gious that the individual was nothing before
it--a prompt and easy sacrifice. It made our friend uncomfortable, as he
had been made uncomfortable by certain _feuilletons_, reviews of the
theatres in the Paris newspapers, which he was committed to thinking
important but of which, when they were very good, he was rather ashamed.
When they were very good, that is when they were very thorough, they
were very personal, as was inevitable in dealing with the most personal
of the arts: they went into details; they put the dots on the _i_'s;
they discussed impartially the qualities of appearance, the physical
gifts of the poor aspirant, finding them in some cases reprehensibly
inadequate Peter could never rid himself of a dislike to these
pronouncements; in the case of the actresses especially they struck him
as brutal and offensive--unmanly as launched by an ensconced,
moustachioed critic over a cigar. At the same time he was aware of the
dilemma (he hated it; it made him blush still more) in which his
objection lodged him. If one was right in caring for the actor's art one
ought to have been interested in every honest judgement of it, which,
given the peculiar conditions, would be useful in proportion as it
should be free. If the criticism that recognised frankly these
conditions seemed an inferior or an unholy thing, then what was to be
said for the art itself? What an implication, if the criticism was
tolerable only so long as it was worthless--so long as it remained vague
and timid! This was a knot Peter had never straightened out: he
contented himself with feeling that there was no reason a theatrical
critic shouldn't be a gentleman, at the same time that he often dubbed
it an odious trade, which no gentleman could possibly follow. The best
of the fraternity, so conspicuous in Paris, were those who didn't follow
it--those who, while pretending to write about the stage, wrote about
everything else.

It was as if Madame Carre, in pursuance of her inflamed sense that the
art was everything and the individual nothing save as he happened to
serve it, had said: "Well, if she _will_ have it she shall; she shall
know what she's in for, what I went through, battered and broken in as
we all have been--all who are worthy, who have had the honour. She shall
know the real point of view." It was as if she were still beset with
Mrs. Rooth's twaddle and muddle, her hypocrisy, her idiotic
scruples--something she felt all need to belabour,