"That is a feature which I think the playgoers will not be slow to appreciate," said Goldsmith. "Good Lord! Mr. Colman, cannot you see that what the people want nowadays is a novelty?"
"Ay, sir; but there are novelties and novelties, and this novelty of yours is not to their taste.'T is not a comedy of the pothouse that's the novelty genteel people want in these days; and mark my words, sir, the bringing on of that vulgar young boor--what's the fellow's name?--Lumpkin, in his pothouse, and the unworthy sneers against the refinement and sensibility of the period--the fellow who talks of his bear only dancing to the genteelest of tunes--all this, Dr. Goldsmith, I pledge you my word and reputation as a manager, will bring about an early fall of the curtain."
"Even so, sir; for the people in the house will not permit another scene beyond that of your pothouse to be set."
"Let me tell you, Mr. Colman, that the Three Pigeons is an hostelry, not a pothouse."
"The playgoers will damn it if it were e'en a Bishop's palace."
"Which you think most secure against such a fate. Nay, sir, let us not apply the doctrine of predestination to a comedy. Men have gone mad through believing that they had no chance of being saved from the Pit. Pray let not us take so gloomy a view of the hereafter of our play."
"Of _your_ play, sir, by your leave. I have no mind to accept even a share of its paternity, though I know that I cannot escape blame for having anything to do with its production."
"If you are so anxious to decline the responsibilities of a father in respect to it, sir, I must beg that you will not feel called upon to act with the cruelty of a step-father towards it."
Goldsmith bowed in his pleasantest manner as he left the manager's office and went to the green room.
The attitude of Colman in regard to the comedy was quite in keeping with the traditions of the stage of the eighteenth century, nor was it so contrary to the traditions of the nineteenth century. Colman, like the rest of his profession--not even excepting Garrick--possessed only a small amount of knowledge as to what playgoers desired to have presented to them. Whatever successes he achieved were certainly not due to his own acumen. He had no idea that audiences had grown tired of stilted blank verse tragedies and comedies constructed on the most conventional lines, with plentiful allusions to heathen deities, but a plentiful lack of human nature. Such plays had succeeded in his hands previously, and he could see no reason why he should substitute for them anything more natural. He had no idea that playgoers were ready to hail with pleasure a comedy founded upon scenes of everyday life, not upon the spurious sentimentality of an artificial age.