They have an optimistic
phrase, those happy-go-lucky creatures of the footlights, when, on the
very day of production, nobody knows his words or his business, the scene
will not shape itself, and chaos is lord. "It will be all right at
night," they say. And we, who play our parts gropingly on this confused
and noisy scene, wondering what is the plot, and where is the manager,
and straining our ears for the prompter's whisper, can but echo with
another significance their cheery hope: "It will be all right at night."
Perhaps, when the long day's work has drawn to its end, and the curtain,
has fallen upon the plaudits and the hisses, we shall all sit down to
supper after the play, complimented by the Author, smiling at the
seriousness with which we took our roles of hero or villain, and glad to
be done with, the make-up and the paint. And in the music that shall
hover about our table, we may perhaps find a celestial restfulness,
compared to which the most exquisite orchestras of this earth shall sound
but as "tuning up."
III
ART IN ENGLAND
My friend the Apostle was in hot haste, and would not stay to be
contradicted. "Not going to-night!" he cried, in horror-struck accents.
"Why, to-night is the turning-point in the history of the British drama!
To-night is the test-battle of the old and the new; it is the shock of
schools, the clash of nature against convention.
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