LETTERS TO THE PRESS - 8

Ibsen (2)

The Pall Mall Gazette (9 January, 1891 - Issue 8052)

IBSEN IN DIFFICULTIES.

To the EDITOR of the PALL MALL GAZETTE.

     SIR,—I have an appeal of rather an unusual nature to make to you on behalf of the English stage. Have you any experience as an actor? Could you and the members of your talented staff manage to fill up the casts of “The Doll’s House” and “Rosmersholm” any time this month that would be most convenient to you? The theatre shall be forthcoming; your wardrobes shall be of the best; all expenses are provided for; and your own critic will probably do every justice to your creation of Rosmer—which is the part you would help us best by doing. If you refuse, there is no more chance of the current generation becoming acquainted with the works of the greatest living dramatic poet than there seems to be of their hearing the later masterpieces of Richard Wagner in an English opera-house. You must not suppose that so unreasonable an application would be made to you had not every other means of putting Ibsen on the stage been tried without success. You will say—and truly—that the production of great plays is neither your business nor mine, but that of Mr. Irving and his fellows and rivals in management. But Mr. Irving is content to have done for Goethe and Sir Walter Scott what the Gaiety management has done for “Carmen;” he finds Casimir Delavigne’s Louis XI. more to his taste than Bishop Nicholas in “The Pretenders.” The other managers follow Mr. Irving’s example. But, you will ask, are there not actors to be found both able and willing to play Rosmer, Helmer, and so on, if it be indeed true that the theatre is ready and the money in hand? Sir there are; but they are all fulfilling engagements with Messrs. Irving and Co., who refuse to allow them to appear at the projected Ibsen matinées. The managers will neither play Ibsen themselves nor allow any one else to play him. In 1889 Mr. Charrington and Miss Janet Achurch had to go into management themselves at a heavy risk to put on “he Doll’s House.” As managers they were able to offer Mr. Waring, for example, a regular engagement as well as the enviable chance of “creating” the part of Helmer. At present we naturally turn to Mr. Waring to “create” the part of Rosmer at an experimental matinée; but the management of the Shaftesbury Theatre vetoes the proposition. Mr. Forbes Robertson, at the Garrick, is suggested; but Mr. Hare will not hear of it. Mr. Thalberg, at the Adelphi, is approached; but the Messrs. Gatti are inexorable, perhaps mistrusting the reaction of Ibsen on the popular taste for Adelphi melodrama. The result is that the performance of “Rosmersholm” which Miss Florence Farr all but formally announced for the 15th inst. must be postponed unless you, Mr. Editor, will play Rosmer. And Miss Marie Fraser’s undertaking to produce “The Doll’s House” on the 27th is in jeopardy because Mr. Wyndham has nipped one proposed Dr. Ranke in the bud; and Mr. Alexander has done the like by another; whilst an obvious one at the Shaftesbury is likely to share Mr. Waring’s fate. It is useless to look to the Lyceum; Mr. Irving’s veto is a foregone conclusion. Mrs. John Wood is equally hardhearted on the subject of matinées, In desperation I have suggested that the part of Rosmer be offered to Mr. Robert Buchanan; but it is very doubtful whether his conscience would permit him to contribute in any way to the diffusion of Ibsenism. Hence my last card, an appeal to you personally. Even if you refuse, something will have been gained if the public know definitely whom they have to thank for the exclusion from the stage of the best of modern dramatic literature. Perhaps, too, the managers may be roused to render a reason for their opposition to an experiment which interests them so directly that they ought to be well pleased at escaping an invitation to contribute funds as well as “kind permissions.” Surely artists of their eminence cannot be jealous of the reputations which might grow out of performances of Ibsen’s plays. Still, that hypothesis is sufficiently plausible to make it advisable for them either to relent, to explain, or to come forward and play the unfilled rôles themselves. Mr. Irving as Rosmer, Mr. Wyndham as Dr. Ranke, Mr. Hare as Krogstad would be welcomed as warmly by the public as by the Ibsen entrepreneurs and by yours truly,
                                                                             G. BERNARD SHAW.

___

The Pall Mall Gazette (12 January, 1891 - Issue 8054)

“IBSEN IN DIFFICULTIES.”

To the EDITOR of the PALL MALL GAZETTE.

     DEAR SIR,—As the stage manager of Miss Florence Farr’s forthcoming matinée of “Rosmersholm,” I may perhaps be permitted to assure you that no one but Mr. Bernard Shaw himself is responsible for the plaintive appeal that appeared in your columns last Friday. I do not know to what extent his strictures on the policy pursued by our chief theatre managers are justified by facts, but I can at least say that so far as the performance of “Rosmersholm” is concerned, he is somewhat wide of the mark. I have asked neither Mr. Irving nor Mr. Hare to allow any member of his company to take a part, and consequently I have no evidence that either of these managers entertains any prejudice against the production of Ibsen’s plays. I have every justification for the belief that, even failing the assistance of yourself and your staff which Mr. Bernard Shaw implores, “Rosmersholm” will be presented with an appropriate cast about the beginning of next month. This was the date originally selected. Hitherto it has not even been “all but formally announced,” for the simple reason that nothing was to be gained by publishing it so many weeks in advance.
                                    —I remain, yours truly,
     January 11.                                          A. L. BALDRY.

__________

To the EDITOR of the PALL MALL GAZETTE.

     SIR,—I am very sorry to learn, from Mr. Shaw’s letter, that the managers of London are so unkind to poor Ibsen; but I can assure the writer that I have no such conscience as would prevent me from accepting the part of Rosmer, if it were offered to me. I think, indeed, that the best way to settle the claims of the “greatest living dramatist” would be to get his works acted as often as possible, for there is a curious anomaly in the position of a dramatist whom no manager wants to have anything to do with. I go further than this, however, and concede to every articulate author the right to be heard, and to be judged, by public opinion. I am as anxious, therefore, as any Ibsenite to see “Rosmersholm” properly staged and interpreted.
     Mr. Shaw, with characteristic modesty, passes over the one individual, outside professional actors, who could do justice to Rosmer. If Mr. Bernard Shaw himself will undertake the character, supported (say) by Mr. Archer and other followers of the Prophet of Photography, I will gladly contribute to the expenses of the matinée and pay for my seat into the bargain. The only difficulty is that Mr. Shaw is, or imagines himself to be, very “funny,” and Rosmer, I believe, is not a “funny” character. Perhaps he would kindly suppress his natural humour for the occasion? Even if he could not, the performance would still be entertaining, and compare favourably with Mr. Shaw’s comic performances on the platform and in the magazines. A Socialist Clown, with his tongue in his cheek, flourishing the red hot poker of pantomimic Individualism, and attended by a saturnine critic as Pantaloon, would be really seasonable. Then, and then only, for the first time, the great amateur dramatist, whose dramas are too good for ordinary representation, would be rightly interpreted.—I am, &c.,
     Hampstead, Jan. 10.                      ROBERT BUCHANAN.
     P.S.—Even if this performance does not come off, Mr. Shaw need not despair. When State Socialism is fully established, and providential supervision by unwashed legislators extends even to the Drama, some new St. Just will compel the poor actors to perform, and the poor Public to witness, the dramas of back-parlour edification. Adelphi drama, with all its enormities, will be beneficently suppressed, the Brothers Gatti will be compelled to disgorge their ill-gotten gains, Mr. Irving be convinced by physical force that “he is only doing for Scott and Goethe” what Mr. George Edwards “is doing for ‘Carmen,’” and Mr. Bernard Shaw, still with his tongue in his cheek, be elected by his fellow demagogues to the long-coveted office of Licenser of Plays.                                                                               B.

