It is always nice to combine business and pleasure. But one
regrets, even then, the business. If I were a forensic critic, my
delight in attending the courts would still be great; but less than it
is in my irresponsibility. In the courts I find satisfied in me just
those senses which in the theatre, nearly always, are starved. Nay, I
find them satisfied more fully than they ever could be, at best, in
any theatre. I do not merely fall back on the courts, in disgust of
the theatre as it is. I love the courts better than the theatre as it
ideally might be. And, I say again, I marvel that you leave me so much
elbow-room there.
No artificial light is needed, no scraping of fiddles, to excite or
charm me as I pass from the echoing corridor, through the swing-doors,
into the well of this or that court. It matters not much to me what
case I shall hear, so it be of the human kind, with a jury and with
witnesses. I care little for Chancery cases. There is a certain
intellectual pleasure in hearing a mass of facts subtly wrangled over.
The mind derives therefrom something of the satisfaction that the eye
has in watching acrobats in a music-hall. One wonders at the
ingenuity, the agility, the perfect training. Like acrobats, these
Chancery lawyers are a relief from the average troupe of actors and
actresses, by reason of their exquisite alertness, their thorough
mastery (seemingly exquisite and thorough, at any rate, to the dazzled
layman).
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