The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll Volume VIII Part 32

His popularity rested upon his absolute integrity. He was not adapted for a leader, because he would yield nothing. He had no compromise in his nature. He went his own road and he would not turn aside for the sake of company. His individuality was too marked and his will too imperious to become a leader in a republic.

There is a great deal of individuality in this country, and a leader must not appear to govern and must not demand obedience. In the Senate he was a leader. He settled with no one.

_Question_. What essentially American idea does he stand for?

_Answer_. It is a favorite saying in this country that the people are sovereigns. Mr. Conkling felt this to be true, and he exercised what he believed to be his rights. He insisted upon the utmost freedom for himself. He settled with no one but himself. He stands for individuality--for the freedom of the citizen, the independence of the man. No lord, no duke, no king was ever prouder of his t.i.tle or his place than Mr. Conkling was of his position and his power. He was thoroughly American in every drop of his blood.

_Question_. What have you to say about his having died with sealed lips?

_Answer_. Mr. Conkling was too proud to show wounds. He did not tell his sorrows to the public. It seemed sufficient to him to know the facts himself. He seemed to have great confidence in time, and he had the patience to wait. Of course he could have told many things that would have shed light on many important events, but for my part I think he acted in the n.o.blest way.

He was a striking and original figure in our politics. He stood alone. I know of no one like him. He will be remembered as a fearless and incorruptible statesman, a great lawyer, a magnificent speaker, and an honest man.

--_The Herald_, New York, April 19, 1888.

THE CHURCH AND THE STAGE.

_Question_. I have come to talk with you a little about the drama.

Have you any decided opinions on that subject?

_Answer_. Nothing is more natural than imitation. The little child with her doll, telling it stories, putting words in its mouth, attributing to it the feelings of happiness and misery, is the simple tendency toward the drama. Little children always have plays, they imitate their parents, they put on the clothes of their elders, they have imaginary parties, carry on conversation with imaginary persons, have little dishes filled with imaginary food, pour tea and coffee out of invisible pots, receive callers, and repeat what they have heard their mothers say. This is simply the natural drama, an exercise of the imagination which always has been and which, probably, always will be, a source of great pleasure.

In the early days of the world nothing was more natural than for the people to re-enact the history of their country--to represent the great heroes, the great battles, and the most exciting scenes the history of which has been preserved by legend. I believe this tendency to re-enact, to bring before the eyes the great, the curious, and pathetic events of history, has been universal. All civilized nations have delighted in the theatre, and the greatest minds in many countries have been devoted to the drama, and, without doubt, the greatest man about whom we know anything devoted his life to the production of plays.

_Question_. I would like to ask you why, in your opinion as a student of history, has the Protestant Church always been so bitterly opposed to the theatre?

_Answer_. I believe the early Christians expected the destruction of the world. They had no idea of remaining here, in the then condition of things, but for a few days. They expected that Christ would come again, that the world would be purified by fire, that all the unbelievers would be burned up and that the earth would become a fit habitation for the followers of the Saviour.

Protestantism became as ascetic as the early Christians. It is hard to conceive of anybody believing in the "Five Points" of John Calvin going to any place of amus.e.m.e.nt. The creed of Protestantism made life infinitely sad and made man infinitely responsible.

According to this creed every man was liable at any moment to be summoned to eternal pain; the most devout Christian was not absolutely sure of salvation. This life was a probationary one. Everybody was considered as waiting on the dock of time, sitting on his trunk, expecting the s.h.i.+p that was to bear him to an eternity of good or evil--probably evil. They were in no state of mind to enjoy burlesque or comedy, and, so far as tragedy was concerned, their own lives and their own creeds were tragic beyond anything that could by any possibility happen in this world. A broken heart was nothing to be compared with a d.a.m.ned soul; the afflictions of a few years, with the flames of eternity. This, to say the least of it, accounts, in part, for the hatred that Protestantism always bore toward the stage. Of course, the churches have always regarded the theatre as a rival and have begrudged the money used to support the stage. You know that Macaulay said the Puritans objected to bear-baiting, not because they pitied the bears, but because they hated to see the people enjoy themselves. There is in this at least a little truth. Orthodox religion has always been and always will be the enemy of happiness. This world is not the place for enjoyment. This is the place to suffer. This is the place to practice self-denial, to wear crowns of thorns; the other world is the place for joy, provided you are fortunate enough to travel the narrow, gra.s.s-grown path. Of course, wicked people can be happy here. People who care nothing for the good of others, who live selfish and horrible lives, are supposed by Christians to enjoy themselves; consequently, they will be punished in another world.

