Part 6 (1/2)

_Naomi_: ”Did they pay you much for fighting?”

_Jack_: ”No, but then I didn't do much fighting, so that I was even with them in that respect!”

_Naomi_: ... ”Are you fond of reading?”

_Jack_: ”Ya-as. Middling.”

_Naomi_: ”Did you ever read Oth.e.l.lo?”

_Jack_: ”Ya-as. But I don't think it nice reading for young ladies.”

_Naomi_: ”Oth.e.l.lo told Desdemona of the dangers he had pa.s.sed and the battles he had won.”

_Jack_: ”Ya-as. Oth.e.l.lo was a n.i.g.g.e.r, and didn't mind bragging.”...

It would be but an ill service to Robertson to give an outline of his plays. A mere outline would give the impression that they were childish and absurd, and they were neither the one nor the other. He never invented a striking situation, so far as I am aware. He never settled (or even raised) a moral or social problem in any of his productions. He gave all his attention to the characters and the dialogue. A scribbled synopsis found amongst his papers reveals his method of character-drawing. He stuck down three words, one after another--a name, a profession, a ruling pa.s.sion, such as love, ambition, cupidity, pride. With these words he thought he had summed up the ordinary conventional man, as nature had formed him, and society had reformed or deformed him: a very elementary but very sane psychology, which he enriched, embellished, elaborated, with the flowers of his fancy and the fruits of his observation. I have given some specimens of the former. I may now give some specimens of the second, to justify the t.i.tle of half-realist which I have given him.

He wanted nothing better than to be a realist and to reproduce what he had actually seen. He knew nothing of great ladies, as one may well understand. When he had to portray them he was obliged to copy from bad models. His Lady Ptarmigant is a regular _bourgeoise_; his Marquise de Saint Maur, who learns bits of Froissart by heart and gives lessons in history to her son, is either a myth or an anachronism. His Hawtree, on the other hand, is as real as can be; Robertson had met him probably in the clubs which he frequented. In _School_ he introduced a foolish yet ferocious usher, who was, it seems, a reminiscence of his youthful expedition to Holland. His rancour had not become extinguished in the twenty years that had intervened, and he could not resist the somewhat brutal satisfaction of inflicting a physical punishment in the last act upon his old enemy. He used to ask his small boy, whilst walking with him in Belsize Park, what he would answer to such and such a question? How would he set about enraging his master? And the boy would receive sixpence or a florin according to the nature of his reply.

Soldiers, theatrical folk, artistic and literary Bohemians, are painted as they live, slightly idealised. In _Caste_ we have two specimens of the people--bad and good--in the persons of Eccles and Sam Gerridge. ”Work, my boy,” says Eccles to his future son-in-law; ”there's nothing like work--when you're young.” As for him,--well, it was some years since he worked (as a matter of fact he had lived on his daughters, and not touched a tool for twenty years), but he loved to see young folk at work. That did him good,--did them good too. He declaims against the upper cla.s.ses; but when a marchioness pa.s.ses his threshold, he bows down before her, and conducts her back to her carriage, only to return to his real self, insolent and venomous, the moment she has gone. When he makes his way to the public-house to drink, he gives a ”business appointment” as his pretext--”a friend who is waiting for him round the corner.” Always posing and aiming at effect, he uses big words for the smallest matters, and can produce a tear in his eye at will. He has a few garbled bits of literature at his command, and makes use of mangled quotations from _King Lear_.

And, wretched actor though he be, he is able, with the aid of filial affection, to produce an illusion in the mind of one of his daughters.

”Poor dad,” says Polly, ”he is so good at heart--and _so_ cute.”

No money in the house! He has been left at home by himself to mind the child of his eldest daughter, married to an officer who was well-born and rich, but who, it is supposed, has perished in the Indian Mutiny. The old drunkard rocks the cradle, angrily puffing his tobacco smoke in the baby's face.

_Eccles_: ... ”Mind the baby, indeed! (_Smokes and puffs angrily short cloud._) That fool of a ge'l to go and throw away her chances (_rises_) for the sake of being an Honourable-ess. (_Goes up centre._) To think of her father not having the price of an early pint, or a quartern of cool refres.h.i.+ng gin! Rock the young Honourable! (_Kicks the cradle._) Cuss him! Are we slaves, we working-men? (_Sings._) 'Britons never, never, never'--(_s.n.a.t.c.hes pipe from his mouth, throws it over the fireplace, takes chair front of table._) However, I shan't stand this much longer! I've writ the old cat!--the Marquizzy, I mean; I told her her daughter-in-law and her grandson were starving! That fool Esther is too proud to do it herself. I 'ate pride--it's beastly.

(_Rises._) There's no beastly pride about me! (_Goes up centre, clacks his tongue against the roof of mouth._) I'm as dry as a limekiln! Of course, there's nothing in the house fit for a Christian to drink!

(_Looks into the jug on dresser._) Empty! (_Lifts teapot on mantel._) Tea! (_Turns up his nose. Turns to table, looks into jug on it._) Milk! (_Contempt._) Milk for this aristocratic young pauper! Everybody in the 'ouse is saggrefized for him! To think of me, Member of the Committee of Banded Brothers, organised for the Regeneration of Human Kind by an Equal Diffusion of Labour and an Equal Division of Property!--to think of me, without the price of a pot of beer, while this aristocratic pauper wears round his neck--a coral of gold--real gold. Oh, Society! Oh, Governments! Oh, Cla.s.s-degradation! Is _this_ right? Shall this mindless wretch enjoy in his sleep a jewelled gaud while his poor old grandfather is _thirsty_? It shall not be! I will resent the outrage on the Rights of Man! In this holy crusade of cla.s.s against cla.s.s, of (_very meekly_) the weak and lowly against the (_loudly, pointing to cradle_) powerful and strong! I will strike one blow for freedom. (_Stoops over cradle._) He's asleep! This coral will fetch ten ”bob” around the corner! If the Marquizzy gives anythink, it can be easy got out again! (_Takes coral._) Lie still, darling--lie still, darling! It's grandfather a-watching you! (_Sings._) 'Who ran to catch me when I fell? who _kicked_ the spot to make it well?--My grandfather!' (_Goes R._) Lie still, my darling!--lie still, my darling!”

