Page:Life of Thomas Hardy - Brennecke.pdf/35

 And what of you, with this impression freshly added to those you brought along with you? Well—the critics who immediately disappear Londonwards, back to the fashionable oriental glitter of Flecker's Hassan (only the faithful Clement Shorter remains for a second performance), will not be slow to point out, rightly, that here was given no great sweep of emotion such as a reading of The Dynasts gives, no thrill like the melodramatic thrill of The Return of the Native, or of Tess, or of Jude.

Superficial explanations of this are of course not lacking. You have learned to expect the superhuman from Hardy. And here was an amateur performance, no better, no more skilful than the usual, apart from the merits of the tragedy itself. The mind of the audience has been continually distracted by the creaking and the groaning of the stage-machinery: the audible promptings, the ill-fitting costumes with unsightly bumps on tighted male knees, the mumbled delivery of the lines, the total lack of fire and passion, the unintelligibility of the chorus's declamations, the stiff and unreal attitudes and gestures, the bad imitations of "acting." Here was neither the charming naivete of the Irish Players, nor the practiced, polished emotion of the great metropolitan actors.

Yet you soon find compensations. If the mummers had only "mummed" the piece, and not tried to "produce" it after the manner of the late Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree! That they were admirably fitted and experienced for "mumming" they immediately proceed to demonstrate in the two delicious old bits which follow. They are in their element: O Jan! O Jan! O Jan! It proves to be a variation on The Keys to Heaven, written