But whoever carried the cross of decency, and whoever denied himself to that degree that he neither stole nor forged nor murdered, will be paid for this self-denial in another world. And whoever said that he preferred a prayer-meeting with five or six queer old men and two or three very aged women, with one or two candles, and who solemnly affirmed that he enjoyed that far more than he could a play of Shakespeare, was expected with much reason, I think, to be rewarded in another world.

_Question_. Do you think that church people were justified in their opposition to the drama in the days when Congreve, Wycherley and Ben Jonson were the popular favorites?

_Answer_. In that time there was a great deal of vulgarity in many of the plays. Many things were said on the stage that the people of this age would not care to hear, and there was not very often enough wit in the saying to redeem it. My princ.i.p.al objection to Congreve, Wycherley and most of their contemporaries is that the plays were exceedingly poor and had not much in them of real, sterling value. The Puritans, however, did not object on account of the vulgarity; that was not the honest objection. No play was ever put upon the English stage more vulgar then the "Table Talk"

of Martin Luther, and many sermons preached in that day were almost unrivaled for vulgarity. The worst pa.s.sages in the Old Testament were quoted with a kind of unction that showed a love for the vulgar. And, in my judgment, the worst plays were as good as the sermons, and the theatre of that time was better adapted to civilize mankind, to soften the human heart, and to make better men and better women, than the pulpit of that day. The actors, in my judgment, were better people than the preachers. They had in them more humanity, more real goodness and more appreciation of beauty, of tenderness, of generosity and of heroism. Probably no religion was ever more thoroughly hateful than Puritanism. But all religionists who believe in an eternity of pain would naturally be opposed to everything that makes this life better; and, as a matter of fact, orthodox churches have been the enemies of painting, of sculpture, of music and the drama.

_Question_. What, in your estimation, is the value of the drama as a factor in our social life at the present time?

_Answer_. I believe that the plays of Shakespeare are the most valuable things in the possession of the human race. No man can read and understand Shakespeare without being an intellectually developed man. If Shakespeare could be as widely circulated as the Bible--if all the Bible societies would break the plates they now have and print Shakespeare, and put Shakespeare in all the languages of the world, nothing would so raise the intellectual standard of mankind. Think of the different influence on men between reading Deuteronomy and "Hamlet" and "King Lear"; between studying Numbers and the "Midsummer Night's Dream"; between pondering over the murderous crimes and a.s.sa.s.sinations in Judges, and studying "The Tempest" or "As You Like It." Man advances as he develops intellectually. The church teaches obedience. The man who reads Shakespeare has his intellectual horizon enlarged. He begins to think for himself, and he enjoys living in a new world. The characters of Shakespeare become his acquaintances. He admires the heroes, the philosophers; he laughs with the clowns, and he almost adores the beautiful women, the pure, loving, and heroic women born of Shakespeare's heart and brain. The stage has amused and instructed the world. It had added to the happiness of mankind.

It has kept alive all arts. It is in partners.h.i.+p with all there is of beauty, of poetry, and expression. It goes hand in hand with music, with painting, with sculpture, with oratory, with philosophy, and history. The stage has humor. It abhors stupidity. It despises hypocrisy. It holds up to laughter the peculiarities, the idiosyncrasies, and the little insanities of mankind. It thrusts the spear of ridicule through the s.h.i.+eld of pretence. It laughs at the lugubrious and it has ever taught and will, in all probability, forever teach, that Man is more than a t.i.tle, and that human love laughs at all barriers, at all the prejudices of society and caste that tend to keep apart two loving hearts.

_Question_. What is your opinion of the progress of the drama in educating the artistic sense of the community as compared with the progress of the church as an educator of the moral sentiment?

_Answer_. Of course, the stage is not all good, nor is--and I say this with becoming modesty--the pulpit all bad. There have been bad actors and there have been good preachers. There has been no improvement in plays since Shakespeare wrote. There has been great improvement in theatres, and the tendency seems to me be toward higher artistic excellence in the presentation of plays. As we become slowly civilized we will constantly demand more artistic excellence. There will always be a cla.s.s satisfied with the lowest form of dramatic presentation, with coa.r.s.e wit, with stupid but apparent jokes, and there will always be a cla.s.s satisfied with almost anything; but the cla.s.s demanding the highest, the best, will constantly increase in numbers, and the other cla.s.ses will, in all probability, correspondingly decrease. The church has ceased to be an educator. In an artistic direction it never did anything except in architecture, and that ceased long ago. The followers of to-day are poor copyists. The church has been compelled to be a friend of, or rather to call in the a.s.sistance of, music. As a moral teacher, the church always has been and always will be a failure. The pulpit, to use the language of Frederick Dougla.s.s, has always "echoed the cry of the street." Take our own history.

