The sun was on and the fish were off. Strenuous efforts had failed to put the angler in the position of the gentleman qui peut brâmer ses amis. Dr Tench, the fresh-water physician, whose medical powers have been somewhat overrated, though he can keep himself alive for an astonishing length of time out of the water, declined the most abominably tempting baits. The pike were only represented by baby jacklets: the rudd and the roach were rare and almost microscopic; as for the carp, of course one did not expect to catch the sly, shy creatures. The friend who had been lured to fish in the big lake, modestly called a pond, put down his rod, and, after a few remarks about the fish, which ought not to be set out in print, said in a meditative way, "I wonder what would happen if there were no dramatic critics." To which came the reply, that there would be no performances, since performances without an audience are almost unimaginable, and every spectator acts to some extent as a dramatic critic.
By the way, it is a curious distinction of the actor's art that he needs an audience more than any other artist. The singer, violinist, and other executants of music, if they really love music, can to almost the full extent of such love enjoy performing to themselves alone as much as before a crowd. The painter and sculptor have a keen pleasure in doing their work and seek no spectator save a model; it is true they desire the world to see the child of their efforts, but that is partly because they are creators, as well as executants. Certainly, the singer would sing for pure pleasure in singing if stranded alone upon a desert island, and marooned men would write books or music if they could, and stranded painters would paint. Would an actor in the position of Robinson Crusoe act to amuse himself—at least, would he do so before he had his man Friday as an involuntary and perhaps ungratified spectator?
The hapless piscator—the word ceased to be pretentious after Walton's use of it—refused to bait his hook again, and said, "I mean, what would happen if there were none of you professional chaps who write criticisms that nobody reads except the other dramatic critics?" To remark that if only the critics read criticisms the suppression of criticism obviously would be needless was an easy triumph, so he continued in a grumbling way,
"What I mean is—suppose that after a play you merely gave some sort of account of the plot and did not say whether the piece was good or bad, or proper or shocking, or how it was acted, and so on, would it make any difference? I mean," he added, hastily anticipating a question, "would people go more or less to the theatre, or would the kind of plays and acting change? I suppose it would make a little difference; would the difference be great?"
The answer was "Yes."
After all, the public may award the farthings, but the critics are of weight upon the question of fame; the crowd to some extent acts as jury, the critics are judges; and to pursue the figure, whilst the verdicts are of immediate influence, the judgments remain on record. In the future it will often be difficult to find out what were the verdicts; but there will be no doubt about the judgments. Moreover, whilst, as in the law courts, the verdicts are often due to prejudice and to mere temporary causes, the reasoned judgments, when and so far as reasonable, are based on a firmer foundation.
Probably the theatres would suffer, since there would be less talk about them. For the average Englishman is timid in opinion, and, unless fortified by ideas gleaned from the papers, scamps his conversation on topics concerning which opinions may be expressed. When he has exhausted such subjects as the weather, his health, his private affairs and those of his neighbours, he is accustomed to bestow upon his listeners, in a distorted form, the opinions concerning books, plays, pictures, etc., that he has read in the papers and understood imperfectly; and he certainly would talk far less about plays if he had not the aid of the critic's views.
Of course he would be able to call a piece "awfully good," "simply ripping," "sweetly pretty," "beastly rot," "awfully dull," and to use ill-assorted adjectives concerning the players; but beyond this he would hardly venture for fear of uttering absurdities. A curious humour is that people who have read the opinions which he is misrepresenting, in the papers from which he got them, will listen without patent signs of boredom, and in their turn utter second-hand opinions on similar subjects.
Clearly, then, talk on the topic would languish but for our promptings; and if the theatres were less talked of there would be fewer visitors to them. Furthermore, if there were to be no newspaper criticisms of plays or players, the gossip about them would be diminished even in the papers, for the thrilling personal paragraphs would lose their point if given without adjectives, and adjectives involve criticism of one kind or another.
Would the pieces and performances be affected by the suppression of criticism? Certainly, to some extent. For even if the professional critics tell little more than the amateurs who offer friendly advice, their remarks have a greater weight—partly, indeed, because in a sense they are not gratuitous. All observers have noticed the fact that we rarely act on the opinion of mere friends, however sound. Moreover, no one can deny that when the critics, belonging as they do to many schools of thought and thoughtlessness, agree, they are likely to be correct.