_____

W. S. Gilbert on Living Dramatists

The Echo (17 September, 1891 - p.2)

     The tardy honours paid to Christopher Marlowe yesterday ought to convince even Mr. Robert Buchanan that Mrs. Grundy is not after all Queen of England. The Dean of Canterbury sent an apology for his absence, and one of the Canons of Canterbury Cathedral, the Hon. and Rev. H. Fremantle, was present at the celebration, as also was the reverend head-master of the Grammar School at which Marlowe received his early education. These facts are noteworthy, considering that not very long after Marlowe’s death the bishops ordered his translations of Ovid’s “Love Elegies” to be burned, on account of their licentiousness. Truth to say, their licentiousness cannot be denied, from a modern point of view, though it should always be remembered that, in “the spacious times of great Elizabeth,” men and women in good society spoke with a freedom in regard to sexual relations which would shock the audience of a modern music-hall.

___

The Times (18 September, 1891 - p.7)

A POINT OF TASTE.
_____

TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES.

     Sir,—At the recent unveiling of the statue to Christopher Marlowe, the Hon. and Rev. Canon Fremantle is reported to have asked, in the course of his speech, “Why it was that our English nation, so capable of literary excellence, had hardly produced any really great playwright in these latter days?”
     It is, unfortunately, too true that, although we have several capable dramatic writers among us, we have none who have any claim to be considered great. But was it polite or tactful on the part of the honourable and reverend orator to impress this unpleasant fact upon an assemblage of gentlemen intimately connected with the stage, and among whom was that excellent dramatist, Mr. A. W. Pinero? Probably we have not many great divines among us, but what would be thought of Mr. Pinero if, finding himself in the society of a number of clergymen engaged in honouring the memory of (say) Bishop Latimer, he ventured to make such an assertion to such an assembly? It might be quite true, but it would not be pretty to say so.
                                                                          I am your obedient servant,
     September 17.                                                                              W. S. GILBERT.

___

The Echo (19 September, 1891 - p.1)

HEAR ALL SIDES.
_____

TO THE EDITOR OF THE ECHO.

MR. GILBERT ON LIVING
DRAMATISTS.

     SIR,—In a brief letter to this morning’s Times, apropos of the Rev. Canon Fremantle’s disparaging remarks concerning modern English dramatists, delivered on the unveiling of the Marlowe Memorial, Mr. W. S. Gilbert says:—“It is, unfortunately, too true that, although we have several capable dramatic writers among us, we have none who have any claim to be considered great”; adding, however, that it was very bad taste to obtrude such a remark in the presence of that “excellent dramatist,” Mr. A. W. Pinero. Now, writing as one fairly familiar with great literature, I wish to express my opinion that Mr. Gilbert is himself guilty of unreasonable judgment, if not of bad taste. It has been the fashion from time immemorial for hasty and impertinent writers and speakers to deny “greatness” to contemporaries; it is so easy to find gods ready-made, and so difficult to discern them during the process of development. Let me take one illustration, which is here at my hand. I have always held that Mr. Gilbert himself is a great, because an original and unique, humourist. In all the range of the drama, I know no writer who surpasses him in quiddity, in oddity, and in individuality; and I believe the time will come when his “greatness” will be as obvious as (say) that of Congreve, or of Farquhar, or of Sheridan. But I, personally, do not take dramatic “greatness” on hearsay; I discern it as easily in a living contemporary as in an unacted “fossil.” Of Mr. Pinero’s works I know less than of those of Mr. Gilbert, owing to the fact that they have never been printed. Yet I have no doubt in my mind that those of his plays which have delighted me on the stage would compare favourably with the impudence, the sham sparkle, the general emptiness and tawdriness, of many “great” comic writers. Be that as it may, a reproach to living dramatists comes ill from the mouthpiece of a Church which, now as ever, is at deadly war with the Drama, as with Freethought generally. Why will not Churchmen leave us alone? We have never had their sympathy, and we ought to decline their patronage. And why will the professional Idiot, ignorant of the whole history of literature, persist in sounding pæans to the “great” spirits of the Past, and consistently deny the possibility of any “greatness” in the Present?
—I am, &c.,                                       ROBERT BUCHANAN.
     London, Sept. 18.

___

The Echo (21 September, 1891 - p.4)

MR. GILBERT ON LIVING DRAMATISTS
_____

TO THE EDITOR OF THE ECHO.

     SIR,—In your issue of Saturday Mr. Robert Buchanan, criticising Mr. W. S. Gilbert’s recent letter in the Times concerning certain remarks on our modern English dramatists delivered by the Rev. Canon Fremantle on the occasion of the unveiling of the Marlowe Memorial, ventures to express his opinion that Mr. Gilbert “is guilty of unreasonable judgment, if not of bad taste.” Mr. Buchanan must allow me to endorse his statement, and at the same time permit me to say that the same accusation may still more fairly be brought against himself. Among the many eloquent speeches that were made at the luncheon that followed the unveiling of the Marlowe Memorial, at Canterbury, last Wednesday, that of Canon Fremantle’s was one of the most remarkable, not only for the able and earnest manner in which it was spoken, but for the frank confession that he made, that those who cared for religion had to look back with sadness over the past and feel that they had done a great wrong not only to the memory of Christopher Marlowe, but also to English literature; and for the seriousness with which he dwelt on the importance of the two institutions of Pulpit and Stage uniting in the task of building up a noble conception of humanity. And these excellent remarks on the advantages of an alliance between Church and Stage have no other effect upon Mr. Buchanan than to cause him to angrily and petulantly exclaim, “Why will not Churchmen leave us alone? We have never had their sympathy, and we ought to decline their patronage.” I am not a Churchman myself, and I don’t suppose the time will ever arrive when the Stage will be gathered under the banner of the Church, but I fail to see the necessity for such a vigorous protest on the part of Mr. Buchanan. That Canon Fremantle made certain remarks about our modern dramatists is perfectly true, but that they were disparaging to Mr. A. W. Pinero, or any other dramatists present is entirely erroneous. We have amongst us many capable playwrights, but I venture to think that Mr. A. W. Pinero, Mr. W. S. Gilbert, Mr. Henry Arthur Jones—or even Mr. Robert Buchanan himself, for instance, would scarcely consider themselves great, in the same sense that Marlowe and many other Elizabethan dramatists were. Mr. Robert Buchanan is a very excellent type of a literary fighter, but it is seriously to be regretted that he does not display a little more discretion and courtesy in his assaults upon his opponents. If he only would do so his unexampled polemical abilities would be prevented from running to waste so much.
—Yours, &c.,                    JAMES ERNEST BAKER.
     London, Sept. 19.

_____

The Theatre

The Argus (Melbourne, Australia) (21 November, 1891 - p.4)

THE DRAMA IN ENGLAND.
_____

PLAYS, PLAYWRIGHTS, AUDIENCES, AND CRITICS.
_____

BY ROBERT BUCHANAN.

