“Did
you ever make real life into a drama?” said the Earl.
“Now just try. I’ve often amused myself that way. Consider
this platform as our stage. Good entrances and exits on both
sides, you see. Capital background scene: real engine moving up
and down. All this bustle, and people passing to and fro, must have
been most carefully rehearsed! How naturally they do it! With never
a glance at the audience! And every grouping is quite fresh, you
see. No repetition!”
It really
was admirable, as soon as I began to enter into it from this point
of view. Even a porter passing, with a barrow piled with luggage,
seemed so realistic that one was tempted to applaud. He was followed
by an angry mother, with hot red face, dragging along two screaming
children, and calling, to some one behind, “John! Come on!”
Enter John, very meek, very silent, and loaded with parcels. And
he was followed, in his turn, by a frightened little nursemaid,
carrying a fat baby, also screaming. All the children screamed.
“Capital
byplay!” said the old man aside. “Did you notice the nursemaid’s
look of terror? It was simply perfect!”
“You
have struck quite a new vein,” I said. “To most of us
Life and its pleasures seem like a mine that is nearly worked out.”
“Worked
out!” exclaimed the Earl. “For any one with true dramatic
instincts, it is only the Overture that is ended! The real treat
has yet to begin. You go to a theatre, and pay your ten shillings
for a stall, and what do you get for your money? Perhaps it’s
a dialogue between a couple of farmers--unnatural in their overdone
caricature of farmers’ dress---more unnatural in their constrained
attitudes and gestures--most unnatural in their attempts at ease
and geniality in their talk. Go instead and take a seat in a third-class
railway-carriage, and you’ll get the same dialogue done to
the life! Front-seats--no orchestra to block the view--and
nothing to pay!”
Table
of Contents "Algorithmic Art & A.I."