The Old Maids' Club

by Israel Zangwill

The office boy edits the paper.

"Why? They didn't know it was I. Only my journalistic friend knew; and he was too much of a gentleman to give away my secret. I wrote to the editor under the name of Frank Maddox, thanking him for having inserted my article, and the editor said to my friend, 'Egad, I fancy I've made a discovery there. Why, if I were to pay any attention to your idea of keeping strictly to the old grooves, the paper would stagnate, my boy, simply stagnate.' The editor was right, for my friend assured me the paper would have died long before, if the office-boy had not condescended to edit it. Anyhow, it was to that office-boy I owed my introduction to literature. The editor was very proud of having discovered me, and, being installed in his good graces, I passed rapidly into dramatic criticism, and was even allowed to understudy the office-boy as literary reviewer. He could not stomach historical novels, and handed over to me all works with pronouns in the second person. Gradually I rose to higher things, but it was not until I had been musical and art critic for over eighteen months that the editor learnt that the writer whose virile style he had often dilated upon to my friend was a woman."

"And what did he do when he learnt it?" asked Lillie.

"He swore——"

"Profane man!" cried Lillie.

"That he loved me—me whom he had never seen. Of course, I declined him with thanks; happily there was a valid excuse, because he had written his communication on both sides of the paper. But even this technical touch did not mollify him, and he replied that my failure to appreciate him showed I could no longer be trusted as a critic. Fortunately my work had been signed, my fame was established. I collected my articles into a book and joined another paper."

"But you haven't yet told me how it is done?"

"Oh, that is the least. You see, to be a critic it is not essential to know anything—you must simply be able to write. To be a great critic you must simply be able to write well. In my omniscience, or catholic ignorance, I naturally looked about for the subject on which I could most profitably employ my gift of style with the least chance of being found out. A moment's consideration will convince you that the most difficult branches of criticism are the easiest. Of musical and artistic matters not one person in a thousand understands aught but the rudiments: here, then, is the field in which the critical ignoramus may expatiate at large with the minimum danger of discovery. Nay, with no scintilla of danger; for the subject matter is so obscure and abstruse that the grossest of errors may put on a bold face and parade as a profundity, or, driven to bay, proclaim itself a paradox. Only say what you have not got to say authoritatively and well, and the world shall fall down and worship you. The place of art in religion has undergone a peculiar historical development. First men worshipped the object of art; then they worshipped the artist; and nowadays they worship the art critic."

"It is true," said Lillie reflectively. "This age has witnessed the apotheosis of the art critic."

"And of all critics. And yet what can be more evident than that the art of criticism was never in such a critical condition? Nobody asks to see the critic's credentials. He is taken at his own valuation. There ought to be an examination to protect the public. Even schoolmasters are now required to have certificates; while those who pretend to train the larger mind in the way it should think are left to work their mischief uncontrolled. No dramatic critic should be allowed to practise without an elementary knowledge of human life, law, Shakespeare, and French. The musical critic should be required to be able to perform on some one instrument other than his own trumpet, to distinguish tune from tonality, to construe the regular sonata, to comprehend the plot of Il Trovatore, and to understand the motives of Wagner. The art critic should be able to discriminate between a pastel and a water-color, an impressionist drawing and a rough sketch, to know the Dutch school from the Italian, and the female figure from the male, to translate morbidezza and chiaroscuro, and failing this, to be aware of the existence and uses of a vanishing point. A doctor's certificate should also be produced to testify that the examinee is in possession of all the normal faculties; deafness, blindness, and color-blindness being regarded as disqualifications, and no one should be allowed to practise unless he enjoyed a character for common honesty supplemented by a testimonial from a clergyman, for although art is non-moral the critic should be moral. This would be merely the passman stage; there could always be examinations in honors for the graduates. Once the art critics were educated, the progress of the public would be rapid. They would no longer be ready to admire the canvases of Michael Angelo, who, as I learnt the other day for the first time, painted frescoes, nor would they prefer him, as unhesitatingly as they do now, to Buonarotti, which is his surname, nor would they imagine Raffaelle's Cartoons appeared in Puncinello. All these mistakes I have myself made, though no one discovered them; while in the realm of music no one has more misrepresented the masters, more discouraged the overtures of young composers."