     There was a time, not so very long ago, and even within the dim recollection of myself, when the Theatre in England was a fairly peaceful place, devoted to honest and harmless, if somewhat old-fashioned, public amusement. One went thither with a fair prospect of spending a quiet evening. There were few critics then, and many reporters; the number of journals was less, and the space devoted to dramatic doings was small; but there was everywhere among the public an easy-going sympathy with plays and players. Now and then there was disturbance—as on the famous occasion when a gentleman of the name Tomlins jumped up in the stalls of the Princess’s Theatre and vociferously denounced the “barbarities” of Charles Reade’s “Never too Late to Mend.” The gentleman has disappeared from this world, but the good old play still keeps the stage, surviving into a period when the Theatre has become the scene of noisy and clamorous animosities. There are still, I learn, in this land of oddities and hypocrisies, persons who regard it as a serious institution of great importance to modern progress. It is nothing of the sort; it is a sort of modern Bear-Garden, devoted to popular and not too rational entertainment. Attached to it are large numbers of people, professional and non-professional, of the “sporting” order, who are very “knowing,” very prone to back the favourite; a considerable proportion of whom are honest; the large majority of whom are cocksure; some of whom talk of the dignity of the Drama, just as other sporting gentlemen talk of the “noble art of self-defence.” But the Theatre is no more dignified, no more serious, just at present than the racecourse, and a play seems to have one sterling quality in common with a racehorse—it tends to demoralise all who have to do with  it; so that round the stage, as round the stable, cluster groups of shady characters who, having failed in every walk of life, have taken to the theatrical Turf. The whole thing is reduced to a question of money. “Betting” and “gambling” prevail. A play, like a horse, is judged by the amount of current coin won or lost upon it. The question is, simply, how will it “run”?
     Nowadays a play is classed as a failure if it does not run at least one hundred nights in London, and as only a doubtful success if it does not reach its two hundredth. Yet it is obvious that a drama may be very excellent, and yet run only for a short time, and that a drama may be very worthless which runs for a year.
     A First Night.—Critics of all dimensions, bodily and mental, in the stalls; many garrulous, some prophetic, like persons who have odds upon a “fight.” A sprinkling of shady notabilities. The fashionable physician who will help the piece by circulating “orders” among society people who talk, and the fashionable lady who likes the leading man. A few professional ladies who are “resting.” Mr. Cocksure, Q.C., with his eyeglass, and Mr. Ben Isaacs, the nondescript, with his nose. All have come to witness the miracle described by the Critic of the Dauntless Grammar — “seeing a function!” The rest of the house is crowded. In the front row of the pit sit the young gentlemen from the city who come to see the “fun.” There is general nervousness behind the scenes. The manager is swearing; the leading lady is a terror to her “dresser.” Disappointed dramatists loom everywhere in the lobbies, praying for a catastrophe; some of them also have come to criticise, but if fortune is adverse to the author they will be round at the stage door next morning, with the milk. For at least half the play everybody on the stage is paralysed with nervousness. If the play has not by that time begun to “go” the actors become desperate, forget their business, and murder their lines. Small critics steal secret glances at great critics, smile if they smile, sneer if they sneer, while the players look pleadingly to men and gods. Everybody is waiting for the fun of the Bear-Garden. An unfortunate line may do it, and the sport begins. The howl is echoed in next morning’s newspapers, and the public for a few hours is deafened by all the wild clamour of the course just after a race is lost or won.
     The wonder is that, under such conditions, we get any decent plays at all. There would be no progress in any department of literature or art whatsoever if the dogmatism of experts were allowed to intervene instantly between authors and artists and the great public, or if the noisy clamour of gamblers and “sports” were to affect the life of pictures or books. More serious even than the fact that good work by outsiders is condemned at haphazard is the fact that bad work by public favourites is generally lauded to the skies. I will pass over the question of the intellectual qualifications of those who sit in judgment. I will only ask how it is possible for even the coolest intellect to gauge the merits or demerits of any production under the hasty and perfunctory conditions I have described. If the answer to this should be (as usual) the statement that audiences are generally instructed, I reply that such a statement is refuted by the most ordinary experience. Dramatic criticism, at any rate, is a branch of “sporting” criticism, and the Drama, the Bear-Garden, is only, as I have said, a “sporting” institution.
     For this reason, among others, I am inclined to sympathise with that excited minority which has recently been clamouring for novel dramatic literature, and which insists that instant and noisy popularity is rather a doubtful proof of dramatic merit. Having freely expressed my opinion of the foreign importations which have recently been experimented with upon our stage, for the edification of a small section of playgoers, I am the more ready to admit the right of the minority to he heard. All such agitations by individuals, whether wrong or right in essence, prevent intellectual stagnation, and I for one am grateful to unconventional writers for their outrage of the proprieties. The charge of “indecency” and “immorality,” hurled so violently against certain dramatists, is utterly untenable. No earnest writer, no man who believes he is uttering a spiritual message, can be indecent or immoral. It would be as rational to accuse a comparative anatomist of indecency, or a professor of  midwifery of immorality. This, of course, does not affect the artistic question of how far morbid anatomy and sexual pathology have a place in literature. There is something to be said, however, on the side of any author who arouses critical antagonism while causing intelligent individuals to espouse his cause, and to exclaim, “This is new! This is what we want! This is at least a transcript from the life!”
     Hasty criticism, long runs, dependence on the suffrages of the majority, and a general “sporting” disposition on the part of playgoers, are all very bad for dramatic art. All these things lead to bad taste and noisy manners. So long as the test of a dramatist’s merit is simply commercial, so long as he stands or falls by the approval of the majority, there can be no real advance towards a dramatic literature. If we glance back over the plays of the past, we shall find that nearly all those which hold the boards do so by virtue of their charm for the average intelligence. Take an example. For one time that the “Beaux’ Stratagem” or the “Recruiting Officer” is acted, the “School for Scandal” is acted a thousand times; yet the two first-named plays are veritable transcripts of human nature, while Sheridan’s masterpiece is completely stagey and meretricious. Amid all the artificial effects and verbal pyrotechnics of the “School for Scandal,” we look in vain for such subtly drawn characters as Archer and Mrs. Sullen, as Captain Brazen and Sergeant Pike, for such dialogue as we find in the first scene of the “Recruiting Officer,” for such masterly humour as we find in the last scene of the “Beaux’ Stratagem.” The “well-made” conventional play, with its excellent plot, its familiar characters, and its “smart” dialogue, pleases generation after generation. The masterpieces of an original humourist, with their splendid humanities and audacious naturalism, are practically forgotten, because the average intelligence finds them dull.
     Literature, in fact, is not the quality which either the “classes” or the “masses” demand in their stage-plays. The “masses” still demand broad conventional treatment, while the “classes” are still attracted by spicy, and even salacious, suggestions. It would be invidious to cite contemporary examples of this truth, but any intelligent reader who cares to examine the theatrical successes of recent years will discover that each success has been in proportion to either its conventionality or its “suggestiveness.” Such exceptions as may be discovered only prove the general rule.

The drama’s laws the drama’s patrons give,
And those who w rite to please must please to live!

