efforts, but that is partly because
they are creators, as well as executants. Certainly, the singer would
sing for pure pleasure in singing if stranded alone upon a desert
island, and marooned men would write books or music if they could, and
stranded painters would paint. Would an actor in the position of
Robinson Crusoe act to amuse himself--at least, would he do so before he
had his man Friday as an involuntary and perhaps ungratified spectator?

The hapless _piscator_--the word ceased to be pretentious after Walton's
use of it--refused to bait his hook again, and said, "I mean, what would
happen if there were none of you professional chaps who write criticisms
that nobody reads except the other dramatic critics?" To remark that if
only the critics read criticisms the suppression of criticism obviously
would be needless was an easy triumph, so he continued in a grumbling
way,

"What I mean is--suppose that after a play you merely gave some sort of
account of the plot and did not say whether the piece was good or bad,
or proper or shocking, or how it was acted, and so on, would it make
any difference? I mean," he added, hastily anticipating a question,
"would people go more or less to the theatre, or would the kind of plays
and acting change? I suppose it would make a little difference; would
the difference be great?"

The answer was "Yes."

After all, the public may award the farthings, but the critics are of
weight upon the question of fame; the crowd to some extent acts as jury,
the critics are judges; and to pursue the figure, whilst the verdicts
are of immediate influence, the judgments remain on record. In the
future it will often be difficult to find out what were the verdicts;
but there will be no doubt about the judgments. Moreover, whilst, as in
the law courts, the verdicts are often due to prejudice and to mere
temporary causes, the reasoned judgments, when and so far as reasonable,
are based on a firmer foundation.

Probably the theatres would suffer, since there would be less talk about
them. For the average Englishman is timid in opinion, and, unless
fortified by ideas gleaned from the papers, scamps his conversation on
topics concerning which opinions may be expressed. When he has exhausted
such subjects as the weather, his health, his private affairs and those
of his neighbours, he is accustomed to bestow upon his listeners, in a
distorted form, the opinions concerning books, plays, pictures, etc.