The peculiarity of the Hungarian temperament does not, however, entirely
explain their joy in Jokaï. He is so much more than a mere novelist, poet
and dramatist, with three or four hundred volumes (one need not be
particular to a hundred with this modern Lope de Vega) to his credit. He
is also a soldier and a politician, skilful with the sword as well as the
pen, and with the tongue as well as the sword. He has drawn blood with
each and all of these weapons, and though nowadays he often votes in the
House without inquiring what he is voting for till he has recorded his
vote, this does not diminish his claims to practical wisdom. He married
the leading actress of Hungary, who, without waiting for an introduction,
rushed forward from the audience to present him with a bunch of flowers
when a play of his made a hit. Fancy Ellen Terry rushing forward to
present Pinero with a bunch of flowers at the conclusion of "The Second
Mrs. Tanqueray"! No, the thing is as impossible in England as the
combination of rôles in Jokaï himself. The idea of letting a man be at
once man of letters and man of action! Why, we scarcely allow that a man
of letters may occupy more than one pigeonhole! If he is a poet, we will
not admit he can write prose--forgetting that is just what most poets do.
If he is a novelist, he cannot write plays,--the truth being, of course,
that it is the playwrights who cannot write plays. If he is a humourist
he can never be taken seriously, and if he is accepted seriously he must
be careful to conceal his sense of the humour of the position. Not only
so, but we insist on the sub-sub-specialisation which Adam Smith showed
to be so profitable in the making of pins, and which, passing from the
factory to the laboratory, now threatens to pass from science into
literature. Having analysed away the infinitely great, we are now
devoting ourselves to the apotheosis of the infinitely little.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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