A certain writer, returning one afternoon from rehearsal of his play, sat
down in the hall of the hotel where he was staying. "No," he reflected,
"this play of mine will not please the Public; it is gloomy, almost
terrible. This very day I read these words in my morning paper: 'No
artist can afford to despise his Public, for, whether he confesses it or
not, the artist exists to give the Public what it wants.' I have, then,
not only done what I cannot afford to do, but I have been false to the
reason of my existence."
The hall was full of people, for it was the hour of tea; and looking
round him, the writer thought "And this is the Public--the Public that my
play is destined not to please!" And for several minutes he looked at
them as if he had been hypnotised. Presently, between two tables he
noticed a waiter standing, lost in his thoughts. The mask of the man's
professional civility had come awry, and the expression of his face and
figure was curiously remote from the faces and forms of those from whom
he had been taking orders; he seemed like a bird discovered in its own
haunts, all unconscious as yet of human eyes. And the writer thought:
"But if those people at the tables are the Public, what is that waiter?
How if I was mistaken, and not they, but he were the real Public?" And
testing this thought, his mind began at once to range over all the people
he had lately seen. He thought of the Founder's Day dinner of a great
School, which he had attended the night before. "No," he mused, "I see
very little resemblance between the men at that dinner and the men in
this hall; still less between them and the waiter. How if they were the
real Public, and neither the waiter, nor these people here!" But no
sooner had he made this reflection, than he bethought him of a gathering
of workers whom he had watched two days ago. "Again," he mused, "I do
not recollect any resemblance at all between those workers and the men at
the dinner, and certainly they are not like any one here. What if those
workers are the real Public, not the men at the dinner, nor the waiter,
nor the people in this hall!" And thereupon his mind flew off again, and
this time rested on the figures of his own immediate circle of friends.
They seemed very different from the four real Publics whom he had as yet
discovered. "Yes," he considered, "when I come to think of it, my
associates painters, and writers, and critics, and all that kind of
person--do not seem to have anything to speak of in common with any of
these people. Perhaps my own associates, then, are the real Public, and
not these others!" Perceiving that this would be the fifth real Public,
he felt discouraged. But presently he began to think: "The past is the
past and cannot be undone, and with this play of mine I shall not please
the Public; but there is always the future! Now, I do not wish to do
what the artist cannot afford to do, I earnestly desire to be true to the
reason of my existence; and since the reason of that existence is to give
the Public what it wants, it is really vital to discover who and what the
Public is!" And he began to look very closely at the faces around him,
hoping to find out from types what he had failed to ascertain from
classes. Two men were sitting near, one on each side of a woman. The
first, who was all crumpled in his arm-chair, had curly lips and wrinkles
round the eyes, cheeks at once rather fat and rather shadowy, and a
dimple in his chin. It seemed certain that he was humourous, and kind,
sympathetic, rather diffident, speculative, moderately intelligent, with
the rudiments perhaps of an imagination. And he looked at the second
man, who was sitting very upright, as if he had a particularly fine
backbone, of which he was not a little proud. He was extremely big and
handsome, with pronounced and regular nose and chin, firm, well-cut lips
beneath a smooth moustache, direct and rather insolent eyes, a some what
receding forehead, and an air of mastery over all around. It was obvious
that he possessed a complete knowledge of his own mind, some brutality,
much practical intelligence, great resolution, no imagination, and plenty
of conceit. And he looked at the woman. She was pretty, but her face was
vapid, and seemed to have no character at all. And from one to the other
he looked, and the more he looked the less resemblance he saw between
them, till the objects of his scrutiny grew restive.... Then, ceasing to
examine them, an idea came to him. "No! The Public is not this or that
class, this or that type; the Public is an hypothetical average human
being, endowed with average human qualities--a distillation, in fact, of
all the people in this hall, the people in the street outside, the people
of this country everywhere." And for a moment he was pleased; but soon
he began again to feel uneasy. "Since," he reflected, "it is necessary
for me to supply this hypothetical average human being with what he
wants, I shall have to find out how to distil him from all the
ingredients around me. Now how am I to do that? It will certainly take
me more than all my life to collect and boil the souls of all of them,
which is necessary if I am to extract the genuine article, and I should
then apparently have no time left to supply the precipitated spirit, when
I had obtained it, with what it wanted! Yet this hypothetical average
human being must be found, or I must stay for ever haunted by the thought
that I am not supplying him with what he wants!" And the writer became
more and more discouraged, for to arrogate to himself knowledge of all
the heights and depths, and even of all the virtues and vices, tastes and
dislikes of all the people of the country, without having first obtained
it, seemed to him to savour of insolence. And still more did it appear
impertinent, having taken this mass of knowledge which he had not got, to
extract from it a golden mean man, in order to supply him with what he
wanted. And yet this was what every artist did who justified his
existence--or it would not have been so stated in a newspaper. And he
gaped up at the lofty ceiling, as if he might perchance see the Public
flying up there in the faint bluish mist of smoke. And suddenly he
thought: "Suppose, by some miracle, my golden-mean bird came flying to me
with its beak open for the food with which it is my duty to supply
it--would it after all be such a very strange-looking creature; would it
not be extremely like my normal self? Am I not, in fact, myself the
Public? For, without the strongest and most reprehensible conceit, can I
claim for my normal self a single attribute or quality not possessed by
an hypothetical average human being? Yes, I am myself the Public; or at
all events all that my consciousness can ever know of it for certain."
