606 Hon. Maurice Baring [June 2. 



is to say, are always prone to despise a gold-fish because it is gola 

 and looks pretty, and they are sometimes inclined to patronise tunes 

 if they are gay, light and joyous. Anything in art that is ponderous, 

 serious, complicated and unintelligible is at once respected ; but if a 

 tune is gay and easy, a poem rhythmical and well rhymed, a picture 

 pleasantly coloured, with a subject that is perfectly plain, so that if it 

 represents a field, the field looks like a field, and not like the forty- 

 second proposition of Euclid, the serious are inclined to look at it 

 askance. I remember in 1914 some academicals wrote indignantly 

 to the newspapers, because " Tipperary " was a popular tune, and this 

 roused Dr. Ethel Smyth, a judge of tune if ever there was one, to 

 wrath ; and she wrote to say she was certain that the tune of 

 '* Tipperary " would have delighted Schubert. 



Some people will never forgive Sullivan for being popular, and 

 never admit that a tune which can be as infectious as small-pox in a 

 slum should be taken seriously. But the whole point of really great 

 art is that while it satisfies the critical it pleases the crowd, that 

 while children can enjoy it, it fills the accomplished craftsman with 

 despair at being unable to emulate it : Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, 

 Alice in Wonderland, Gray's Elegy, and The Midsummer Night's 

 Dream are instances in point. 



But there is no reason to be despondent. Gilbert and Sullivan's 

 operas, always popular, are now receiving the best kind of recogni- 

 tion, although there are still some dissentient voices and still some 

 implacable high-brows. And they are as popular with the young 

 generation as they were with the old. About this there is no possible 

 doubt whatever ; when they are given at the Universities now, they 

 are even more popular than lectures on relativity, and the under- 

 graduates crowd to them. About their popularity in London there 

 can be little doubt when people are ready to sit outside the theatre 

 for twenty- four hours to be present at the last performance of the 

 season. 



At the Prince's Theatre during the recent admirable revival of 

 the operas, there was something in the atmosphere of the theatre 

 which was different from that at all other theatres in London, except 

 the " Old Vic." You felt at once you were formiDg part of an 

 audience that definitely knew what they liked. They were there to 

 enjoy themselves, and they knew they ivould enjoy themselves. This 

 in itself is to some people unpardonable. 



The operas were enjoyed by the old who saw them through mists 

 of many memories, and who were not disappointed with their present- 

 day interpretation. They were enjoyed by the young, and they came 

 as a revelation to those who had never seen them before. Children 

 found in them the most magical of pantomimes ; politicians, the 

 keenest and the most actual of satires ; musicians, a treasure-house 

 of skill and invention ; writers and playwrights, an ideal of verbal 

 felicity and stage-craftsmanship, far beyond their reach. 



