though its worth,like that of all interpretative arts,is lessened by its evanescence.For it works in the impermanent medium of human flesh and blood,and the thing that the actor create—for what we call an interpretative artist is really a creative artist working in a perishable medium—is an impression upon,an emotion or a thought aroused in,the minds of an audience,and is incapable of record.Acting,then,let me postulate—though I have only sketched ever so briefly the proof of my belief—can be a great art.But is anyone ever deterred from taking part in amateur theatricals by the consideration that he cannot act well?Not a bit of it!And quite rightly not,for acting is one of the things about which I am writing this essay—the things that are worth doing badly.Another such thing is music;but here the proverbial fallacy again exerts its power,as it does not,for some obscure and unreasoning discrimination,in acting.Most people seem to think that if they cannot sing,or play the piano,fiddle,or sackbut,admirably well,they must not do any of these things at all.That they should not indiscriminately force their inferior performances upon the public,or even upon their acquaintances
,I admit.
But that there is no place“in the home”for inferior musical performances,is an untruth that I flatly deny.How many sons and daughters have not,with a very small talent,given their parents—and even the less fondly prejudiced ears of their friends—great pleasure with the singing of simple songs?Then one day there comes to the singer the serpent of dissatisfaction;singing lessons are taken,and—if the pupil is of moderate talent and modest disposition—limitations are discovered.And then,in nine cases out of ten,the singing is dropped,like a hot penny.How many fathers have not banished music from their homes by encouraging their daughters to take singing lessons?Yet a home may be the fresher for singing that would deserve brickbats at a parish concert.
I may pause here to notice the curious exception that people who cannot on any account be persuaded to sing in the drawing-room,or even in the bath,will without hesitation uplift their tuneless voices at religious meetings or in church.There is a perfectly good and honorable explanation of this,I believe,but it belongs to the realm of metaphysics and is beyond my present scope.This cursed belief,that if a thing is worth doing at all,it is worth doing well,is the cause of a great impoverishment in our private life,and also,to some extent,of the lowering of standards in our public life.For this tenet of proverbial faith has two effects on small talents:It leads modest persons not to exercise them at all,and immodest persons to attempt to do so too much and to force themselves upon the public.It leads to the decay of letter-writing and of the keeping of diaries,and,as surely,it leads to the publication of memoirs and diaries that should remain locked in the writers’desks.It leads Mr.Blank not to write verses at all—which he might very well do,for the sake of his own happiness,and for the amusement of his friends—and it leads Miss Dash to pester the overworked editors of various journals with her unsuccessful imitations of Mr.de la Mare,Mr.Yeats,and Dr.Bridges.
The result is that our national artistic life now suffers from two great needs:A wider amateur practice of the arts,and a higher,more exclusive,professional standard.Until these are achieved we shall not get the best out of our souls.The truth is,I conceive,that there is for most of us only one thing—beyond,of course,our duties of citizenship and our personal duties as sons,or husbands,or fathers,daughters,or wives,or mothers—that is worth doing well—that is to say,with all our energy.That one thing may be writing,or it may be making steam-engines,or laying bricks.But after that there are hundreds of things that are worth doing badly,with only part of our energy,for the sake of the relaxation they bring us,and for the contacts which they give us with our minds.And the sooner England realizes this,as once she did,the happier,the more contented,the more gracious,will our land be.There are even,I maintain,things that are in themselves better done badly than well.Consider fishing,where one’s whole pleasure is often spoiled by having to kill a fish.Now,if one could contrive always to try to catch a fish,and never to do so,one might—But that is another story.
