R,CHARD MONCKTON MILNES was born in the year - OUDL Home

184 Harley Granville-Barkerno interest in the art of the theatre for its own sake? Hadtwo movements of a Mozart quartet been snatched fromoblivion, how amateurs and critics would have descantedon them, studying every page, every bar! Yet h£re wasthe one piece of dramatic work done by a great man justdead, a master of character and wit, of prose and verse,and it was casually appraised at its mere entertainmentvalue. Did Meredith's ghost sit sardonically chucklingin the author's box, asking what the devil one had takenall the trouble for? Not displeased, though, to see thesefigures of his fancy brought to life, and in the glamour ofthe footlights! But he had said his say upon the matterlong before. We turn back to the essay:In all countries the middle class presents the public which,fighting the world, and with a good footing in the fight, knows theworld best....Of this class in England, a large body, neither Puritan norBacchanalian, have a sentimental objection to face the study ofthe actual world. They take up disdain of it, when its truths appearhumiliating: when the facts are not immediately forced on them,they take up the pride of incredulity. They live in a hazy atmospherethat they suppose an ideal one... .Philosopher and Comicpoet are of a cousinship in the eye they cast on life: and they areequally unpopular with our wilful English of the hazy region andthe ideal that is not to be disturbedThus, for want of instruction in the Comic idea, we lose a largeaudience among our cultivated middle class that we should expectto support Comedy, the sentimentalist is as averse as the Puritanand as the Bacchanalian.There was the very theme of the comedy he began towrite, there was the reason that he never troubled tofinish it; there, in the theatre for a few nights, thirtyyears or so later, sat the cultivated middle class—respectfully bored, most of them, doubtless.Our traditions are unfortunate indeed if we cannotbring some imagination to the making of this morsel ofgenius (for it is nothing less) complete enough for enjoyment.Have we not humour enough to see the humour