Joseph Conrad - "The Mirror of the Sea"

Richard Nixon - "State of the Union Addresses of Richard Nixon"

William Shakespeare - "The Tragedie of Cymbeline"

William Makepeace Thackeray - "Vanity Fair"

Table Talk, Essays on Men and Manners

W >> William Hazlitt >> Table Talk, Essays on Men and Manners




Mr. Canning somewhere lays it down as a rule, that corporate bodies are
necessarily correct and pure in their conduct, from the knowledge which
the individuals composing them have of one another, and the jealous
vigilance they exercise over each other's motives and characters;
whereas people collected into mobs are disorderly and unprincipled from
being utterly unknown and unaccountable to each other. This is a
curious _pass_ of wit. I differ with him in both parts of the dilemma.
To begin with the first, and to handle it somewhat cavalierly, according
to the model before us; we know, for instance, there is said to be
honour among thieves, but very little honesty towards others. Their
honour consists in the division of the booty, not in the mode of
acquiring it: they do not (often) betray one another, but they will
waylay a stranger, or knock out a traveller's brains: they may be
depended on in giving the alarm when any of their posts are in danger of
being surprised; and they will stand together for their ill-gotten gains
to the last drop of their blood. Yet they form a distinct society, and
are strictly responsible for their behaviour to one another and to their
leader. They are not a mob, but a _gang,_ completely in one another's
power and secrets. Their familiarity, however, with the proceedings of
the _corps_ does not lead them to expect or to exact from it a very high
standard of moral honesty; that is out of the question; but they are
sure to gain the good opinion of their fellows by committing all sorts
of depredations, fraud, and violence against the community at large. So
(not to speak it profanely) some of Mr. Croker's friends may be very
respectable people in their way--'all honourable men'--but their
respectability is confined within party limits; every one does not
sympathise in the integrity of their views; the understanding between
them and the public is not well defined or reciprocal. Or, suppose a
gang of pickpockets hustle a passenger in the street, and the mob set
upon them, and proceed to execute summary justice upon such as they can
lay hands on, am I to conclude that the rogues are in the right, because
theirs is a system of well-organised knavery, which they settled in the
morning, with their eyes one upon the other, and which they regularly
review at night, with a due estimate of each other's motives, character,
and conduct in the business; and that the honest men are in the wrong,
because they are a casual collection of unprejudiced, disinterested
individuals, taken at a venture from the mass of the people, acting
without concert or responsibility, on the spur of the occasion, and
giving way to their instantaneous impulses and honest anger? Mobs, in
fact, then, are almost always right in their feelings, and often in
their judgments, on this very account--that being utterly unknown to and
disconnected with each other, they have no point of union or principle
of co-operation between them, but the natural sense of justice
recognised by all persons in common. They appeal, at the first meeting,
not to certain symbols and watchwords privately agreed upon, like
Freemasons, but to the maxims and instincts proper to all the world.
They have no other clue to guide them to their object but either the
dictates of the heart or the universally understood sentiments of
society, neither of which are likely to be in the wrong. The flame
which bursts out and blazes from popular sympathy is made of honest but
homely materials. It is not kindled by sparks of wit or sophistry, nor
damped by the cold calculations of self-interest. The multitude may be
wantonly set on by others, as is too often the case, or be carried too
far in the impulse of rage and disappointment; but their resentment,
when they are left to themselves, is almost uniformly, in the first
instance, excited by some evident abuse and wrong; and the excesses into
which they run arise from that very want of foresight and regular system
which is a pledge of the uprightness and heartiness of their intentions.
In short, the only class of persons to whom the above courtly charge of
sinister and corrupt motives is not applicable is that body of
individuals which usually goes by the name of the _People!_



NOTES to ESSAY XI


[1] We sometimes see a whole playhouse in tears. But the audience at a
theatre, though a public assembly, are not a public body. They are not
Incorporated into a framework of exclusive, narrow-minded interests of
their own. Each individual looks out of his own insignificance at a
scene, _ideal_ perhaps, and foreign to himself, but true to nature;
friends, strangers, meet on the common ground of humanity, and the tears
that spring from their breasts are those which 'sacred pity has
engendered.' They are a mixed multitude melted Into sympathy by remote,
imaginary events, not a combination cemented by petty views, and sordid,
selfish prejudices.