This fact, however, is not altogether a primal cause of decadence in the Drama. In every art the point of view of the spectator has to be considered. The misfortune in the case of the Drama is that the point of view taken must be that of a large heterogeneous audience. However beautiful a play may be, it is useless if it fails to please the great majority.
     As I write, I read in the newspapers that one of our dramatists, Mr. H. A. Jones, is so dissatisfied with the condition of things behind the curtain that he is about to take a theatre of his own, in which to produce his own plays. I see no reason why he should not do so successfully, but I confess that I am surprised at the chief cause assigned for his new departure. Mr. Jones objects in toto to the Actor-manager, and proposes to abolish him in favour of the Author-manager. Abolish him by all means if it is desirable, I reply; but is it desirable? “I beg to remind honourable gentlemen,” said Mr. Disraeli on a memorable occasion, “that we owe much to the Jews.” I beg to remind honourable authors that they owe the actor-managers deep and fervent gratitude. Such entrepreneurs as Mr. Irving, Mr. Beerbohm Tree, Mr. Bancroft, and Mr. Hare have done wonders for dramatic art, and have done still more for dramatic authorship. I will select only one example, out of many to hand—that of Mr. Beerbohm Tree. A few years ago Mr. Tree became the lessee and manager of the Haymarket Theatre, and since then he has, by his enterprise, his zeal, and most of all by his personality, secured for that theatre a large and always increasing clientèle. An author who has a play produced at the Haymarket reaps the benefit of all that the management has done in previous years to ensure success, if possible. He is brought into association with a manager who is full of earnestness and sympathy, and who has at his right hand an expert in all thing artistic, Mr. Comyns Carr. Mr. Jones contests that such an association, or (to use a truer word) collaboration, is a nuisance because (firstly) the manager demands the leading part, and because (secondly) there is a company ready made, not specially engaged for the special play. Has Mr. Jones quite calculated how much of the success of (e.g.) “The Dancing Girl” was due to the prestige of the theatre and of the company? When estimating that his own profits of this particular play are far below those of the management, has he considered how much the management has expended during past seasons in order to influence and command the public taste? Has he weighed the value of Mr. Tree’s own personal popularity as an actor of exceptional originality and genius? I think if he had done so he would have seen that he, of all men, should be the last to complain of the “actor-manager.”
     I have always contended, and I know from long experience, that actor-managers, in so far as they are gentlemen and artistes, are to be warmly welcomed. If we throw our thoughts a few years back and think what many managers were then—gentlemen with large watch-chains and loud voices, and mostly of the Jewish persuasion, who had no sense whatever of either art or decency—we shall better appreciate the change. In Paris, at the present moment, the type depicted by Zola in Bordenave prevails, to the despair of rising dramatists; and even here in London we have our Bordenaves. It is surely something to find, as at the Haymarket, the best culture of the time and the sympathy of an enlightened administration. The charge of artistic greed and jealousy need scarcely be considered. When Mr. Fernandez made his great success at the Haymarket Theatre in “A Man’s Shadow,” the actor-manager delighted more than anyone else in the triumph. I do not, indeed, know one of these much-abused gentlemen who is short-sighted enough to sacrifice a play to his jealousy or vanity. But “he takes the leading parts!” Of course he does. He takes what any manager, actor or non-actor, would eagerly assign to him, by virtue of his talent and his eminence in his profession.
     There is, of course, no absolute reason that a manager should be an actor, and we have excellent managers who make no artistic pretensions whatever. Many of our dramatic authors are practically managers in all respects but that of incurring commercial responsibility. When Mr. Gilbert or Mr. Pinero produces a play, the ordering of the whole affair is at his discretion; he “casts” the play, stage-manages it, without any interference. Every dramatist of reputation possesses a technical knowledge enabling him to direct the production of his own works, and wherever the famous “blue pencil” is used, it is by the author himself, Boucicault, to whom we dramatists owe almost everything, set the example, ruthlessly expurgating his own text whenever the words hindered the action. As a rule, however I believe the best-made play is that which is written with the least effort, and which requires the least correction. If I may cite my own case, I may say that two of my most popular plays, “Sophia” and “Joseph’s Sweetheart,” were acted as they were written, with scarcely a line altered. So were “Clarissa,” “The Bride of Love,” “Miss Tomboy,” and other of my pieces. And at the Vaudeville, conducted by an actor-manager, the entire stage business was the author’s invention, and under the author’s absolute control. Manager and author were in full sympathy, as they always are when the one object of both is artistic completeness and popular success.
     “And yet, after all,” I hear the reader saying, “the London theatre is a Bear-Garden!” Quite so; but the humours of the Bear-Garden are due to the outer ring of “sports” and “gamblers,” who turn an innocent amusement into a means of “rowdyism” and acrimonious dispute. More than most men, our managers are eager to produce artistic work, but often enough, when they experimentalise, they only arouse critical clamour or ensure popular neglect. Their problem is to please a large mass of people; their difficulty, while endeavouring to elevate public taste, is not to sail royally above the people’s heads. They have to face a rough-and-ready public and rough-and-ready criticism. They have seen the Poet Laureate howled down as remorselessly as if he were the poet Close. They have seen recently a poet and a scholar, Dr. Todhunter, execrated as if he were an absolute ignoramus. They have to contend with the rough in the gallery, and with the “crank” or “faddist” on the newspaper. They know that the shabbiest hanger-on to a society journal “written for men and women” would discuss Æschylus or Shakespeare as jauntily and as patronisingly as if he were discussing a writer of farces for Mr. Toole. When the howl of the Bear-Garden begins no one is spared; there is neither reverence, nor mercy, nor decency. Old favourites like Mr. Gilbert are cheerfully cuffed and bonneted. Even Mr. H. A. Jones, a favourite of the “ring,” has been savagely knocked about. The theatrical sporting men object to half-measures. An author is either an angel or an ass; a play is either a masterpiece or a monstrosity. All is decided by the humour or the prejudice of the moment. If, as I have already suggested, such a test were applied to books or pictures, what would become of Art or Literature? So long as it is applied to plays, the Drama will remain a sporting institution, and the manners of the Bear-Garden will drive both managers and authors to despair.
     So far I have glanced at the gloomy side, rather than at the bright one, of the Drama in  England. The art of playwriting even under the conditions I have been describing, has its compensations. I do not, indeed, go as far as the distinguished French critic, M. Francisque Sarcey, and affirm that success and long life are absolute proofs of intrinsic merit in a play—but I do hold that merit in a play is very often the chief factor in its success. Large heterogeneous audiences often respond fully to natural character-painting and natural acting, and popularity may and frequently does imply an artistic appeal to human nature. If this were not so, if audiences were not often both sympathetic and intelligent, there would never be any good plays at all. Such modern pieces as “Olivia,” “Arrah-na-Pogue,” “The Ticket-of-Leave Man,” “A Pair of Spectacles,” “Caste,” “School” (to quote a few names at random), appeal to every class of spectator, while the humours of Mr. Gilbert and Mr. Pinero are genuinely literary. I can hardly call to mind any play which has failed to attract purely on account of its superiority as literature.
     Of late years, as we all know, there has been a reaction in favour of Realism—perhaps if I said in favour of Ugliness, I should be nearer the mark. The cynicism and pessimism of Continental fiction has affected our Drama all along the line, and there has arisen a school of critics which stigmatises all “sentiment” as old-fashioned, and all “poetry” as retrograde. Fortunately for both Art and Literature, the very simplicity of theatrical audiences has been their protection against the realistic epidemic. Cynicism has no flavour, no zest, for the great public; pessimism has no charms for any but the most jaded appetites; and the good Playgoer, now as heretofore, seeks in the theatre not edification, but entertainment. At the same time the public, having become alive to the fact that sentiment may be overdone and poetry overstrained, demands from the playwright the subject and the dialogue of life. The artificial and conventional plays of the last generation please no more. Humour replaces horseplay, and true pathos supersedes the counterfeit. Realism, though it fails to succeed on its own merits, forces upon its rival, Optimism, more and more attention to the truths of ordinary experience.
     I have briefly pointed out the causes which limit the freedom of intellectual activity in the Drama in England. These are—
     1. The hasty and perfunctory judgments on new pieces, consequent on the “sporting” character of those who criticise plays.
     2. The system of long “runs.”
     3. The demand of the “masses” for sensationalism, and of the classes for salacious suggestions.
     4. The heterogeneous nature of popular audiences.
To these drawbacks, which are indisputable, there is no necessity to add, as a recent writer has done, a charge of venality and dishonesty against professional critics. Critics, like other human creatures, are impulsive and fallible, prone to praise their favourites and abuse their foes, but they are not, as a rule, either interested or dishonest. Their very disagreement is a proof of their candour. What Mr. Clement Scott praises in the Daily Telegraph Mr. William Archer abuses in the World, and what is gall and wormwood to the critic of the Standard may be sweetness and light to the critic of The Times. As a rule, critics take their function too seriously, and advance opinions too recklessly. No living writer for the stage is half as hysterical and unreliable as some of those who criticise him. All this however, is not peculiar  to the Drama, but is inherent in Criticism itself, which from time immemorial has blundered over works of art. It would be well, I think, if first-night judgments were confined to mere reporting of the subjects and general nature of new plays; for it is inconceivable that a writer, fresh from the excitement of the race or “ring,” should speak judicially on what, after all, is a matter of taste. Many an excellent play is lost to the world through the ad captandum and savage abuse generated under false conditions, and many a bad play is lifted into temporary popularity by hasty and indiscriminate approbation.

