.]

ARTHUR WING PINERO

THE DRAMA

[Speech of Arthur Wing Pinero at the annual banquet of the Royal
Academy, London, May 4, 1895. The toast to the "Drama" was coupled
with that to "Music," to which Sir Alexander Mackenzie responded.
Sir John Millais in proposing the toast said: "I have already
spoken for both music and the drama with my brush. ["Hear! Hear!"]
I have painted Sterndale Bennett, Arthur Sullivan, Irving, and
Hare."]

YOUR ROYAL HIGHNESS, MY LORDS, AND GENTLEMEN:--There ought to
be at least one strong link of sympathy between certain painters and
certain dramatists, for in the craft of painting as in that of
play-writing, popular success is not always held to be quite creditable.
Not very long ago I met at an exhibition of pictures a friend whose
business it is to comment in the public journals upon painting and the
drama. The exhibition was composed of the works of two artists, and I
found myself in one room praising the pictures of the man who was
exhibiting in the other. My friend promptly took me to task. "Surely,"
said he, "you noticed that two-thirds of the works in the next room are
already sold?" I admitted having observed that many of the pictures were
so ticketed. My friend shrugged his shoulders. "But," said I, anxiously,
"do you really regard that circumstance as reflecting disparagingly upon
the man's work in the next room?" His reply was: "Good work rarely
sells." [Laughter.] My lords and gentlemen, if the dictum laid down by
my friend be a sound one, I am placed to-night in a situation of some
embarrassment. For, in representing, as you honor me, by giving me leave
to do, my brother dramatists, I confess I am not in the position to deny
that their wares frequently "sell." [Laughter.] I might, of course,
artfully plead in extenuation of this condition of affairs that success
in such a shape is the very last reward the dramatist toils for, or
desires; that when the theatre in which his work is presented is
thronged nightly no one is more surprised, more abashed than himself;
that his modesty is so impenetrable, his artistic absorption so
profound, that the sound of the voices of public approbation reduces him
to a state of shame and dismay. [Laughter.] But did I advance this plea,
I think it would at once be found to be a very shallow plea. For in any
department of life, social, political, or artistic, nothing is more
difficult than to avoid incu