ESSAY XII


WHETHER ACTORS OUGHT TO SIT IN THE BOXES?


I think not; and that for the following reasons, as well as I can give
them:--

Actors belong to the public: their persons are not their own property.
They exhibit themselves on the stage: that is enough, without displaying
themselves in the boxes of the theatre. I conceive that an actor, on
account of the very circumstances of his profession, ought to keep
himself as much incognito as possible. He plays a number of parts
disguised, transformed into them as much as he can 'by his so potent
art,' and he should not disturb this borrowed impression by unmasking
before company more than he can help. Let him go into the pit, if he
pleases, to see--not into the first circle, to be seen. He is seen
enough without that: he is the centre of an illusion that he is bound to
support, both, as it appears to me, by a certain self-respect which
should repel idle curiosity, and by a certain deference to the public,
in whom he has inspired certain prejudices which he is covenanted not to
break. He represents the majesty of successive kings; he takes the
responsibility of heroes and lovers on himself; the mantle of genius and
nature falls on his shoulders; we 'pile millions' of associations on
him, under which he should be 'buried quick,' and not perk out an
inauspicious face upon us, with a plain-cut coat, to say, 'What fools
you all were!--I am not Hamlet the Dane!'

It is very well and in strict propriety for Mr. Mathews, in his AT HOME,
after he has been imitating his inimitable Scotchwoman, to slip out as
quick as lightning, and appear in the side-box shaking hands with our
old friend Jack Bannister. It adds to our surprise at the versatility
of his changes of place and appearance, and he had been before us in his
own person during a great part of the evening. There was no harm
done--no imaginary spell broken--no discontinuity of thought or
sentiment. Mr. Mathews is himself (without offence be it spoken) both a
cleverer and more respectable man than many of the characters he
represents. Not so when

O'er the stage the Ghost of Hamlet stalks,
Othello rages, Desdemona mourns,
And poor Monimia pours her soul in love.

A different feeling then prevails:--close, close the scene upon them,
and never break that fine phantasmagoria of the brain. Or if it must be
done at all, let us choose some other time and place for it: let no one
wantonly dash the Cirecan cup from our lips, or dissolve the spirit of
enchantment in the very palace of enchantment. Go, Mr. -----, and sit
somewhere else! What a thing it is, for instance, for any part of an
actor's dress to come off unexpectedly while he is playing! What a
_cut_ it is upon himself and the audience! What an effort he has to
recover himself, and struggle through this exposure of the naked truth!
It has been considered as one of the triumphs of Garrick's tragic power,
that once, when he was playing Lear, his crown of straw came off, and
nobody laughed or took the least notice, so much had he identified
himself with the character. Was he, after this, to pay so little
respect to the feelings he had inspired, as to tear off his tattered
robes, and take the old crazed king with him to play the fool in the
boxes?

No; let him pass. Vex not his parting spirit,
Nor on the rack of this rough world
Stretch him out farther!

Some lady is said to have fallen in love with Garrick from being present
when he played the part of Romeo, on which he observed, that he would
undertake to cure her of her folly if she would only come and see him in
Abel Drugger. So the modern tragedian and fine gentleman, by appearing
to advantage, and conspicuously, _in propria persona,_ may easily cure
us of our predilection for all the principal characters he shines in.
'Sir! do you think Alexander looked o' this fashion in his lifetime, or
was perfumed so? Had Julius Caesar such a nose? or wore his frill as
you do? You have slain I don't know how many heroes "with a bare
bodkin," the gold pin in your shirt, and spoiled all the fine love
speeches you will ever make by picking your teeth with that inimitable
air!'

An actor, after having performed his part well, instead of courting
farther distinction, should affect obscurity, and 'steal most
guilty-like away,' conscious of admiration that he can support nowhere
but in his proper sphere, and jealous of his own and others' good
opinion of him, in proportion as he is a darling in the public eye. He
cannot avoid attracting disproportionate attention: why should he wish
to fix it on himself in a perfectly flat and insignificant part, viz.
his own character? It was a bad custom to bring authors on the stage to
crown them. _Omne Ignotum pro magnifico est._ Even professed critics,
I think, should be shy of putting themselves forward to applaud loudly:
any one in a crowd has 'a voice potential' as the press: it is either
committing their pretensions a little indiscreetly, or confirming their
own judgment by a clapping of hands. If you only go and give the cue
lustily, the house seems in wonderful accord with your opinions. An
actor, like a king, should only appear on state occasions. He loses
popularity by too much publicity; or, according to the proverb,
_familiarity breeds contempt._ Both characters personate a certain
abstract idea, are seen in a fictitious costume, and when they have
'shuffled off this more than mortal coil,' they had better keep out of
the way--the acts and sentiments emanating from themselves will not
carry on the illusion of our prepossessions. Ordinary transactions do
not give scope to grace and dignity like romantic situations or prepared
pageants, and the _little_ is apt to prevail over the _great,_ if we
come to count the instances.