The church was the friend of slavery. That inst.i.tution was defended in nearly every pulpit. The Bible was the auction-block on which the slave-mother stood while her child was sold from her arms.

The church, for hundreds of years, was the friend and defender of the slave-trade. I know of no crime that has not been defended by the church, in one form or another. The church is not a pioneer; it accepts a new truth, last of all, and only when denial has become useless. The church preaches the doctrine of forgiveness. This doctrine sells crime on credit. The idea that there is a G.o.d who rewards and punishes, and who can reward, if he so wishes, the meanest and vilest of the human race, so that he will be eternally happy, and can punish the best of the human race, so that he will be eternally miserable, is subversive of all morality. Happiness ought to be the result of good actions. Happiness ought to spring from the seed a man sows himself. It ought not to be a reward, it ought to be a consequence, and there ought to be no idea that there is any being who can step between action and consequence. To preach that a man can abuse his wife and children, rob his neighbors, slander his fellow-citizens, and yet, a moment or two before he dies, by repentance become a glorified angel is, in my judgment, immoral. And to preach that a man can be a good man, kind to his wife and children, an honest man, paying his debts, and yet, for the lack of a certain belief, the moment after he is dead, be sent to an eternal prison, is also immoral. So that, according to my opinion, while the church teaches men many good things, it also teaches doctrines subversive of morality. If there were not in the whole world a church, the morality of man, in my judgment, would be the gainer.

_Question_. What do you think of the treatment of the actor by society in his social relations?

_Answer_. For a good many years the basis of society has been the dollar. Only a few years ago all literary men were ostracized because they had no money; neither did they have a reading public.

If any man produced a book he had to find a patron--some t.i.tled donkey, some lauded lubber, in whose honor he could print a few well-turned lies on the fly-leaf. If you wish to know the degradation of literature, read the dedication written by Lord Bacon to James I., in which he puts him beyond all kings, living and dead--beyond Caesar and Marcus Aurelius. In those days the literary man was a servant, a hack. He lived in Grub Street. He was only one degree above the st.u.r.dy vagrant and the escaped convict. Why was this?

He had no money and he lived in an age when money was the fountain of respectability. Let me give you another instance: Mozart, whose brain was a fountain of melody, was forced to eat at table with coachmen, with footmen and scullions. He was simply a servant who was commanded to make music for a pudding-headed bishop. The same was true of the great painters, and of almost all other men who rendered the world beautiful by art, and who enriched the languages of mankind. The basis of respectability was the dollar.

Now that the literary man has an intelligent public he cares nothing for the ignorant patron. The literary man makes money. The world is becoming civilized and the literary man stands high. In England, however, if Charles Darwin had been invited to dinner, and there had been present some sprig of n.o.bility, some t.i.tled vessel holding the germs of hereditary disease, Darwin would have been compelled to occupy a place beneath him. But I have hopes even for England.

The same is true of the artist. The man who can now paint a picture by which he receives from five thousand to fifty thousand dollars, is necessarily respectable. The actor who may realize from one to two thousand dollars a night, or even more, is welcomed in the stupidest and richest society. So with the singers and with all others who instruct and amuse mankind. Many people imagine that he who amuses them must be lower than they. This, however, is hardly possible. I believe in the aristocracy of the brain and heart; in the aristocracy of intelligence and goodness, and not only appreciate but admire the great actor, the great painter, the great sculptor, the marvelous singer. In other words, I admire all people who tend to make this life richer, who give an additional thought to this poor world.

_Question_. Do you think this liberal movement, favoring the better cla.s.s of plays, inaugurated by the Rev. Dr. Abbott, will tend to soften the sentiment of the orthodox churches against the stage?

_Answer_. I have not read what Dr. Abbott has written on this subject. From your statement of his position, I think he entertains quite a sensible view, and, when we take into consideration that he is a minister, a miraculously sensible view. It is not the business of the dramatist, the actor, the painter or the sculptor to teach what the church calls morality. The dramatist and the actor ought to be truthful, ought to be natural--that is to say, truthfully and naturally artistic. He should present pictures of life properly chosen, artistically constructed; an exhibition of emotions truthfully done, artistically done. If vice is presented naturally, no one will fall in love with vice. If the better qualities of the human heart are presented naturally, no one can fail to fall in love with them. But they need not be presented for that purpose. The object of the artist is to present truthfully and artistically. He is not a Sunday school teacher. He is not to have the moral effect eternally in his mind. It is enough for him to be truly artistic. Because, as I have said, a great many times, the greatest good is done by indirection. For instance, a man lives a good, n.o.ble, honest and lofty life. The value of that life would be destroyed if he kept calling attention to it--if he said to all who met him, "Look at me!" he would become intolerable.

