“Have you happened to notice,” I asked, “that A Winter’s Tale has recently been produced at His Majesty’s Theatre?”
“Yes, and all the more because that indefatigable manager and all-embracing actor, Mr. Tree, has not taken a part in it. He would have rendered Autolycus very suitably.”
“Perhaps,” I went on, since I now felt on a footing of the most friendly familiarity with one I had hitherto always thought of at a respectful distance, “perhaps you have observed some of the criticisms on the play.”
“To tell the truth,” he replied, “I have not. There were few such things in my time, save by the audience; and my recollection of what few there were does not dispose me to read fresh ones. But, if they have said anything instructive or amusing, I shall be most happy to hear it.”
“I am afraid,” I said, “they are more amusing than instructive.”
“Then let me have them by all means. The only thing one is sometimes tempted to find fault with in the Elysian Fields is that its denizens are a trifle too serious for me; being just as much inclined as ever to say, when I find myself in the company of my fellow-creatures, ‘With mirth and laughter let me play the fool.’”
Thus encouraged, I said that one critic had pronounced the play to be dull as drama, and inferior as poetry; Autolycus to be a bore, yet by no means the only tiresome feature in the play; the plot to be a succession of gaps and puerilities; and that another observed what a pity it was you had made Leontes a lunatic, a raving maniac, and a nuisance. As I recounted these opinions, I could see no sign of annoyance on the face of the playwright, but only a philosophic smile illumining his tranquil features.
“I seem,” he said, “to have heard that some time ago some one commented on the meanness of the fable and the extravagant conduct of it, and declared that the comedy caused no mirth, and the serious portion no concernment. I daresay there is truth in the first part of the criticism, but, in regard to the second, I seem to remember that, at the Globe, there was a good deal of mirth at the lighter scenes, and no small attention at the grave ones. But perhaps audiences in my day were different from audiences in yours. I am by no means sure that I wrote the whole of the play; indeed I am pretty certain I did not. My chief share in it was the love-scene between Florizel and Perdita.”
“Which I have always thought very beautiful, and the very opposite of ‘inferior as poetry.’”
“Very good of you to say so; for I much enjoyed writing it. For the rest, I suspect that a change has come over audiences, and still more over those people whom you call critics. From what I have heard, they appear not to confine themselves to appraising what is offered them, but want authors to offer them something quite different, which is scarcely reasonable. Moreover, they impute to an author motives he did not entertain, and ends he did not have in view. For instance, I am supposed by them to have been a rather successful delineator of character; overlooking the fact that I over and over again cast character to the winds, in favour of the situation, to which one surrendered oneself only too willingly, because in doing so one was enabled to indulge one’s humour and temperament more freely and fully.”