considering the welfare of the dramatic artist. A few more words will convey all else that I am able to suggest.
We have been lately informed that the dramatic artists of all classes in Europe, constitute a population of tens of thousands;—a number large enough to render their welfare an important element in human happiness. Of the greater proportion the earnings are very small, and the rewards of their labour are very scanty. If they keep their morals, they suffer under the corrosions of poverty and humiliation; and if they succumb to temptation—in their case fearfully strong—their fate is, of course, worse. It seems to be commonly agreed, that the musical and the theatrical career is not a prosperous lot in life, except to the very few who attain the heights of the profession.
Their case, in regard to health and happiness, seems to be this.
Their nature is not the highest, to begin with. This is saying little; for how many in a nation could be pointed out as of the highest original quality? They have no desire of concentrated wisdom,—no craving for peace of mind arising from harmony of the faculties and affections. The highest moral condition,—that of habitual moderation, attained through a varied experience,—is not within their view. It does not come directly within the range of any art of expression, and it is therefore scarcely a part of human life to them. All else that is heroic, they can appreciate and adore. Their notion of life, however, is of an endless drama of passions and sentiments, interacting with events. They also commit themselves to a life from which tranquillity is excluded,—practically, if not theoretically; and thus they set out with a sacrifice of welfare of a grave character. They know that jealousies, mortifications, irritations of all sorts beset the career, and they must intend to put up with these miseries for the sake of art or ambition; for it is inconceivable that any man or woman can expect to be always superior to such trials.
They are under graver liabilities than these. It may be doubted whether any art of expression can be exclusively studied without destroying the simplicity and integrity of the mind in that particular direction. Without summoning as a witness the designer of patterns for the Coventry manufacturer who complained that he had got to see ribbons in everything,—in sunsets, in the sea waves, in the woods, and everywhere, we may refer to the landscape-painter’s phrase of “the innocent eye,”—the eye of unconscious spectators, who see colours as they appear to the general sense: whereas the painter sees them through a medium which affects his very perceptions. It is not a trifle to have exchanged the natural relish of a morning landscape, or a fair face, for a professional view of it: but the penalty becomes much graver when the art of expression relates to human character. The natural springs of action and emotion then become means of art, and simplicity and unconsciousness are lost. Leaving as a fair subject for opinion the quality of Mrs. Siddons’s act of running across the street when a child was run over, to study the countenance of the mother, in furtherance of her art, the fact remains that human feelings and fortunes, when once made an art-study by a fellow being, cease to be a ground of companionship and sympathy. The ordinary complaint is, that actors are affected, or formal, or self-conscious: but the full truth is, that they have forsworn the freemasonry of direct sympathy, and have compelled themselves to take life at second-hand, as it were. They have lost their direct grasp upon it. their direct apprehension of it. The case is clear enough in the instance of authors who have become bewitched by the theatre. There have been such in the last generation, and there are such in the present. The public cannot conceive the meaning of their delight in theatrical associations, and has no reason to be pleased with the effect on their mode of art. They are mannerists, in an extreme degree; and their pictures of life are, however able, only natural to their own manner. They are scenes beheld by lamplight, and commented on from the green-room point of view; and they bear no resemblance to the clear noon-day aspects of life presented by authors of parallel ability, who have never been bewitched by the theatre. Such is the difference between the dramatic artist’s and other men’s apprehension of the great phenomena of human existence. The consideration is a serious one. The question is, what had best be done.
The only recommendation that I know of is, to live as much like other people as possible, and to counteract to the utmost, by a homely method of life, the besetting danger of artificial habits of looking, moving, and speaking. To lend a hand as often as possible to the common business of life, to repress all indulgence in merely uttered sentiment, and to make such a home as must remove the egotism at least one degree from its centre, is good. To cultivate, in short, the reality of life, and to restrict profession and demonstration to the domain of art, is essential to the welfare of the artist in any department. If he is able to do this, and further to raise himself in fact above his ostensible position of dependence on the opinion of the public, he may keep his nature healthy, and his life satisfactory. Each kind of art has its high enjoyments: each its happy influences; each its lofty function. The drawback is, that so many have sunk under the peculiar liabilities, living irksome, or turbulent, or disreputable lives, and dying in a state of feebleness or disturbance. Happily, there have been robust, and self-respecting, and simpleminded, and generous, and amiable artists, as well as soldiers, or doctors, or divines, or merchants. Such men, in all callings, have secured their physical and moral health in the same way,—by harmon|ising their lives with the laws of Nature, precisely to the extent of that health.
A NIGHT ADVENTURE IN IRELAND.
BY A SOLDIER.
When our regiment was quartered in Ireland, some of my company were ordered to a town within five hours’ march of where we lay. My duty was to escort them there, and return by the evening train from a station a few miles from where my comrades were to be left.