___

The Argus (Melbourne, Australia) (21 November, 1891 - p.8)

     Mr. ROBERT BUCHANAN has now come to regard himself as the universal critic, the censor morum of the present generation, the vigilant watcher of all the changing literary fashions of the age. His style is denunciatory, and is, therefore, always vigorous. When he hurls his missiles into the pool of literature, the waters are temporarily troubled and agitated, though the disturbance may only last for a moment. He appears to be giving his energy to a series of constant attacks upon the literary and artistic tastes of the time and upon the authors and artists who are successful in gratifying them. He has assumed the rôle of the preacher, and like the preacher of an older generation finds that all is vanity. His writings consequently open up many debatable questions. And this mood of mind is well illustrated in the finely-written article appearing in our columns to-day, in which Mr. BUCHANAN raises an outcry against the modern drama and its playwrights, critics, and audiences.     It may be admitted that the drama has ceased to occupy the place in literature which it formerly held, and that Mr. BUCHANAN’S indictment is therefore based upon an undoubted fact. But there are many reasons which may account for the decline of literary power in the drama. The public, for instance, expect to find the best literary work in novels, and writers devote themselves, therefore, to the novel as the fittest and most popular method of conveying their ideas to the world. In former times readers were fewer, and the great majority of playgoers had no other literary entertainment than the drama. If the expression may be allowed, they obtained their literature through the ear—through hearing the words of authors as they were delivered by the actors—through listening to the declamations of the stage. As a natural consequence, they were better listeners than the people of the present day, and could endure long soliloquies and tiresome speeches that would not be tolerated by a modern audience. People in the present day study their literature by reading, and they care little for the slow delivery of long orations, which their eye could catch much more rapidly in the printed page. This is one of the points forgotten by many of the writers who bewail the decadence of the drama. The audience of former times had only the dramatic form of literature; the audience of to-day consists of men and women who are in the habit of reading. But, further, to some extent doubtless on account of the increasing pressure of life in large cities, an audience demands rather to be amused than to be presented with a drama of great literary merit, which would require considerable thought and attention on the part of playgoers in order that they might fully appreciate its qualities. No one goes to the theatre to hear discussions on the social problems and the business complications with which our everyday life is filled. What most people want to do is to forget these things, to be able for a brief time to give themselves up to enjoyment without any effort of thought. Hence it is that comedies are becoming more and more farcical. Hence it is that light operas, which afford music that is tuneful without being too original, and give room for plenty of spectacular display, are increasingly popular; hence it is that the melodrama, which repeats the phrases of past æons but presents at the same time new exhibitions of mechanical effects, holds its place in the dramatic world without challenge and without fear. And the tendency is undoubtedly fostered by the immense improvement in the scene painter’s art. Nothing is left to the imagination. The audience are virtually made to understand that they have nothing to do except to look at the setting of the scenes and watch the motion of the piece. But it is possible that the tendency may be changed. As Mr. BUCHANAN points out, an attempt has been made to introduce drama such as the works of IBSEN, which deal expressly and explicitly with serious questions.     This brings us, however, to another consideration to which Mr. BUCHANAN has evidently not given due weight. Those who are tired of posturing and dancing, who have ceased to care for the patter song, and think that their money is ill-spent on topical songs and almost meaningless choruses, who are not charmed by a dive into real water, and are weary of cleverly managed explosions, and have the painful knowledge that the villain will finally go handcuffed off the stage, having been convicted of murder, and having yielded up the missing will; those people who are disappointed with the stage run to another extreme, and want to use it as a platform for delivering lectures on political economy, and the divorce laws, and women’s suffrage, and sanitation, and a host of other matters, which are best confined to the dignified discussions conducted in the monthly magazines and among learned societies. But not thus will the drama be improved. Most audiences demand that a play must contain a story, that it must exhibit human nature or a good caricature of the weaknesses of humanity, and that it must represent both the amusing side and also the passion and pathos of life. But literature after all is concerned with the great vices and virtues, the principal foibles and weaknesses, the great passions of love and hatred and jealousy, to which mankind are liable. And we have still to learn that a drama constructed on these lines would fail to attract attention and to draw audiences. The most successful play that Mr. BUCHANAN has written appears to be his “Sophia,” which is simply an adaptation of an English novel that is full of plot and humour and passion. As a matter of fact, Mr. BUCHANAN has to admit that the best pieces from a literary point of view do appeal to the audiences of the theatre if they are written in such a way as to suit the requirements of the stage. Unfortunately some of our best authors publish so-called dramas which are not intended for the stage, and then complain of the lack of literary taste in dramatic composition. We fail to see, therefore, why intellectual activity should be so limited in the drama as Mr. BUCHANAN tries to make out. It is certain that the perfunctory judgments of critics, or the presence on first nights of a few sporting aristocrats or bookmakers, would not injure a really good piece. Neither need complaint be made of the long “runs” which plays often have in London, because, if the people desire to see the same piece over and over again, the management can hardly be expected to tell them that they should ask for something new. As for the complaint that “popular audiences” are “heterogeneous,” this applies to every form of the literary art. The orator, for example, appeals to heterogeneous audiences, and yet no lamentation is made over the decay of oratory. If there is any real decadence in the drama, it is due, as we have shown, to the fact that the English people have various forms of literature at their command, and to the fact also, that, under the pressure of city life, they want to be lightly and easily amused. But this may be a temporary fashion. Another generation may see an English drama as vigorous as that which now flourishes in France.

___

[Robert Buchanan’s article was republished in The Era (5 March, 1892 - Issue 2789). The section from paragraph 8 (beginning: “As I write, I read in the newspapers that one of our dramatists, Mr. H. A. Jones, is so dissatisfied with the condition of things behind the curtain that he is about to take a theatre of his own, in which to produce his own plays.”) to paragraph 10 (ending: “And at the Vaudeville, conducted by an actor-manager, the entire stage business was the author’s invention, and under the author’s absolute control. Manager and author were in full sympathy, as they always are when the one object of both is artistic completeness and popular success.”) was omitted. The reference to “hasty and perfunctory conditions” in paragraph 4 was changed to “hazy and perfunctory conditions”. Also, only one reference to the Theatre being like a Bear-Garden remained (“Small critics steal secret glances at great critics, smile if they smile, sneer if they sneer, while the players look pleadingly to men and gods. Everybody is waiting for the fun of the Bear-Garden.”), otherwise the theatre is compared to a racecourse.]

___

The Era (12 March, 1892 - Issue 2790)

ROBT. BUCHANAN AND THE THEATRE.
A PROVINCIAL REVIEW.
_____

TO THE EDITOR OF THE ERA.