The motto of a great actor should be _aut Caesar aut nihil._ I do not
see how with his crown, or plume of feathers, he can get through those
little box-doors without stooping and squeezing his artificial
importance to tatters. The entrance of the stage is arched so high
'that _players_ may get through, and keep their gorgeous turbans on,
without good-morrow to the gods!'

The top-tragedian of the day has too large and splendid a train
following him to have room for them in one of the dress-boxes. When he
appears there, it should be enlarged expressly for the occasion; for at
his heels march the figures, in full costume, of Cato, and Brutus, and
Cassius, and of him with the falcon eye, and Othello, and Lear, and
crook-backed Richard, and Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, and numbers more,
and demand entrance along with him, shadows to which he alone lends
bodily substance! 'The graves yawn and render up their dead to push us
from our stools.' There is a mighty bustle at the door, a gibbering and
squeaking in the lobbies. An actor's retinue is imperial, it presses
upon the imagination too much, and he should therefore slide unnoticed
into the pit. Authors, who are in a manner his makers and masters, sit
there contented--why should not he? 'He is used to show himself.'
That, then, is the very reason he should conceal his person at other
times. A habit of ostentation should not be reduced to a principle. If
I had seen the late Gentleman Lewis fluttering in a prominent situation
in the boxes, I should have been puzzled whether to think of him as the
Copper Captain, or as Bobadil, or Ranger, or Young Rapid, or Lord
Foppington, or fifty other whimsical characters; then I should have got
Munden and Quick and a parcel more of them in my head, till 'my brain
would have been like a smoke-jack': I should not have known what to make
of it; but if I had seen him in the pit, I should merely have eyed him
with respectful curiosity, and have told every one that that was
Gentleman Lewis. We should have concluded from the circumstance that he
was a modest, sensible man: we all knew beforehand that he could show
off whenever he pleased!

There is one class of performers that I think is quite exempt from the
foregoing reasoning, I mean _retired actors._ Come when they will and
where they will, they are welcome to their old friends. They have as
good a right to sit in the boxes as children at the holidays. But they
do not, somehow, come often. It is but a melancholy recollection with
them:--

Then sweet,
Now sad to think on!

Mrs. Garrick still goes often, and hears the applause of her husband
over again in the shouts of the pit. Had Mrs. Pritchard or Mrs. Clive
been living, I am afraid we should have seen little of them-it would
have been too _home_ a feeling with them. Mrs. Siddons seldom if ever
goes, and yet she is almost the only thing left worth seeing there. She
need not stay away on account of any theory that I can form. She is out
of the pale of all theories, and annihilates all rules. Wherever she
sits there is grace and grandeur, there is tragedy personified. Her
seat is the undivided throne of the Tragic Muse. She had no need of the
robes, the sweeping train, the ornaments of the stage; in herself she is
as great as any being she ever represented in the ripeness and plenitude
of her power! I should not, I confess, have had the same paramount
abstracted feeling at seeing John Kemble there, whom I venerate at a
distance, and should not have known whether he was playing off the great
man or the great actor:--

A little more than kin, and less than kind.

