beyond the average comprehension of
the ruling classes--and State performances are for the ruling classes.
These plays are simply too good. Yet if you don't choose an old play you
must choose one of these four plays, or make the worst of both worlds.
Modern plays being ruled out, you must either have Shakespeare or--or
what? What is there? "The Cenci"?
* * * * *
Can you not now sympathize with the King as he ran through, in his mind,
the whole range of British drama? But the truth is that he did not run
through the whole range of British drama. Invariably in these cases a list
is submitted for the sovereign to choose from. It is an open secret that
in this particular case such a list was prepared. Whether or not it was
prepared by Mr. Arthur Collins, organizer of Drury Lane pantomimes, I
cannot say. The list contained Shakespeare and Lytton, and I don't know
who else. Conceivably the King did not want Shakespeare. To my mind he
would be quite justified in not wanting Shakespeare. We are glutted with
Shakespeare in the Haymarket. Well, then,--why not "Money"? It is a famous
play. We all know its name and the name of its author. And that is the
limit of our knowledge. Why should the King be supposed to be acquainted
with its extreme badness? I confess I didn't know it was so bad as now it
seems to be. And, not very long ago, was not Sir William Robertson Nicoll
defending the genius of Lytton in the _British Weekly_? It is now richly
apparent that "Money" ought not to have been included in the list
submitted to the King. But it is easy to be wise after the event.
* * * * *
Let it be for ever understood that State theatres and State performances
never have had, never will have, any real connexion with original dramatic
art. That is one reason why I am against a national theatre, whose
influence on the drama is bound to be sinister. To count the performance
of "Money" as an insult to living artists is to lose sight of a main
factor in the case. The State and living art must be mutually opposed, for
the reason that the State must, and quite rightly does, represent the
average of opinion. For an original artist to expect aid from the State is
silly; it is also wrong. In expressing a particular regard for the
feelings of musical comedy, and in announcing beforehand his intention of
being present at the first night of the new Gaiety masterpiece, the King
was properly fulfilling his duties as a monarch towards dramatic art. Art
is not the whole of life, and to adore musical comedy is not a crime. The
best thing original artists can do is to keep their perspective
undistorted.