     Sir,—Mr Robert Buchanan’s article on the theatre, the drama, and the dramatic criticism of the day has a peculiar charm; the opinions expressed in the article are as bizarre as only Mr Buchanan’s opinions can be, and are expressed in hyperbolical terms which only Mr Buchanan has the imaginative faculty to invent and the audacity to use. Personally, I am an almost enthusiastic admirer of Mr Buchanan. His imaginative works have provided me the keenest of enjoyment. But I have observed that when he descends to the terrestrial arena in which the work-a-day world’s quarrels are fought out he has the misfortune to use weapons which exist more in imagination than in reality. In other words, the missiles which he flings in his most determined attacks are but globules of nothingness, and, though they make a little report in the bursting, rarely so much as besmear those at whom they are flung. Many other eminent writers make the same mistake, especially when they deign to attempt to state facts about matters theatrical. Almost invariably these writers are metropolitan. It would seem, indeed, from the tone of the critics of the drama that there is alone a metropolitan voice to be heard on the subject. Therefore do I crave space in your columns to speak with a provincial voice, hoping that I may thereby infuse a little freshness into the seemingly interminable disputation as to the status of the drama and the meaning of dramatic literature and of dramatic criticism. My work having been always anonymously performed, you may pardon the digression in which I give my credentials. Just a little more than twenty years ago I commenced to write “notices” of performances at the theatre—we hardly presume in the provinces to regard our reports as more than “notices.” Since that time I have witnessed and written of performances numbered in the thousands, of new plays numbered in the hundreds, and of almost all actresses and actors who visited us with a great metropolitan reputation. It may be worth while here to point out a peculiar difference between the experience of the London critics and the provincial reporters. While they have usually to write a notice of first nights of long runs, we have to follow the great people through a répertoire in the course of a week or a fortnight. Thus the provincial newspaper man’s experience of the theatre is different from the experience of his London confrère, and equally different may be the impressions left by his experience. This may account for the fact that I find myself at variance with such writers as Mr Buchanan.
     Mr Buchanan says, in a tone of disparagement, “A play, like a horse, is judged by the amount of current coin won or lost upon it. The question is simply, how will it run?” We of the provinces know nothing of long runs; but a fact worthy the attention of Mr Buchanan and others is our peculiar experience that, though we do not judge plays by their running power, it is remarkable that we—at least, I, speaking for myself and others whom I have known—have generally found that the plays for which we have conscientiously had the most genuine words of praise have been plays which have had long runs. Two examples may suffice. Our Boys certainly was a play with a long run. When Our Boys visited the provinces—when the length of its run at the Vaudeville was, I believe, yet unknown—I found myself called upon to judge the comedy, not by its run, but by its intrinsic merit. My judgment was that this was the cleverest comedy we had seen for years, cleverest by reason of its delightfully contrasting characterisation; by reason of its genuinely human interest, and its ceaseless ripple of good humour; by reason of the brightness of what Lewes alludes to as “necessary exaggeration” of dialogue, and by reason of its possessing, in the pride of Middlewick in his “boy,” for instance, that power which is the test of comedy, the power of eliciting the sympathy of the heart of the spectator. As my second example I may cite The Lights o’ London. Every dramatic critic who has studied his business conscientiously in the theatre, as well as in his study, has learned to understand intuitively that element of dramatic writing which the pedantic writers of previous generations called “action.” Action exists in dialogue as much as in situation or tableau. A better word for describing the element is vitality. Action or vitality was the great powerful element in the success of The Lights o’ London. Every scene in the play lived before the eye of the spectator, every character lived, even in its eccentricity, and every word uttered by the characters lived in its appropriateness and naturalness to the situation in which it was uttered. The Lights o’ London had other merits, but its vitality was its most powerful one. Most of us in the provinces judge the play a great one among modern plays, not because we had any thought of its running power, but merely because we could not deny its power as a work of dramatic art. These two plays called forth our highest praise not because they ran so long, but because of the excellence of their intrinsic merit. Therefore, do I venture to express the opinion that Mr Buchanan’s imaginative power runs away with him when he says, “The question is simply, how will it run?” The question is not simply how it will run, but does it contain those excellences which will cause it deservedly to run?
     Another curious piece of Mr Buchanan’s argumentation by force of his imagination is his complaint of unfairness, because “If the play has not by that time (half way through) begun to ‘go,’ the actors become desperate, forget their business, and murder their lines.” What matter and what blame, may I ask, if they do forget and murder when a whole half of a play has failed to “go?” In very truth the position of the actors is then desperate. In such a case author and manager, too, must become desperate, for their case is then surely hopeless. He concludes his description of his sensations of a failure with the query, “How is it possible for even the coolest intellect to gauge the merits or demerits of any production under the hazy and perfunctory conditions I have described?” What he means is not quite clear. His description of the condition “in front” is hazy, it may be admitted, but how perfunctory? If his epithets allude to the conditions “behind,” then all I, in my provincial innocence, can say is that the manager and author who permit their play to be produced before rehearsals have removed all possibility of conditions hazy and perfunctory deserve their failure.
     Very remarkable indeed do Mr Buchanan’s ideas of decency and morality seem to me. Says he, “No earnest writer, no man who believes he is uttering a spiritual message, can be indecent or immoral.” A surprising statement from a scholar! Mr Buchanan is surely conversant with the best as well as the most modern literature of ethics. The most that the advanced moralists, even in France, can say of morality is that “morals are a matter of taste.” So much admitted, we may instruct Mr Buchanan by merely amplifying his assertion into “No earnest writer can be indecent or immoral to himself.” Yet he may be very indecent indeed to other people. Mr Buchanan may, for example, give us something literary which is highly moral to him and to me—I am an admirer of his “Foxglove Manor”—yet to assert that that something literary cannot be immoral to his readers generally is a pretty conceit but a stupid fallacy. His own illustration of his contention may serve to illustrate mine. He says:—“It would be as rational to accuse a comparative anatomist of indecency or a professor of midwifery of immorality.” Well, what would be perfectly proper in the surgery or in the lying-in hospital would be decidedly out of place in the drawing-room, or before a concourse of all sorts and conditions of men and women. No one would think of accusing the anatomist or the professor of immorality so long as they remained in their own sphere. In like manner the earnest writer may be decent and moral while he writes for his own entertainment or for the entertainment or instruction of equally earnest men, but the moment he thrusts his writing before people to whom it is distasteful he becomes indecent and immoral. The truth is, while we admire Mr Buchanan’s enthusiasm for his art, we cannot close our eyes to the fact that he allows himself to be misled by a little egotism.
     His system of reasoning when he speaks of the relationship of literature to the drama is equally entertaining and equally false. Yet he is not alone in this respect. The whole multitude of clamourers for literary plays, the worthy pedants who sigh for literature on the stage, are all alike in a fog. Their dilemma with regard to dramatic literature is similar to that of the theologians with regard to “soul.” The most able among them fails to define literature any more successfully than the most able theologians describe the soul, as “an undeniable something, the existence of which we cannot demonstrate.” Mr Buchanan speaks of “the Poet Laureate howled down as remorselessly as if he were the poet Close.” Well, the Poet Laureate wrote a bad play. The poet Close, in his mountain home, with his rhymes written while you wait, might write a better. I hope my literary friends will not be shocked at such an assertion. If they are I can only plead that I am merely showing the impression my quarter of a century playgoing and study of the drama have made upon me. The literature of a play is but the writing of it. The writing may be good, bad, or indifferent, and insomuch is it good, bad, or indifferent literature. The goodness or badness of the writing is determinable less by its beauty or its polish than by its appropriateness to the conditions for which it is required, and its power as a part of the whole in which it has place. A man may be an exquisitely beautiful penman, yet if he cannot spell he had better have less skill with his pen and more brains. A poet laureate may be a master of style, a man with an imagination filled with the most beautiful pictures, and a man with the power of putting the most beautifully turned phrases into the mouths of characters he may create, yet if he cannot make his characters act and speak consistently as part of a whole rational existence he cannot make dramatic literature, and he had better have had poorer skill for turning beautiful phrases, a less kaleidoscopic imaginative power, and have had a stronger instinct for caricaturing living creatures and for building up a complete picture of commonplace existence, if he would essay to make dramatic literature. Stage dialogue may be very beautifully and very correctly written, but if it has not vitality and appropriateness to the scenes in which it has to be spoken it is not literature. The vitality of stage writing is the best test of its right to be called literature. The dialogue may be the dialogue of two costermongers, yet if it is true to the characters uttering it, and makes them live before the spectator, it is good literature. Mr Sims has given us dramatic literature in the slang of his characters outside the casual ward in The Lights o’ London. Mr Buchanan has given us some fine writing which is not dramatic literature in Alone in London. Both gentlemen will, I am sure, pardon the comparison when I assure them that I make it solely because it affords me the best illustration of my meaning. The subject requires more extended treatment than I can give it here. The hint I convey, however, may be interesting as showing that a provincial experience creates views which do not seem to open to most of our metropolitan critics.
     Mr Buchanan’s remarks upon the dramatic criticism of the day I cannot enter upon, as to do so would entail my troubling you with an exposition of the art of criticism as our provincial experience teaches it to us. I would wish to say more upon it than I can ask you to permit. Suffice to say that I have found it an art which the veriest tyro undertakes with confidence, but which the veteran finds requires more knowledge, more thought, more study, and more kindliness than are required in any other department of journalism. Possibly this accounts for our having so little good and so very much poor criticism.
                     Yours, &c.,                              ROBERT BATHO.
     The Arts Club, Birmingham, March 8th, 1892.

