In an early chapter of this biography an analysis was given of the dramatic art considered in its psychological origin and in its personal uses for those who practise it. This was done that the reader might have in his mind the data requisite for forming an intelligent judgment on the life which was to be recorded and criticised in the succeeding chapters. But in order to appreciate the just moral rank and worth or the legitimate influences of such a life in its public sphere and aspects, it is necessary to understand something of the historic development and the social uses of the dramatic art,—its distinctive genius in contrast with the other liberal professions, and the natural effects on those who witness its exhibitions. The subject teems with matters of unsuspected importance, and its discussion will yield surprising revelations.
Before attempting to trace the rise of the Theatre and its struggle with its rivals, we must get an adequate idea of the essential substance of the art practised in the Theatre. For this purpose it will be necessary to approach the subject from a point of view different from those generally taken hitherto.
The practice of the dramatic art rests on the differences of men amidst their similarities. The whole intercourse of life really consists at bottom in a complex and subtile game of superiorities and inferiorities, full of tests and tricks, surprises, pains, and pleasures. Every one who has not been regenerated from the selfish heritage of history into a saintly disinterestedness is constantly impelled by a desire far deeper than his consciousness to wish to see others inferior to himself, to feel himself superior to others, and to get this relative estimate accepted in the imaginations of the bystanders. Human experience in society is a half-open and half-disguised battle for advantage and precedence, inward and outward, private and public, filled with attacks and defences, feints and traps, overtures and defiances, every conceivable sort of coarse or exquisite artifices for winning victories and inflicting defeats in the occult and endless game of personal comparisons.
All comparisons imply standards of judgment. There are eight of these standards,—four primary, and four secondary. The first of the primary standards of excellence by which we try ourselves and one another is bodily health, strength, grace, and beauty. The second is moral character, goodness of disposition, purity and nobility of motives. The third is genius and talent, brilliant powers of creative or beneficent action. The fourth is technical acquisitions, artificial learning and accomplishments, charm of manners, skill in doing attractive or important things. The first of the secondary standards by which men are estimated in society is hereditary rank or caste, birth, blood, and title. The second is official place and power, social position and influence. The third is reputation and fame. The fourth is wealth. All these standards, it will be observed, find their ultimate meaning and justification in the idea of adaptedness for the fulfilment of the ends of life. Good is the fruition of function. The highest personal beauty and genius imply the greatest fitness for the fulfilment of function. Wealth is a material means, fame an ideal means, for the fruition of life.
But obviously there are distinctions of grade and of authority among these standards, and he who ranks high when judged by one of them may rank low according to another. It is the continual subterfuge of self-love at the inner tribunal to evade the tests of the standards that are unfavorable to it, and to court comparison by those whose verdicts are surest to be flattering. On the contrary, in testing other people, the egotistic and ungenerous person instinctively applies the tests most likely to insure condemnation. This is the first vice of introspection and of mutual criticism.
The second evil is setting lower standards above higher ones, attributing more importance to apparent or conventional claims than to real and intrinsic merits. In all ignoble circles, among all men and women of low sensibility or of shallow routine, there is a steady tendency to estimate self and associates by factitious and hollow standards of good instead of the inherent and substantial standards. More deference is paid to dress and title than to form and bearing. Privileged descent and station are put before genius and worth. Deeds and deserts go to the wall in favor of shows and professions. Riches are esteemed above character. What others think of us is deemed of greater account than what God knows of us. This turning topsy-turvy of the standards for the judging of men is what fills the world with the confusion, wickedness, and misery of a rivalry that is as detestable as it is pernicious and sad.
