Everybody looked around, and the man seemed a little shamefaced at his exhibition of hostility to a wooden disk. He felt that he owed the crowd an explanation and he came through handsomely. "He was shining up the ball with emery," he said.
"We do not applaud the Atlantic Ocean," continues Craig, "or the poems of the ocean, but, catching sight of the man who can swim furthest in that ocean, we utter birdlike and beastlike cries."
And yet we rather think that there have been times when men cheered for the sea. After that first silent moment on the peak in Darien, Cortez and his men must have been a pretty dull lot if they did not give at least one "Rah, rah, rah—P-A-C-I-F-I-C—Pa-cific!"
Mr. Craig can't convince us that we applaud too much, for it is our impression that we don't get up to shout half often enough. We shout for Ty Cobb, to be sure, or for Eddie Casey if he gets loose, but as a rule we do no more than clap hands once or twice if Bernard Shaw bowls over all the interference and runs the whole length of the field without a tackler so much as throwing him off his stride. We shout when Jack Dempsey knocks Jess Willard down seven times in one round, but we don't do nearly as well for the writing man who gets after some big, hulking idea that has outlived its usefulness and is still poking around as the hope of the white race.
Somebody ought to issue a call for volunteer groups of serious shouters to go out and whoop it up for a skyscraper, or a sunset or a sonnet. None of us cuts much of a figure complaining about all the things in the world he doesn't like if he hasn't made a practice of yelling his head off for such few things as meet with his approval in the theater or out of it. More than that, Mr. Craig ought to remember that if there were no applause in the American theater there would be no curtain speeches by David Belasco.
A Test for Critics
Just when everything seems to be moving more or less smoothly somebody comes along and raises the entrance requirements for dramatic critics. Clayton Hamilton is the latest to suggest a new standard. His test for reviewers consists of three point-blank questions, as follows:
One—Have you ever stood bareheaded in the nave of Amiens?
Two—Have you ever climbed to the Acropolis by moonlight?
Three—Have you ever walked with whispers into the hushed presence of the Frari Madonna of Bellini?