I know it may be said in answer to all this pretext of keeping the
character of the player inviolate, 'What is there more common, in fact,
than for the hero of a tragedy to speak the prologue, or than for the
heroine, who has been stabbed or poisoned, to revive, and come forward
laughing in the epilogue?' As to the epilogue, it is spoken to get rid
of the idea of the tragedy altogether, and to ward off the fury of the
pit, who may be bent on its damnation. The greatest incongruity you can
hit upon is, therefore, the most proper for this purpose. But I deny
that the hero of a tragedy, or the principal character in it, is ever
pitched upon to deliver the prologue. It is always, by prescription,
some walking shadow, some poor player, who cannot even spoil a part of
any consequence. Is there not Mr. Claremont always at hand for this
purpose, whom the late king pronounced three times to be 'a bad
actor'?[1] What is there in common between that accustomed wave of the
hand and the cocked hat under the arm, and any passion or person that
can be brought forward on the stage? It is not that we can be said to
acquire a prejudice against so harmless an actor as Mr. Claremont: we
are born with a prejudice against a speaker of prologues. It is an
innate idea: a natural instinct: there is a particular organ in the
brain provided for it. Do we not all hate a manager? It is not because
he is insolent or impertinent, or fond of making ridiculous speeches, or
a notorious puffer, or ignorant, or mean, or vain, but it is because we
see him in a coat, waistcoat, and breeches. The stage is the world of
fantasy: it is Queen Mab that has invited us to her revels there, and
all that have to do with it should wear motley!

Lastly, there are some actors by profession whose faces we like to see
in the boxes or anywhere else; but it is because they are no actors, but
rather gentlemen and scholars, and in their proper places in the boxes,
or wherever they are. Does not an actor himself, I would ask, feel
conscious and awkward in the boxes if he thinks that he is known? And
does he not sit there in spite of this uneasy feeling, and run the
gauntlet of impertinent looks and whispers, only to get a little
by-admiration, as he thinks? It is hardly to be supposed that he comes
to see the play--the show. He must have enough of plays and finery.
But he wants to see a favourite (perhaps a rival) actor in a striking
part. Then the place for him to do this is the pit. Painters, I know,
always get as close up to a picture they want to copy as they can; and I
should imagine actors would want to do the same, in order to look into
the texture and mechanism of their art. Even theatrical critics can
make nothing of a part that they see from the boxes. If you sit in the
stage-box, your attention is drawn off by the company and other
circumstances. If you get to a distance (so as to be out of the reach
of notice) you can neither hear nor see well. For myself, I would as
soon take a seat on the top of the Monument to give an account of a
first appearance, as go into the second or third tier of boxes to do it.
I went, but the other day, with a box-ticket to see Miss Fanny Brunton
come out in Juliet, and Mr. Macready make a first appearance in Romeo;
and though I was told (by a tolerable judge) that the new Juliet was the
most elegant figure on the stage, and that Mr. Macready's Romeo was
quite beautiful, I vow to God I knew nothing of it. So little could I
tell of the matter that at one time I mistook Mr. Horrebow for Mr.
Abbott. I have seen Mr. Kean play Sir Giles Overreach one night from
the front of the pit, and a few nights after from the front boxes facing
the stage. It was another thing altogether. That which had been so
lately nothing but flesh and blood, a living fibre, 'instinct with fire'
and spirit, was no better than a little fantoccini figure, darting
backwards and forwards on the stage, starting, screaming, and playing a
number of fantastic tricks before the audience. I could account, in the
latter instance, for the little approbation of the performance
manifested around me, and also for the general scepticism with respect
to Mr. Kean's acting, which has been said to prevail among those who
cannot condescend to go into the pit, and have not interest in the
orchestra--to see him act. They may, then, stay away altogether. His
face is the running comment on his acting, which reconciles the audience
to it. Without that index to his mind, you are not prepared for the
vehemence and suddenness of his gestures; his pauses are long, abrupt,
and unaccountable, if not filled up by the expression; it is in the
working of his face that you see the writhing and coiling up of the
passions before they make their serpent-spring; the lightning of his eye
precedes the hoarse burst of thunder from his voice.