No two men can be exactly alike. Inequality is the universal law of existence. Without it there would be an unbroken monotony and stagnation equivalent to death. It is the play of greater and lesser, fairer and homelier, wiser and foolisher, higher and lower, better and worse, richer and poorer, older and younger, that intersperses the spectacle of being and the drama of experience with the glimpsing bewitchments of surprise, the ravishing zest of pursuit and success, the everlasting freshness and variety of desire, change, suspense, risk, and adventure. The essential moral struggle for superiority, in which all men are forever engaged whether they know it or not, is the divine method of enchanting them with life and luring them forward. It would be an unmixed good, covering all intercourse with the charm of a theatrical beauty and spicing every day with the relish of a religious game, were it not for the predominant vices of fraud, envy, and tyranny surreptitiously introduced into the contest. Did all men regard their superiors with joyous reverence and aspiration, their equals with co-operative friendship, and their inferiors with respectful kindness and help, never of their own will raising the question as to who shall command or lead and who obey or follow, but leaving these points to be decided by the laws in the manifest fitness of things, the unlikenesses and inequalities which now set them at wretched odds would be the very conditions of their orchestral harmony and the chief elements of their converging delight. The general genius of the dramatic art, purified and perfected, tends directly to bring this about, while the special genius of each of the other liberal professions stands obstructively in the way. For the spirit of each of the other professional classes segregates it from general humanity into a privileged order whose members maintain its prerogatives by means of a necessary peculium for which their special interest makes them desire that the rest of the world shall depend exclusively on them. But the dramatic spirit freely enters the soul and lot of every condition of men for the sympathetic interpretation and intuitive feeling of their contents. The genuine temper of this art, separate from the depraved usages of society, would teach men to honor and copy those above, to love and blend with those around, and to example and help those beneath. Then the strong and cunning would no longer take selfish advantage of their power and hold the masses of mankind in subjection by the triple bond of interest, fraud, and fear. According to the principles of universal order, life would everywhere become a mutual partnership of teaching and blessing from above and learning and following from below, a spontaneous giving and taking of all good things in justice and love without violence and without money. Every one rendering his share of service in the co-operation of the whole, no portion would be victimized by the rest, but in the perfected equity and good will there would be abundant wealth for all and plenty of leisure for each.
There are certain select places or focal buildings in which all the secrets of human nature are revealed and the arts of power grasped. Each of these has become the centre of a profession which has employed the knowledge and skill given by its social position to secure certain advantages to its members and make the rest of mankind pay tribute to them in return for the benefits they claim to bestow or in acknowledgment of the authority they claim to possess. These are the ruling or leading classes of the world, in whose hands the keys of power are lodged. The advantages of their situation where all the secrets of experience are uncovered and all the arts of influence developed, their exemption from the hardships of physical drudgery, their varied training in mental accomplishments and cumulative inheritance of superiority, place the rest of mankind in subjection to them. Had they disinterestedly used their power to enlighten and free other men, to educate and enrich other men, the world would long since have been redeemed. They have used it to secure special advantages for themselves, making others their servants on whose uncompensated blood and sweat they live. Therefore the strife and crime and poverty and misery of the world continue.
All forms of experience are laid bare in the palace of the king. Every variety of character and of fortune is stripped of its disguises there; every mode of behavior, every rank of motives, exposed in its true signals. The lynx-eyed and selfish scrutiny which has its seat there utilizes this knowledge, and the rules and methods in which ages have generalized it, to endow the imperial profession with the peculiar attributes and treasures by which they govern. The true function of the king or other ruler is to represent the whole people with his superiority of position and endowment, to warn, guide, enlighten, and bless them, using all his privileges faithfully for their service. But the reverse of this has been his prevailing vice in all times. He has used his power for his own selfish luxury and the emoluments of his favorites, making government less a means of universal welfare and more a means of exalting the few at the cost of the many. The game of comparisons, instead of being made a divine play of variety and surprise in service and love, has been made a cruel engine for the oppression of the weak by the strong. The individual interest of the governing class has perverted its universal function into a personal privilege. The genius of the palace is selfish luxury in irresponsible power.
In the tent of the general the same revelation of the secrets of human nature is made as in the royal palace, and the skill in assuming authority and in controlling men thereby acquired is embodied in the military profession, which is always the right arm of the imperial profession. The genuine office of the martial profession is to raise the protecting and executive energy of a nation to its maximum by scientific precision of movement and unquestioning obedience to command. Its twofold vice has been the fostering of a love of war or reckless spirit of conquest, and the making of the officer a martinet and of the soldier a puppet utterly mindless of right or wrong in their blind obedience to orders. An army is a machine of destruction wielded by the most consummate art the world has yet known. When that absolute obedience and that perfect discipline and that matchless devotion become intelligent and free, and are directed to beneficent ends, they will redeem the world. But thus far the genius of the military headquarters is arbitrary power in automatic drill to avenge and to destroy.