The truly artistic speaks of perfection; that is to say, of harmony, not only of conduct, but of harmony and proportion in everything.

The pulpit is always afraid of the pa.s.sions, and really imagines that it has some influence on men and women, keeping them in the path of virtue. No greater mistake was ever made. Eternally talking and harping on that one subject, in my judgment, does harm.

Forever keeping it in the mind by reading pa.s.sages from the Bible, by talking about the "corruption of the human heart," of the "power of temptation," of the scarcity of virtue, of the plentifulness of vice--all these plat.i.tudes tend to produce exactly what they are directed against.

_Question_. I fear, Colonel, that I have surprised you into agreeing with a clergyman. The following are the points made by the Rev.

Dr. Abbott in his editorial on the theatre, and it seems to me that you and he think very much alike--on that subject. The points are these:

1. It is not the function of the drama to teach moral lessons.

2. A moral lesson neither makes nor mars either a drama or a novel.

3. The moral quality of a play does not depend upon the result.

4. The real function of the drama is like that of the novel--not to amuse, not to excite; but to portray life, and so minister to it. And as virtue and vice, goodness and evil, are the great fundamental facts of life, they must, in either serious story or serious play, be portrayed. If they are so portrayed that the vice is alluring and the virtue repugnant, the play or story is immoral; if so portrayed that the vice is repellant and the virtue alluring, they play or story is moral.

5. The church has no occasion to ask the theatre to preach; though if it does preach we have a right to demand that its ethical doctrines be pure and high. But we have a right to demand that in its pictures of life it so portrays vice as to make it abhorrent, and so portrays virtue as to make it attractive.

_Answer_. I agree in most of what you have read, though I must confess that to find a minister agreeing with me, or to find myself agreeing with a minister, makes me a little uncertain. All art, in my judgment, is for the sake of expression--equally true of the drama as of painting and sculpture. No poem touches the human heart unless it touches the universal. It must, at some point, move in unison with the great ebb and flow of things. The same is true of the play, of a piece of music or a statue. I think that all real artists, in all departments, touch the universal and when they do the result is good; but the result need not have been a consideration. There is an old story that at first there was a temple erected upon the earth by G.o.d himself; that afterward this temple was s.h.i.+vered into countless pieces and distributed over the whole earth, and that all the rubies and diamonds and precious stones since found are parts of that temple. Now, if we could conceive of a building, or of anything involving all Art, and that it had been scattered abroad, then I would say that whoever find and portrays truthfully a thought, an emotion, a truth, has found and restored one of the jewels.

--_Dramatic Mirror_, New York, April 21, 1888.

PROTECTION AND FREE TRADE.

_Question_. Do you take much interest in politics, Colonel Ingersoll?

_Answer_. I take as much interest in politics as a Republican ought who expects nothing and who wants nothing for himself. I want to see this country again controlled by the Republican party.

The present administration has not, in my judgment, the training and the political intelligence to decide upon the great economic and financial questions. There are a great many politicians and but few statesmen. Here, where men have to be elected every two or six years, there is hardly time for the officials to study statesmans.h.i.+p--they are busy laying pipes and fixing fences for the next election. Each one feels much like a monkey at a fair, on the top of a greased pole, and puts in the most of his time dodging stones and keeping from falling. I want to see the party in power best qualified, best equipped, to administer the Government.

_Question_. What do you think will be the particular issue of the coming campaign?

_Answer_. That question has already been answered. The great question will be the tariff. Mr. Cleveland imagines that the surplus can be gotten rid of by a reduction of the tariff. If the reduction is so great as to increase the demand for foreign articles, the probability is that the surplus will be increased. The surplus can surely be done away with by either of two methods; first make the tariff prohibitory; second, have no tariff. But if the tariff is just at that point where the foreign goods could pay it and yet undersell the American so as to stop home manufactures, then the surplus would increase.

As a rule we can depend on American compet.i.tion to keep prices at a reasonable rate. When that fails we have at all times the governing power in our hands--that is to say, we can reduce the tariff. In other words, the tariff is not for the benefit of the manufacturer--the protection is not for the mechanic or the capitalist --it is for the whole country. I do not believe in protecting silk simply to help the town of Paterson, but I am for the protection of the manufacture, because, in my judgment, it helps the entire country, and because I know that it has given us a far better article of silk at a far lower price than we obtained before the establishment of those factories.

I believe in the protection of every industry that needs it, to the end that we may make use of every kind of brain and find use for all human capacities. In this way we will produce greater and better people. A nation of agriculturalists or a nation of mechanics would become narrow and small, but where everything is done, then the brain is cultivated on every side, from artisan to artist.