_____

The Pearl Case

[Briefly, the ‘Pearl Case’ involved the theft of some jewellery from Mrs. Hargreave in February 1891. When the pearls turned up in a jeweller’s shop, both Mrs. Hargreave and her husband made their suspicions known that the theft had been committed by Ethel Elliott, Mrs. Hargreave’s cousin, who was engaged to Captain Osborne. The Hargreaves were accused of slander and the case came to court in December, 1891. However the case was abandoned when evidence came to light which confirmed Ethel Elliott’s (Mrs. Osborne’s) guilt. The Osbornes fled to the continent. In February 1892, they returned to England and Mrs. Osborne (now pregnant) gave herself up to the police. She was subsequently tried for perjury and theft and on 9th March was sentenced to nine months hard labour. However, due to the state of her health she was released from Holloway prison on 31st March 1892.

The case was reported in newspapers throughout the land, but the court reports from The Times probably give the most detailed account of the affair. Too detailed, in fact to be included here, for the sake of a single letter from Buchanan. However if you click the pictures below there’s a report from Lloyd’s Weekly London Newspaper which gives some background to the case and the report from The Times of the final court appearance of Mrs. Osborne.

The Echo (28 December, 1891 - p.2)

PUBLIC CLAMOUR AND PRIVATE
CONSCIENCE.
_____

TO THE EDITOR OF THE ECHO.

     SIR,—This pearl-stealing case is so dreadful and so instructive that I beg to be allowed some concise remarks:—
     (1) The conduct of Mrs. Osborne is so hideous towards a confiding cousin, and so infamous towards her bridegroom, now her husband, that I dare not wish on her account any punishment milder than a severest English tribunal would award. Only, if a severe, yet just, sentence does but heap new suffering on those whom she has already cruelly injured, and is of infinitesimal weight to deter like offences; on that ground, Mercy, not to the guilty, but to the guiltless, may be implored.
     (2) What is still more to be considered—if the like crime occurred beyond Christendom, it is all but certain that Mrs. Osborne would be judged to have obtained her position as a wife by false pretence, with a cruel wrong to her husband. She has acted a part which, in all natural probability, must turn his love, if not into hate, yet into such utter contempt and distrust as to make marriage unnatural and miserable. Whatever else her punishment, great or small, divorce ought, as of course, to follow her crimes. [Captain Osborne would be left free, after the divorce, to offer re-marriage if he chose. It would not constrain him.] This is the least that humane sentiment prescribes as his right.
     (3) The bench of Bishops, as a collective body in the Lords, will reply, “Nay, but Christianity forbids divorce, except for adultery.” This is only their blindness, in following a blind tradition. The Gospels do not so state the matter. Under Mosesism the Jewish husband held a barbarous power to divorce his wife. No Divorce Court was dreamt of. The religion of the Jews most justly limits this arbitrary power of the husband, but suggests no thought that should limit or direct a national court, if such an institution were to arise.
     Do we begin to learn how real an infliction on our nation is the permitting of ecclesiastics to dictate our law?—Yours, &c.,                                          F. W. NEWMAN.
     Weston-super-Mare, Dec. 25.

___

TO THE EDITOR OF THE ECHO.

     SIR,—In connection with what has been called “The Great Pearl Mystery,” there is one point on which I wish to say a few words. With the legal question I have nothing to do; and it is no part of my business to defend Mrs. Osborne against the laws which she has broken. But I protest, with the fullest strength of conviction, against the illogical, unreasonable, virulent, and absolutely brutal tone of the English Press on what may be termed the “moral” issues of the case. In every newspaper I have taken up there is but one expression of opinion—detestation of the criminal, and pity for her husband; and in most newspapers a savage cry that “this man” should be torn from “this woman.” Captain Osborne is a “noble gentleman”; his wife is utterly ignoble. Why, then, should our wicked “marriage laws” link these two together any longer?
     Now, après?
     Again and again, in these columns, I have pointed out the enormity of our posing and posturing as a nation, of “Christians.” This new development of pagan folly, raging in the hearts of pious or super-moral editors, is another proof of the national ignorance or  hypocrisy. Writing neither as a sentimentalist, nor as a nebulous optimist, I will seek to detach the moral from the legal question, and regard the case from the simple and logical standpoint of human ethics.
     The outcry to which I have alluded is, in the first place, a rabid attack on the liberty of the chief individual concerned, who, in so far as he is “noble,” will resent and despise it. I attach little or no importance to the fact that Captain Osborne, in the face of a charge which seemed calumnious, married the lady he had chosen. What amazes me is that personal independence should be so uncommon that so very natural an act of manliness has awakened ecstasies of admiration! To my mind, the claim of Captain Osborne to moral superiority had to be decided after, not before, the proof of his wife’s guilt. Now, up to the moment of writing, this gentleman has made no sign. He has not voiced his sorrow to the public; he has not shrieked out against the “wicked marriage laws”; he has not turned upon the woman who is still, in the eyes of the law, his wife. Possibly, if he had done so, he would have been within his rights; but certainly, as he has not done so, no other living creature has any right to speak on his behalf. So far from “pitying” him, then, I begin to realise, for the first time, that he is a Christian in the best sense, and a Christian logician. For outside the law and its just exactions this man and this woman stand still together. Their moral relation to each other can be determined by no outside influence, not even by that of the law. The whole assumption of popular criticism is that the marriage contract can be broken by a public act of crime on the part of one of the contractors. The whole assumption of human ethics is that a public act of crime has everything to do with the social laws, and nothing to do with the laws which govern the conscience of the individual.
     Put the case, or a case. I love a woman of doubtful reputation, I marry her, and I find after marriage that she has been a criminal. Her guilt is proved, and, possibly, she has to pay the penalty. Just in so far as I love that woman, or have loved her, do I help her or stand apart from her. More than any creature living, by the very touchstone of my love, do I know that woman. Whatever she is to the world, she is something very different to me. In all the world only one hand now can help her, and that hand is mine. I know, if I am a consistent “Christian,” that the God in whom I believe will succour her, and remain with her. Just in so far as I follow that God, who is Love, do I act in the emergency. If I turn from my wife, the World, the Flesh, and the Newspaper will approve me. But my God being neither the World, nor the Flesh, nor  the Newspaper, I do not ask for their approval.
     Never, so long as Englishmen profess a religion which they daily disregard in practice, will the ethical right of individuals be understood.  The journalistic clamour that the husband of Mrs. Osborne should occupy a public standpoint of vulgar retribution is an insult to moral freedom, and an outrage on common sense. The legal relation between a man and a woman is one thing, their moral relation is another. It is precisely because our Marriage Laws deal only with legal relations, and obscure or ignore those relations which are inscrutable to all save the two persons concerned, that they are so often, in their practical results, detestable.
     As I write, a dear friend of mine looks over my shoulder, and exclaims, “Idealism again! defending a wicked woman! making a martyr of a criminal! The saints in your calendar are Mrs. Maybrick the poisoner, Grande the blackmailer, and Mrs. Osborne the thief!” Hardly so, I think. I cannot pretend even to the idealism of Christianity, for my faith is pinned to no God and no system. But I plead, as a thinking being, for logic and for consistency. It is not for me, as an individual, to do the Law’s business. It is not for me, as an individual, to protect Society. It is my business, however, and it is the business of every thinking man, to protect the individual conscience against the tyranny, the cruelty, and the violence of public opinion. What I demand for Captain and Mrs. Osborne I demand for all men and women, and that is, liberty to the full in the sphere of spiritualities, which no legality can affect one way or the other, and in which Man comes face to face with conscience, the only voice of the only living God.—Yours, &c.,
     Hampstead, Dec. 27.                                                                      ROBERT BUCHANAN.

