his messages so as to get them
safely into the brain of the audience. What an audience! For the first
time in my life I saw the "library" public in the mass! It is a sight to
make one think. My cab had gone up Bond Street, where the fortune-tellers
flourish, and their flags wave in the wind, and their painted white hands
point alluringly up mysterious staircases. These fortune-tellers make a
tolerable deal of money, and the money they make must come out chiefly of
the pockets of well-dressed library subscribers. Not a doubt but that many
of Mr. Wells's audience were clients of the soothsayers. A strange
multitude! It appeared to consist of a thousand women and Mr. Bernard
Shaw. Women deemed to be elegant, women certainly deeming themselves to be
elegant! I, being far from the rostrum, had a good view of the backs of
their blouses, chemisettes, and bodices. What an assortment of pretentious
and ill-made toilettes! What disclosures of clumsy hooks-and-eyes and
general creased carelessness! It would not do for me to behold the
"library" public in the mass too often!

* * * * *

I could not but think of the State performance of "Money" at Drury Lane on
the previous night: that amusing smack at living artists. There has been
a good deal of straight talk about it in the daily and weekly papers. But
the psychology of the matter has not been satisfactorily explained. Blame
has been laid at the King's door. I think wrongly, or at least unfairly.
Besides being one of the two best shots in the United Kingdom, the King is
beyond any question a man of honourable intentions and of a strict
conscientiousness. But it is no part of his business to be sufficiently
expert to choose a play for a State performance. He has never pretended to
have artistic proclivities. Who among you, indeed, could be relied upon to
choose properly a play for a State performance? Take the best modern
plays. Who among you would dare to suggest for a State performance Oscar
Wilde's "The Importance of Being Earnest," Bernard Shaw's "Man and
Superman," John Galsworthy's "Justice," or Granville Barker's "The Voysey
Inheritance"? Nobody! These plays are unthinkable for a State performance,
because their distinction is utterly beyond the average comprehension of
the ruling classes--and State performances are for the ruling classes.
These plays are simply too good. Yet if you don't choose an old play you
must choose one of these four pl