These comedies reveal the date of their composition in every line.

Everybody cries out in them against money, but as against a master. Love cuts but a poor figure in comparison, though for form's sake it may triumph for five minutes before the curtain fails. Sam Gerridge, the virtuous plumber, who acts as counterpoise to the old wretch Eccles, has concocted a philosophy for himself out of the notices which he has seen on public conveyances--”First Cla.s.s,” ”Second Cla.s.s,” ”Third Cla.s.s,” ”Holders of Third-Cla.s.s Tickets must not enter Second-Cla.s.s Carriages.” As for him, he proposes to establish himself, and, from being a workman, to become an employer. John Burns will tell you that this kind of democracy is a negation of true democracy; in 1868 the formula seemed wide and generous enough.

In such a manner was it that Robertson, who had wished that the world were a football which he could send into s.p.a.ce with one kick, that the same Robertson, who, as he quitted those nocturnal symposia at Tom Hood's, would bring down his stick upon the pavement with a noise that made the silent streets resound, as he held forth indignantly against society,--grew in time and unconsciously, though in a manner easy to under-stand, to be the interpreter of the feelings and ideas of this very same society. The former a.s.sailant now defended the social rank which he had attained against both the enemies above and the enemies below. The new strata which came into being in 1832 were now half-way through their evolution. In 1850 they had been content with melodramas, vulgar farces, and Hippodramas. In 1865 they asked already for wit, sentiment, satire, poetic feeling, all flavoured, it might be, with c.o.c.kneyism, but this demand was an indication of progress, and Robertson satisfied it by writing the middle-cla.s.s comedy.

The change which took place just then in the life of the dramatist convinces me that I am right. He hastened to take leave of his irregular life, and to feel after _bourgeois_ comforts. He worked out for himself a happiness which made him, like the poor vagabond in the fable, weep for very joy. The Eve of this new-opened Paradise was a fair German whom he had met at the house of the editor of the _Daily Telegraph_, whose niece she was. Robertson did not long enjoy the sweets of this happy land. His mental and physical powers seemed to die away together. Mrs. Bancroft, who accompanied him to the first night of _The Nightingale_, saw him, livid with rage, shake his fist at the hissing members of the audience, muttering, ”I shall never forgive them for this!”

The doctors ordered him to Torquay, where, however, he grew worse. I have read a letter which he wrote thence to his young wife,--a pitiful letter, all in little jerky sentences, set in rhythm by the sick man's pants for breath. Pitiful, yet gay, for he could not give up being facetious. On his return to London he experienced a literary misfortune of which it was the lot of little Tommy, then thirteen or fourteen years old, to bring the news. Father and son looked upon each other with tearful eyes, and grasped each other's hands. ”If they had seen me thus,” said the writer sadly, ”they would have had pity.” Robertson was wrong. The public should know nothing of these things. There are no extenuating circ.u.mstances for literary mistakes.

He died some days later. He was only forty-four. A friend who attended the funeral remarked, lying in the death chamber, its limbs dangling and disjointed, a doll whose injured stomach gave out sawdust through a wide opening. It was a doll with which he used to amuse his little girl to the very end. As for the puppets with which he had so long amused the world, they were to have a longer life. His comedies were destined to be continually revived, applauded, and imitated. Out of the six thousand performances given by the Bancrofts in a period of twenty years which formed one long success, three thousand belonged to Robertson. He alone furnished half their repertoire, and that the better half. From the depths of the out-of-the-way district which it had brought into fas.h.i.+on, the Prince of Wales's company sent colonies into the heart of the metropolis.

It was by actors who had been brought out in it, as in a _conservatoire_, that the Vaudeville, the Globe, and the Court Theatres were founded. The inexhaustible success of _The Two Roses_--of which there will be question further on--placed the name of James Albery almost as high.

Byron, in his turn, took a leaf out of the book of his old comrade, and succeeded, in _Our Boys_, in producing a comedy without (or almost without) puns. _Our Boys_ resembles Robertson's comedies just as a cook resembles her mistress when she is decked out in her mistress's hat and gown, or as Cathos and Madelon resemble the Marquise de Rambouillet and Julie d'Angennes. Even in this unintentionally caricature-like form the Robertsonian comedy continued to please, and it looked as though _Our Boys_ would never leave the bills.

The exacting, the fastidious, those who had begun to dream of a purer and more penetrating art, dubbed Robertsonian comedy ”Cup and Saucer” comedy.

The school accepted the nickname, and gloried in it. For the tea-table, fifteen or twenty years ago, was still the centre of the home, the symbol of the family, the core of English life, such as it had been formed by the combination of the spirit of Puritanism with that of middle-cla.s.s Utilitarianism.

The name of the Bancrofts remained a.s.sociated with the ”Cup and Saucer”

comedy as long as the movement lasted. As soon as they became sensible of their favourite author's decline in the eyes of the public they called Sardou to their a.s.sistance. By 1880 the Prince of Wales's had become too small for them and they emigrated to the Haymarket, which Mr. Bancroft had reconstructed as it is now, after a new plan, without the conventional proscenium, with the orchestra out of sight, the stage encased in a gilt frame like a picture, and no pit.