Ellen Terry and Her Sisters

by T. Edgar Pemberton

"Dramatic authorship," he says, "is to the profession of literature as reversing is to waltzing—an agony within a misery. A man who means to be a dramatist must be prepared for a life of never-ending strife and fret—a brain and heart-exhausting struggle from the hour when, full of hope, he starts off with his first farce in his pocket to the days when, involuntarily taking the advice of one of the early masters of his own craft—to wit, old rare Ben Jonson—he leaves 'the loathed stage and the more loathsome age.'"

And again, this anonymous but evidently experienced writer (I quote from him freely) declares that any dramatist could tales unfold of disappointments and delays, of hopes deferred, of chances dashed from the grasp at the very moment they seemed clutched, of weary waitings rewarded by failure, of enterprise and effort leading only to defeat, of hard work winning only loss. It has been suggested, too, in this connection, that any one sufficiently interested in such matters should make a list of the plays that in "preliminary paragraphs" are spoken of as "about to be produced," and which are never heard of again,—and that it should then be remembered that each of these unborn plays represents a very heavy heart being carried about for many a long day under somebody or other's waistcoat,—and means that somebody or other feels very sick and hopeless as he moves about his little world, trying to appear careless and to laugh it off,—that somebody or other grows very tired and weary of the struggle, and almost wishes now and then that it was over.

But to the young playgoer who sits in front these troubles are unknown, and to him the theatre may well appear as the realisation of Fairyland, and a veritable Palace of Fancy.

I believe there is another reason why men, if they would own it, have come to be grateful to the stage. Has it not to many been the scene in which they have first learned what it is to love? They may never have spoken to the divinities who inspired their boyish ardour, but they have been better and purer for it, and cherish the sweet recollection of it to their old age.

Cannot we all enter into the feelings of young virgin-hearted Arthur Pendennis when he first saw the lovely Miss Fotheringay on the boards? Cannot we all understand how he followed the woman about and about, and when she was off the stage the house became a blank? and how, when the play was over, the curtain fell upon him like a pall? Poor Pendennis! He hardly knew what he felt that night. "It was something overwhelming, maddening, delicious; a fever of wild joy and undefined longing."

And then how he woke the next morning, when, at an early hour, the rooks began to caw from the little wood beyond his bedroom windows; and at that very instant, and as his eyes started open, the beloved image was in his mind. "My dear boy," he heard her say, "you were in a sound sleep, and I would not disturb you: but I have been close by your pillow all this while; and I don't intend that you shall leave me. I am Love! I bring with me fever and passion; wild longing, maddening desire; restless craving and seeking. Many a long day ere this I heard you calling out for me; and behold now I am come."

Yes, I am convinced that most of us have felt, rejoiced, and suffered as Arthur Pendennis did, and that we first caught the fever from the footlights. The attack may have been acute, and, in its apparent hopelessness, painful. But recovery brought with it the sweet knowledge that we had been permitted to understand the meaning of Heaven's greatest gift to mankind—Love.

I know that there are many who only go to the theatre to carp and cavil, and impotently point out that if the management of the playhouse and the acting of all the parts had been placed in their hands a much better performance would have been provided; but I believe that even these would love to recall the dreamy illusions of their youth. Perhaps, in the hours of their solitude (and silence!), they do so. Why, in their soured maturity, these unhappy, self-imposed, and absolutely unconvincing critics go to the theatre to be (on their own declaration) bored and disgusted is to me a mystery. It is all the more a mystery when I know that they can thoroughly enjoy a variety hall.

Of course, everything depends on the spirit in which we go to the theatre.

Do you remember the difference of opinion expressed between Steerforth and David Copperfield on the night when they renewed the acquaintance of their boyhood at the Golden Cross Hotel? David had been to Covent Garden Theatre, and had there seen "Julius Cæsar." "To have," he says, "all those noble Romans alive before me, and walking in and out for my entertainment, instead of being the stern task-masters they had been at school, was a most novel and delightful effect. But the mingled reality and mystery of the whole show, the influence upon me of the poetry, the lights, the music, the company; the smooth, stupendous changes of glittering and brilliant scenery were so dazzling, and opened up such illimitable regions of delight, that when I came out into the rainy street I felt as if I had come from the clouds, where I had been leading a romantic life for ages, to a bawling, splashing, link-lighted, umbrella-struggling, hackney-coach jostling, patten-clicking, muddy, miserable world."