they were given a formula for knowledge; a language that sounded very knowing, expert and assured, and yet that knew nothing, was experienced in nothing, was sure of nothing. It gave to people without talent and without sincerity of soul or integrity of purpose, with nothing, in fact, except a feeble incapacity for the shock and agony of life, and a desire to escape into a glamorous and unreal world of make-believe—a justification for their pitiable and base existence. It gave to people who had no power in themselves to create anything of merit or of beauty—people who were the true Philistines and enemies of art and of the artist’s living spirit—the language to talk with glib knowingness of things they knew nothing of—to prate of “settings,” “tempo,” “pace,” and “rhythm,” of “boldly stylized conventions,” and the wonderful way some actress “used her hands.” And in the end, it led to nothing but falseness and triviality, to the ghosts of passion, and the spectres of sincerity, to the shoddy appearances of conviction and belief in people who had no passion and sincerity, and who were convinced of nothing, believed in nothing, were just the disloyal apes of fashion and the arts.
“I think you ought to go,” says one. “I really do. I really think you might be interested.”
“Yes,” says number two, in a tone of fine, puzzled, eyebrow-lifting protest, “but I hear the play is pretty bad. The reviews were rather awful—they really were, you know.”
“Oh, the play!” the other says, with a slight start of surprise, as if it never occurred to him that anyone might be interested in the play—“the play, the play is rather terrible. But, my dear fellow, no one goes to see the play… the play is nothing,” he dismisses it with a contemptuous gesture—“It’s the sets!” he cries—“the sets are really quite remarkable. You ought to go, old boy, just to see the sets! They’re very good—they really are.”
“H’m!” the other says, stroking his chin in an impressed manner. “Interesting! In that case, I shall go!”
The sets! The sets! One should not go to see the play; the only thing that matters is the sets. And this is the theatre—the magic-maker and the world of dreams; and these the men that are to fashion for it—with their trivial ape’s talk about “sets.” Did anyone ever hear such damned stuff as this since time began?
False, trivial, glib, dishonest, empty, without substance, lacking faith—is it any wonder that among Professor Hatcher’s young men few birds sang?