One may go into the boxes, indeed, and criticise acting and actors with
Sterne's stop-watch, but not otherwise--'"And between the nominative
case and the verb (which, as your lordship knows, should agree together
in number, person, etc.) there was a full pause of a second and
two-thirds."--"But was the eye silent--did the look say nothing?" "I
looked only at the stop-watch, my lord."--"Excellent critic!"'--If any
other actor, indeed, goes to see Mr. Kean act, with a view _to avoid
imitation,_ this may be the place, or rather it is the way to run into
it, for you see only his extravagances and defects, which are the most
easily carried away. Mr. Mathews may translate him into an AT HOME even
from the _slips!_--Distinguished actors, then, ought, I conceive, to set
the example of going into the pit, were it only for their own sakes. I
remember a trifling circumstance, which I worked up at the time into a
confirmation of this theory of mine, engrafted on old prejudice and
tradition.[2] I had got into the middle of the pit, at considerable
risk of broken bones, to see Mr. Kean in one of his early parts, when I
perceived two young men seated a little behind me, with a certain space
left round them. They were dressed in the height of the fashion, in
light drab-coloured greatcoats, and with their shirt-sleeves drawn down
over their hands, at a time when this was not so common as it has since
become. I took them for younger sons of some old family at least. One
of them, that was very good-looking, I thought might be Lord Byron, and
his companion might be Mr. Hobhouse. They seemed to have wandered from
another sphere of this our planet to witness a masterly performance to
the utmost advantage. This stamped the thing. They were, undoubtedly,
young men of rank and fashion; but their taste was greater than their
regard for appearances. The pit was, after all, the true resort of
thoroughbred critics and amateurs. When there was anything worth
seeing, this was the place; and I began to feel a sort of reflected
importance in the consciousness that I also was a critic. Nobody sat
near them--it would have seemed like an intrusion. Not a syllable was
uttered.--They were two clerks in the Victualling Office!

What I would insist on, then, is this--that for Mr. Kean, or Mr. Young,
or Mr. Macready, or any of those that are 'cried out upon in the top of
the compass' to obtrude themselves voluntarily or ostentatiously upon
our notice, when they are out of character, is a solecism in
theatricals. For them to thrust themselves forward before the scenes,
is to drag us behind them against our will, than which nothing can be
more fatal to a true passion for the stage, and which is a privilege
that should be kept sacred for impertinent curiosity. Oh! while I live,
let me not be admitted (under special favour) to an actor's
dressing-room. Let me not see how Cato painted, or how Caesar combed!
Let me not meet the prompt-boys in the passage, nor see the half-lighted
candles stuck against the bare walls, nor hear the creaking of machines,
or the fiddlers laughing; nor see a Columbine practising a pirouette in
sober sadness, nor Mr. Grimaldi's face drop from mirth to sudden
melancholy as he passes the side-scene, as if a shadow crossed it, nor
witness the long-chinned generation of the pantomime sit twirling their
thumbs, nor overlook the fellow who holds the candle for the moon in the
scene between Lorenzo and Jessica! Spare me this insight into secrets I
am not bound to know. The stage is not a mistress that we are sworn to
undress. Why should we look behind the glass of fashion? Why should we
prick the bubble that reflects the world, and turn it to a little soap
and water? Trust a little to first appearances--leave something to
fancy. I observe that the great puppets of the real stage, who
themselves play a grand part, like to get into the boxes over the stage;
where they see nothing from the proper point of view, but peep and pry
into what is going on like a magpie looking into a marrow-bone. This is
just like them. So they look down upon human life, of which they are
ignorant. They see the exits and entrances of the players, something
that they suspect is meant to be kept from them (for they think they are
always liable to be imposed upon): the petty pageant of an hour ends
with each scene long before the catastrophe, and the tragedy of life is
turned to farce under their eyes. These people laugh loud at a
pantomime, and are delighted with clowns and pantaloons. They pay no
attention to anything else. The stage-boxes exist in contempt of the
stage and common sense. The private boxes, on the contrary, should be
reserved as the receptacle for the officers of state and great
diplomatic characters, who wish to avoid, rather than court popular
notice!



NOTES to ESSAY XII


[1] Mr. Munden and Mr. Claremont went one Sunday to Windsor to see the
king. They passed with other spectators once or twice: at last, his
late majesty distinguished Munden in the crowd and called him to him.
After treating him with much cordial familiarity, the king said, 'And,
pray, who is that with you?' Munden, with many congees, and contortions
of face, replied, 'An please your majesty, it's Mr. Claremont of the
Theatre Royal Drury Lane.' 'Oh! yes,' said the king, 'I know him
well--a bad actor, a bad actor, a bad actor!' Why kings should repeat
what they say three times is odd: their saying it once is quite enough.
I have always liked Mr. Claremont's face since I heard this anecdote,
and perhaps the telling it may have the same effect on other people.

[2] The trunk-maker, I grant, in the _Spectator's_ time, sat in the
two-shilling gallery. But that was in the _Spectator's_ time, and not
in the days of Mr. Smirke and Mr. Wyatt.

Copyright (c) 2007. topbookz.net. All rights reserved.