Produced by William Flis, Eric Eldred, Charles Franks and
the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
ON SOMETHING
BY
H. BELLOC
DEDICATION
To Somebody
CONTENTS
A PLEA FOR THE SIMPLER DRAMA
ON A NOTEBOOK
ON UNKNOWN PEOPLE
ON A VAN TROMP
HIS CHARACTER
ON THRUPPENNY BITS
ON THE HOTEL AT PALMA AND A PROPOSED GUIDE-BOOK
THE DEATH OF WANDERING PETER
THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE
A NORFOLK MAN
THE ODD PEOPLE
LETTER OF ADVICE AND APOLOGY TO A YOUNG BURGLAR
THE MONKEY QUESTION: AN APPEAL TO COMMON SENSE
THE EMPIRE BUILDER
CAEDWALLA
A UNIT OF ENGLAND
THE RELIC
THE IRONMONGER
A FORCE IN GAUL
ON BRIDGES
A BLUE BOOK
PERIGEUX OF THE PERIGORD
THE POSITION
HOME
THE WAY TO FAIRYLAND
THE PORTRAIT OF A CHILD
ON EXPERIENCE
ON IMMORTALITY
ON SACRAMENTAL THINGS
IN PATRIA
Of the various sketches in this book some appear for the first time,
others are reprinted by courtesy of the Proprietors and Editors of The
Westminster Gazette, The Clarion, The English Review, The Morning
Post and The Manchester Guardian, in which papers they appeared.
A PLEA FOR THE SIMPLER DRAMA
It is with the drama as with plastic art and many other things: the plainman feels that he has a right to put in his word, but he is rather afraidthat the art is beyond him, and he is frightened by technicalities.
After all, these things are made for the plain man; his applause, in thelong run and duly tested by time, is the main reward of the dramatist asof the painter or the sculptor. But if he is sensible he knows that hisimmediate judgment will be crude. However, here goes.
The plain man sees that the drama of his time has gradually passed fromone phase to another of complexity in thought coupled with simplicity ofincident, and it occurs to him that just one further step is needed tomake something final in British art. We seem to be just on the thresholdof something which would give Englishmen in the twentieth centurysomething of the fullness that characterized the Elizabethans: but somehowor other our dramatists hesitate to cross that threshold. It cannot bethat their powers are lacking: it can only be some timidity or self-torturewhich it is the business of the plain man to exorcise.
If I may make a suggestion in this essay to the masters of the craft it isthat the goal of the completely modern thing can best be reached by takingthe very simplest themes of daily life—things within the experience ofthe ordinary citizen—and presenting them