Great Catherine (Whom Glory Still Adores) | Page 4

do not
interest me. It is clear to me that neither she nor the statesmen with
whom she played this mischievous kind of political chess had any
notion of the real history of their own times, or of the real forces that
were moulding Europe. The French Revolution, which made such short
work of Catherine's Voltairean principles, surprised and scandalized
her as much as it surprised and scandalized any provincial governess in
the French chateaux.
The main difference between her and our modern Liberal Governments
was that whereas she talked and wrote quite intelligently about Liberal
principles before she was frightened into making such talking and
writing a flogging matter, our Liberal ministers take the name of
Liberalism in vain without knowing or caring enough about its meaning
even to talk and scribble about it, and pass their flogging Bills, and
institute their prosecutions for sedition and blasphemy and so forth,
without the faintest suspicion that such proceedings need any apology
from the Liberal point of view.
It was quite easy for Patiomkin to humbug Catherine as to the condition
of Russia by conducting her through sham cities run up for the occasion
by scenic artists; but in the little world of European court intrigue and
dynastic diplomacy which was the only world she knew she was more
than a match for him and for all the rest of her contemporaries. In such
intrigue and diplomacy, however, there was no romance, no scientific
political interest, nothing that a sane mind can now retain even if it can
be persuaded to waste time in reading it up. But Catherine as a woman
with plenty of character and (as we should say) no morals, still
fascinates and amuses us as she fascinated and amused her
contemporaries. They were great sentimental comedians, these Peters,
Elizabeths, and Catherines who played their Tsarships as eccentric
character parts, and produced scene after scene of furious harlequinade

with the monarch as clown, and of tragic relief in the torture chamber
with the monarch as pantomime demon committing real atrocities, not
forgetting the indispensable love interest on an enormous and utterly
indecorous scale. Catherine kept this vast Guignol Theatre open for
nearly half a century, not as a Russian, but as a highly domesticated
German lady whose household routine was not at all so unlike that of
Queen Victoria as might be expected from the difference in their
notions of propriety in sexual relations.
In short, if Byron leaves you with an impression that he said very little
about Catherine, and that little not what was best worth saying, I beg to
correct your impression by assuring you that what Byron said was all
there really is to say that is worth saying. His Catherine is my Catherine
and everybody's Catherine. The young man who gains her favor is a
Spanish nobleman in his version. I have made him an English country
gentleman, who gets out of his rather dangerous scrape, by simplicity,
sincerity, and the courage of these qualities. By this I have given some
offence to the many Britons who see themselves as heroes: what they
mean by heroes being theatrical snobs of superhuman pretensions
which, though quite groundless, are admitted with awe by the rest of
the human race. They say I think an Englishman a fool. When I do,
they have themselves to thank.
I must not, however, pretend that historical portraiture was the motive
of a play that will leave the reader as ignorant of Russian history as he
may be now before he has turned the page. Nor is the sketch of
Catherine complete even idiosyncratically, leaving her politics out of
the question. For example, she wrote bushels of plays. I confess I have
not yet read any of them. The truth is, this play grew out of the
relations which inevitably exist in the theatre between authors and
actors. If the actors have sometimes to use their skill as the author's
puppets rather than in full self-expression, the author has sometimes to
use his skill as the actors' tailor, fitting them with parts written to
display the virtuosity of the performer rather than to solve problems of
life, character, or history. Feats of this kind may tickle an author's
technical vanity; but he is bound on such occasions to admit that the
performer for whom he writes is "the onlie begetter" of his work, which
must be regarded critically as an addition to the debt dramatic literature
owes to the art of acting and its exponents. Those who have seen Miss

Gertrude Kingston play the part of Catherine will have no difficulty in
believing that it was her talent rather than mine that brought the play
into existence. I once recommended Miss Kingston professionally to
play queens. Now in the modern drama there