The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 12 (of 12) / Dresden Edition—Miscellany

by Robert Green Ingersoll

You all remember the story of "Great Expectations," and I presume you have all had them. That is another thing about this profession of acting that I like—you do not know how it is coming out—and there is this delightful uncertainty.

You have all read the book called "Great Expectations," written, in my judgment, by the greatest novelist that ever wrote the English language—the man who created a vast realm of joy. I love the joy-makers—not the solemn, mournful wretches. And when I think of the church asking something of the theatre, I remember that story of "Great Expectations." You remember Miss Haversham—she was to have been married some fifty or sixty years before that time—sitting there in the darkness, in all of her wedding finery, the laces having turned yellow by time, the old wedding cake crumbled, various insects having made it their palatial residence—you remember that she sent for that poor little boy Pip, and when he got there in the midst of all these horrors, she looked at him and said, "Pip, play!" And if their doctrine be true, every actor is in that situation.

I have always loved the theatre—loved the stage, simply because it has added to the happiness of this life. "Oh, but," they say, "is it moral?" A superstitious man suspects everything that is pleasant. It seems inbred in his nature, and in the nature of most people. You let such a man pull up a little weed and taste it, and if it is sweet and good, he says, "I'll bet it is poison." But if it tastes awful, so that his face becomes a mask of disgust, he says, "I'll bet you that it is good medicine."

Now, I believe that everything in the world that tends to make man happy, is moral. That is my definition of morality. Anything that bursts into bud and blossom, and bears the fruit of joy, is moral.

Some people expect to make the world good by destroying desire—by a kind of pious petrifaction, feeling that if you do not want anything, you will not want anything bad. In other words, you will be good and moral if you will only stop growing, stop wishing, turn all your energies in the direction of repression, and if from the tree of life you pull every leaf, and then every bud—and if an apple happens to get ripe in spite of you, don't touch it—snakes!

I insist that happiness is the end—virtue the means—and anything that wipes a tear from the face of man is good. Everything that gives laughter to the world—laughter springing from good nature, that is the most wonderful music that has ever enriched the ears of man. And let me say that nothing can be more immoral than to waste your own life, and sour that of others.

Is the theatre moral? I suppose you have had an election to-day. They had an election at the Metropolitan Opera House for bishops, and they voted forged tickets; and after the election was over, I suppose they asked the old question in the same solemn tone: "Is the theatre moral?"

At last, all the intelligence of the world admits that the theatre is a great, a splendid instrumentality for increasing the well-being of man. But only a few years ago our fathers were poor barbarians. They only wanted the essentials of life, and through nearly all the centuries Genius was a vagabond—Art was a servant. He was the companion of the clown. Writers, poets, actors, either sat "below the salt" or devoured the "remainder biscuit," and drank what drunkenness happened to leave, or lived on crumbs, and they had less than the crumbs of respect. The painter had to have a patron, and then in order to pay the patron, he took the patron's wife for Venus—and the man, he was the Apollo! So the writer had to have a patron, and he endeavored to immortalize him in a preface of obsequious lies. The writer had no courage. The painter, the sculptor—poor wretches—had "patrons." Some of the greatest of the world were treated as servants, and yet they were the real kings of the human race.

Now the public is the patron. The public has the intelligence to see what it wants. The stage does not have to flatter any man. The actor now does not enroll himself as the servant of duke or lord. He has the great public, and if he is a great actor, he stands as high in the public estimation as any other man in any other walk of life.

And these men of genius, these "vagabonds," these "sturdy vagrants" of the old law—and let me say one thing right here: I do not believe that there ever was a man of genius that had not a little touch of the vagabond in him somewhere—just a little touch of chaos—that is to say, he must have generosity enough now and then absolutely to forget himself—he must be generous to that degree that he starts out without thinking of the shore and without caring for the sea—and that is that touch of chaos. And yet, through all those years the poets and the actors lacked bread. Imagine the number of respectable dolts who felt above them. The men of genius lived on the bounty of the few, grudgingly given.