And he began to consider deeply. For sitting there in cold blood, with
his nerves at rest, and his brain and senses normal, the play he had
written did seem to him to put an unnecessary strain upon the faculties.
"Ah!" he thought, "in future I must take good care never to write
anything except in cold blood, with my nerves well clothed, and my brain
and senses quiet. I ought only to write when I feel as normal as I do
now." And for some minutes he remained motionless, looking at his boots.
Then there crept into his mind an uncomfortable thought. "But have I
ever written anything without feeling a little-abnormal, at the time?
Have I ever even felt inclined to write anything, until my emotions had
been unduly excited, my brain immoderately stirred, my senses unusually
quickened, or my spirit extravagantly roused? Never! Alas, never! I am
then a miserable renegade, false to the whole purpose of my being--nor do
I see the slightest hope of becoming a better man, a less unworthy
artist! For I literally cannot write without the stimulus of some
feeling exaggerated at the expense of other feelings. What has been in
the past will be in the future: I shall never be taking up my pen when I
feel my comfortable and normal self never be satisfying that self which
is the Public!" And he thought: "I am lost. For, to satisfy that normal
self, to give the Public what it wants, is, I am told, and therefore must
believe, what all artists exist for. AEschylus in his 'Choephorae' and
his 'Prometheus'; Sophocles in his 'OEdipus Tyrannus'; Euripides when he
wrote 'The Trojan Women,' 'Medea,'--and 'Hippolytus'; Shakespeare in his
'Leer'; Goethe in his 'Faust'; Ibsen in his 'Ghosts' and his 'Peer Gynt';
Tolstoy in 'The Powers of Darkness'; all--all in those great works, must
have satisfied their most comfortable and normal selves; all--all must
have given to the average human being, to the Public, what it wants; for
to do that, we know, was the reason of their existence, and who shall say
those noble artists were not true to it? That is surely unthinkable.
And yet--and yet--we are assured, and, indeed, it is true, that there is
no real Public in this country for just those plays! Therefore
AEschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Shakespeare, Goethe, Ibsen, Tolstoy, in
their greatest works did not give the Public what it wants, did not
satisfy the average human being, their more comfortable and normal
selves, and as artists were not true to the reason of their existence.
Therefore they were not artists, which is unthinkable; therefore I have
not yet found the Public!"
And perceiving that in this impasse his last hope of discovery had
foundered, the writer let his head fall on his chest.
But even as he did so a gleam of light, like a faint moonbeam, stole out
into the garden of his despair. "Is it possible," he thought, "that, by
a writer, until his play has been performed (when, alas! it is too late),
'the Public' is inconceivable--in fact that for him there is no such
thing? But if there be no such thing, I cannot exist to give it what it
wants. What then is the reason of my existence? Am I but a
windlestraw?" And wearied out with his perplexity, he fell into a doze.
And while he dozed he dreamed that he saw the figure of a woman standing
in darkness, from whose face and form came a misty refulgence, such as
steals out into the dusk from white campion flowers along summer
hedgerows. She was holding her pale hands before her, wide apart, with
the palms turned down, quivering as might doves about to settle; and for
all it was so dark, her grey eyes were visible-full of light, with black
rims round the irises. To gaze at those eyes was almost painful; for
though they were beautiful, they seemed to see right through his soul, to
pass him by, as though on a far discovering voyage, and forbidden to
rest.
The dreamer spoke to her: "Who are you, standing there in the darkness
with those eyes that I can hardly bear to look at? Who are you?"
And the woman answered: "Friend, I am your Conscience; I am the Truth as
best it may be seen by you. I am she whom you exist to serve." With
those words she vanished, and the writer woke. A boy was standing before
him with the evening papers.
To cover his confusion at being caught asleep he purchased one and began
to read a leading article. It commenced with these words: "There are
certain playwrights taking themselves very seriously; might we suggest to
them that they are in danger of becoming ridiculous . . . ."
The writer let fall his hand, and the paper fluttered to the ground. "The
Public," he thought, "I am not able to take seriously, because I cannot
conceive what it may be; myself, my conscience, I am told I must not take
seriously, or I become ridiculous. Yes, I am indeed lost!"
And with a feeling of elation, as of a straw blown on every wind, he
arose.
1910.