as set forth in the play-book, proved to be not
worthy of the
scenes and characters: what fable would not? Such passages as:
"Scene 6. The Hermitage. Night set scene. Place back of scene 1,
No. 2, at back of stage and
hermitage, Fig. 2, out of set piece, R.
H. in a slanting direction" - such passages, I say, though very
practical, are hardly to be called good
reading. Indeed, as
literature, these dramas did not much
appeal to me. I forget the
very
outline of the plots. Of THE BLIND BOY, beyond the fact that
he was a most injured
prince and once, I think, abducted, I know
nothing. And THE OLD OAK CHEST, what was it all about? that
proscript (1st dress), that
prodigious number of banditti, that old
woman with the broom, and the
magnificent kitchen in the third act
(was it in the third?) - they are all fallen in a deliquium, swim
faintly in my brain, and mix and vanish.
I cannot deny that joy attended the
illumination; nor can I quite
forget that child who, wilfully
foregoing pleasure, stoops to
"twopence coloured." With
crimson lake (hark to the sound of it -
crimson lake! - the horns of elf-land are not richer on the ear) -
with
crimson lake and Prussian blue a certain
purple is to be
compounded which, for cloaks especially, Titian could not equal.
The latter colour with gamboge, a hated name although an exquisite
pigment, supplied a green of such a savoury greenness that to-day
my heart regrets it. Nor can I recall without a tender weakness
the very
aspect of the water where I dipped my brush. Yes, there
was pleasure in the
painting. But when all was painted, it is
needless to deny it, all was spoiled. You might, indeed, set up a
scene or two to look at; but to cut the figures out was simply
sacrilege; nor could any child twice court the tedium, the worry,
and the long-drawn disenchantment of an
actualperformance. Two
days after the purchase the honey had been sucked. Parents used to
complain; they thought I wearied of my play. It was not so: no
more than a person can be said to have wearied of his dinner when
he leaves the bones and dishes; I had got the
marrow of it and said
grace.
Then was the time to turn to the back of the play-book and to study
that enticing double file of names, where
poetry, for the true
child of Skelt, reigned happy and
glorious like her Majesty the
Queen. Much as I have travelled in these realms of gold, I have
yet seen, upon that map or
abstract, names of El Dorados that still
haunt the ear of memory, and are still but names. THE FLOATING
BEACON - why was that denied me? or THE WRECK ASHORE? SIXTEEN-
STRING JACK whom I did not even guess to be a highwayman, troubled
me awake and
haunted my slumbers; and there is one
sequence of
three from that enchanted calender that I still at times recall,
like a loved verse of
poetry: LODOISKA, SILVER PALACE, ECHO OF
WESTMINSTER BRIDGE. Names, bare names, are surely more to children
than we poor,
grown-up, obliterated fools remember.
The name of Skelt itself has always seemed a part and
parcel of the
charm of his productions. It may be different with the rose, but
the
attraction of this paper drama sensibly declined when Webb had
crept into the rubric: a poor
cuckoo, flaunting in Skelt's nest.
And now we have reached Pollock, sounding deeper gulfs. Indeed,
this name of Skelt appears so stagey and piratic, that I will adopt
it
boldly to design these qualities. Skeltery, then, is a quality
of much art. It is even to be found, with
reverence be it said,
among the works of nature. The stagey is its generic name; but it
is an old, insular, home-bred staginess; not French, domestically
British; not of to-day, but smacking of O. Smith, Fitzball, and the
great age of melodrama: a
peculiarfragrance haunting it; uttering
its
unimportant message in a tone of voice that has the charm of
fresh
antiquity. I will not insist upon the art of Skelt's
purveyors. These wonderful characters that once so thrilled our
soul with their bold attitude, array of
deadly engines and
incomparable
costume, to-day look somewhat pallidly; the
extreme