“Good! I’m so glad you like it.”
“Like it? My dear fellow, I never was worse bored in my life. I’d rather have heard ‘Julius Cæsar’ done by a lot of high school boys. But that has nothing to do with it. If pieces were written and played for me and my kind, they’d have to charge ten dollars a ticket to get money enough to pay for the gas and music. Plays are made for audiences; this audience likes this play—likes it immensely, so other audiences will like it too, and if I don’t say so in our newspaper to-morrow morning I deserve to be bounced and have this week’s salary docked.”
Of course it is a critic’s business to see defects and call attention to them. When he does so he confers a favor upon the performer, who generally is so absorbed in what he is doing that he doesn’t know what he is leaving undone or doing badly. But the faults of stage or platform can’t be remedied with a sledge-hammer or a double bladed dagger—not ever if you give the dagger a turn or two after you have jabbed it in. A prominent critic said to me:
“I don’t criticise a play according to my own feelings and tastes. Although I’ve a very good opinion of my own personal standard of judgment, I don’t believe the people collectively would give a snap of the finger for it. I simply try to ascertain the opinion of the audience and express it for the benefit of the people of whom audiences are made. I greatly dislike ⸺ and ⸺ (mentioning a popular actor and actress) but who cares? It would not be fair to try to impress my dislikes upon others, unless I chance upon some one who takes the stage seriously, and there are only two classes who do this—conceited critics, and actors who don’t get their pay. Fortunately I know very few professional people; if I knew more I would become insane through trying to dissociate their personality from their work. It is bad to know too much about anybody or anything, if you don’t want to throw the world out of joint. Except in matters of morals and manners, ‘where ignorance is bliss ’tis folly to be wise.’ Did you ever hear how Horace Greeley once got cold feet? A friend—one of the wise, observant, upsetting kind of friends called on Greeley, one cold winter day, and found the great journalist with a favorite book in his hand, a beatific smile on his face and his feet over the register. The visitor had previously been through the building and learned that the furnace had gone wrong and been removed, the cold air flue could not be closed, and zero air was coming through all the registers, so he said:
“‘Mr. Greeley, why do you keep your feet there? There is no heat—only cold air is coming up!’
“Greeley tumbled out of his chair and in the childish whine that always came to him when he was excited, replied,
“‘Why didn’t you let me alone? I was entirely comfortable; but now, I’m near you, I’m frozen.’”
Mention of Greeley, who was too busy a man to think of being a humorist, yet was one in spite of himself, recalls one of Mr. Depew’s stories about him. A man who was in search of financial aid for some evangelistic work got into Mr. Greeley’s sanctum one day, and found the great editor writing, with his head held sideways and close to the desk, like a schoolboy, as was his custom. He waved his hand, to signify that the man should go away, but Greeley had the reputation of being an easy-mark, financially, and the visitor’s mind was fixed on business, so he asked,
“Mr. Greeley, how much will you give to prevent your fellow men from going to hell?”
