Quote of the Day (Sir Max Beerbohm, on the Vanity of Great Artists)

“Great artists are always vain. To say that a man is vain means merely that he is pleased with the effect he produces on other people. A conceited man is satisfied with the effect he produces on himself. Any great artist is far too perceptive and too exigent to be satisfied with that effect, and hence in vanity he seeks solace.” —British essayist-caricaturist Sir Max Beerbohm (1871-1956), “Quia Imperfectum,” originally published in 1918, republished in The Prince of Minor Writers: The Selected Essays of Max Beerbohm, edited by Phillip Lopate (2015)

Quote of the Day (Max Beerbohm, Hoping to ‘Lighten the Yoke’ on Royalty)

“Gaiety, wit, beauty, some measure even of splendour, may be compassed in the salons of a republic; but distinction comes not in save with one who must be received at the foot of the staircase. In fact, royalty is indispensable; we cannot spare it. But, you may well ask, are we justified in preserving an institution which ruins the lives and saps the human nature of a whole family? What of those royal victims whom we sacrifice to our expediency? I have suggested that royal functions could be quite satisfactorily performed by automata made of wax. There, I think, lies the solution of our difficulty. Perhaps, even now, did we but know, it is the triumphs of Tussaud at whose frequent sight our pulses beat with so quick an enthusiasm. If it is so, I do not blame our royal family for its innocent subterfuge. I should welcome any device that lightens the yoke that is on their necks. I should be glad if more people would seriously examine the conditions of royalty, with a view to ameliorating the royal lot.”—British essayist-critic-caricaturist Max Beerbohm (1872-1956), “Some Words on Royalty,” in The Prince of Minor Writers: The Selected Essays of Max Beerbohm, edited by Phillip Lopate (2015)

I have been a lifelong anti-royalist. But I couldn’t help chuckling at the wry wit of the great essayist nicknamed “The Incomparable Max.”

Over the last three decades or so, the British royals have certainly taken their lumps in the court of public opinion. His puckish “solution” to their dilemma would certainly home in handy these days.

You can imagine my excitement, then, when I saw the image accompanying this post. It shows some members of the British Royal Family (notably, the late Queen Elizabeth II) at Madame Tussauds, London, July 17, 2019, and was taken by Schweiz41.

This Day in Literary History (Death of ‘Incomparable Max’ Beerbohm)

May 20, 1956— Sir Max Beerbohm, a Victorian dandy who went on to carve out his own special 20^th-century niche as caricaturist, essayist and fiction writer, died at age 84 in Rapallo, Italy, where he had lived as an expatriate since 1910.

My first introduction to this English wit took place in the late 1970s, when I saw The Incomparable Max, an adaptation of two of his macabre stories by Inherit the Wind playwright Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee. I saw the play—which premiered in New York for a brief run in 1971—in a production by Center Stage, a short-lived repertory company in my hometown of Englewood, NJ.

It made sense that Beerbohm would find a kind of life after death on stage. Not only had he toured the U.S. in the 1890s as press agent of his half-brother, the famous London actor-manager Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree, but he had also succeeded George Bernard Shaw as chief theater critic of Saturday Review. (It was, in fact, the droll Anglo-Irish playwright who not only recommended him for the job, but also bestowed on him the nickname, “the incomparable Max.”)

That last paragraph only hints at the many famous people that Beerbohm knew—so many that he refused to become unduly starry-eyed about them. Some thoughts on Goethe led him to a wider observation that has the short style of aphorism and the pungent tone of experience: “Men of genius are not quick judges of character. Deep thinking and high imagining blunt that trivial instinct by which you and I size people up."

Moreover, in his review of the newly opened revival of The Judas Kiss, critic Terry Teachout offered this Beerbohm quote about fellow dandy Oscar Wilde to suggest that the incomparable one might have been slow to join the contemporary parade for the creator of The Importance of Being Earnest: “He felt himself omnipotent, and he became gross not in body only…but in his relations with people. He brushed people aside; he felt he was beyond the ordinary human courtesies.”

Last year, essayist Phillip Lopate published a fine collection of Beerbohm pieces he had selected, The Prince of Minor Writers. Since purchasing it, I’ve derived a great deal of pleasure from slipping into it at will and discovering droll little nuggets that somehow retain their freshness a century after they were written.

Except for World Wars I and II, Beerbohm lived in Rapallo for all of his last 46 years—starting with his first wife, the American-born British actress Florence Kahn, then, after her death, with his longtime secretary-companion, Elizabeth Jungmann, whom he wed just a few weeks before his death at 84.  It is said that he entertained a constant stream of visitors during these years. And why wouldn't he, considering his bright circle and even brighter wit?

Quote of the Day (Max Beerbohm, on Why Actors Are Sensitive)

“The writer’s work is given to you between the covers of a book; the painter’s on a piece of flat canvas; the actor’s in the lineaments of his own face, the port of his own body, the various inflections of his own voice. In criticizing his work, you criticize, also, him….The actor, having to devote all his time to the development of his emotions, is the least logical creature in the world, and the least likely to be comforted by nice distinctions. He cannot detach himself, as you detach him, from his work. Very silly of him, but, when you come to consider it, quite natural! So far as he is concerned…‘in criticizing his work, you criticize, also, him.’ Wonder not at his sensitiveness!” —British essayist-critic-caricaturist Max Beerbohm (1872-1956), “Actors,” in The Prince of Minor Writers: The Selected Essays of Max Beerbohm, edited by Phillip Lopate (2015)

Quote of the Day (Max Beerbohm, on Fame and Posterity)

“Every man illustrious in his day, however much he may be gratified by his fame, looks with an eager eye to posterity for a continuance of past favors, and would even live the remainder of his life in obscurity if by so doing he could insure that future generations would preserve a correct attitude towards him forever.” —English essayist-caricaturist Max Beerbohm (1872-1956), “A Clergyman,” in The Oxford Book of Essays, edited by John Gross (1991)