___

The Echo (4 January, 1892 - p.4)

THE PEARL CASE.

     SIR,—Through The Echo—“our Echo,” I might truly say, for to its constant and faithful readers it is a gem of comfort, light, and knowledge at the end of many a weary day—may I follow up the noble and kind rendering of Robert Buchanan’s summing-up of the conduct of Captain Osborne in the Pearl Case.
     While in no wise wishing to revert to another criticism of that special case in point, I would like to note emphatically one or two sentences of our friend Mr. Buchanan; firstly,  “again and again in these columns I have pointed out the enormity of our posing and posturing as a nation of Christians,” “and in every newspaper I take up there is but one expression of opinion, detestation of the criminal, pity for the husband.” The latter is no doubt from a worldly point of view an extremely just opinion, because it was a heinously deceitful crime, and the husband utterly crushed by the astounding and sad revelation, but it is the sequel of his conduct that is the turning point to my mind, and thereby hangs Mr. Buchanan’s strongest point, and as a body of professing Christians our greatest condemnation. What would we have had Captain Osborne to do? “Why, leave her at once,” “get a divorce directly.” These two opinions were breathlessly uttered by my dearest friend. Yet I went to the house of God on the next day, and heard my friend in rhapsodies over the sermon, its idealism, and the exquisite beauty of the Lord’s Prayer. I turned it all over in my mind, and then The Echo came with this exquisitely beautiful letter, and my mind again and again recurred to the profession of the Christian body, and the actual daily carrying out of the spirit of it, and it seems to me that more and more is the spirit of Christ sinking into obscurity, or rather, mere “theorising.” The very essence of His divine teaching was forgiveness first of all and end of all. Where, Oh where is the spirit to be found such as He inspired in these never to be forgotten words—“Let him that is without sin amongst you first cast a stone.” Is it all forgotten now at this time, when the season is emblematical of Him in all directions. There is the Pagan, Robert Buchanan, shaming us, and well, if we can be shamed, let us hate the sin of this fair sinner with all our hearts, but, in the name of the Prince of Peace, let us not go so far as to denounce her beyond her husband’s love; let us never carry cruelty of condemnation so far as to say she (like many others) must be cut off from the being to whom alone she can look at such an awful moment. Next to her God comes her husband, he is her earth god, “her own familiar friend.” No one has a right in private, or public, to go behind that scene between those two souls; according to his depth of love will be his forgiveness, I think, and in our case as Christians, in so far as we really love Christ, will be our forgiveness one to another. In fact, I do not believe in anyone’s Christianity unless there is the corresponding balance of that spirit, and may I doubt myself much if I ever allow that cruel censoriousness to find a resting-place in me. “Who art thou that judgest another?” Let us take and turn that little text over, my fellow Christians, who are so fond of judging these sad cases which every now and then crop up; indeed, it seems to me that it is the Christians who are hardest on everyone. Just put it to yourself. If such a sinner came to you in a similar sad and desperate plight, would you not be bound, as a Christian (if you wish to be one), to take her or him in, and do what you think your Saviour would approve of? Well, then, why should not her husband, to whom she belongs, do the same? She is his for time and eternity; till “death them do part.” Therefore, I am glad that he has so far done his duty, and I strongly condemn the un-Christian judgment against his acting so that went forth ruthlessly and uncalled for, and evoked Robert Buchanan’s indignation. He is the Christian, not we.—Yours, &c.,                                 CONSTANT READER.
     London, Dec. 31st.

___

The Echo (6 January, 1892 - p.1)

     We have received several letters on the Pearl Case, but as no practical good is likely to arise from a continuance of the discussion, we have not inserted them. Mr. Robert Buchanan struck a lofty note of a lofty gospel when he courageously vindicated in our columns the conduct of Captain Osborne in protecting his erring wife. If he, knowing all the circumstances, continues to love and cherish a woman whatever misfortune may have overtaken her, what is it to busybodies who might be better employed than in poking their noses into other people’s business.

_____

Mr. Heggie

The Standard (11 January, 1892 - p.2)

     An inquest was held on Saturday at the Local Board offices, Wimbledon, by Mr. Braxton Hicks, concerning the death of David Birrell Heggie, 27, a commercial traveller, of 3, Dryden-road, Wimbledon, who was found dead on the 6th inst. His wife had left him about a month ago owing to his drinking habits.—William Page, a machinist, lodging with the deceased, stated that the latter had been the worse for drink several times lately. Witness was called by the deceased, who slept on the floor, about two a.m. on the 6th inst., when he asked for a seidlitz powder, complaining of feeling queer. Witness advised him to go to bed, and about eight o’clock found him lying dead in the kitchen behind the door. The following letter was found on the deceased:—“6-1-92.—3, Dryden-road, Winbledon.—Good-bye, my mistaken, darling wife. I leave you now to meet again in Heaven soon. Good-bye, Robert Buchanan, dramatic author. Remember my ‘Religion of Science,’ and your neglect of me. No money, no home, ill awfully for last two years. No sleep for days upon days. Good-bye all, D. B. Heggie.” His brain and stomach were congested, and there was found, extending into the nostril, a diphtheritic membrane which had partly caught in the larynx and produced suffocaion, causing death.—A verdict in accordance with the medical evidence was returned.

___

The Pall Mall Gazette (12 January, 1892 - Issue 8365)

“THE WRETCHEDEST OF ALL PROFESSIONS.”
MR. ROBERT BUCHANAN AND MR. HEGGIE.

     An inquest was recorded in yesterday’s papers on the death of a commercial traveller named Heggie, who left a written statement in which he said: “Goodbye, Robert Buchanan, dramatic author. Remember my ‘Religion of Science’ and your neglect of me.” Mr. Buchanan writes to the Telegraph in explanation this morning as follows:—

     Several years ago Mr. Heggie called at my country house in Essex and introduced himself to me as a young Scotchman ambitious to enter the profession of literature. It appeared to me, at our first interview, that he possessed little or no capacity for a literary life, and that his mind, moreover, was affected by hereditary physical infirmities. I assisted him to the best of my power with both advice and money. Shortly afterwards his hallucinations became so troublesome that I had to ask him not to intrude further upon me personally. He wrote to me subsequently expressing deep regret for what had occurred, saying that in accordance with my advice he had sought and found non literary occupation, and adding that he had made a happy marriage. I heard no more of him until last year, when he sent me several pamphlets which he had written and published, including one on the “Religion of Science.” A few days before his death he sent a messenger to my house with a letter stating that the writer was in urgent need of pecuniary assistance. I was away from home, but the messenger was seen by my sister-in-law, Miss Harriett Jay, who immediately sent Mr. Heggie a small sum of money, and promised on my behalf further help when necessary. This was the last occasion on which I heard from him, or of him, until this morning, when I read the account of his pitiable end. I owe it to myself to state that, so far from neglecting a fellow-creature in trouble, I again and again gave him practical proof of my sympathy. Possibly the expression “neglect of me” refers to the fact that I could not encourage this unfortunate young man, mentally and physically unfit for literary pursuits, to follow the wretchedest of all professions. Not a day of my life passes but I receive communications from other aspirants who see in literature a royal road to prosperity, and out of all these not one in twenty has the most rudimentary qualifications for the literary profession. There is not in this country a single professional author, however distinguished, who does not know, by sad experience, that to live by literature alone means infinite disappointment and proportionate suffering. Only the strongest and hardiest survive in an occupation which, in England at least, has few legitimate rewards and little social honour.

_____

Letters to the Press - continued

or back to the Letters to the Press menu