A visit to any modern French Art Gallery will reveal a number of canvases daubed all over with little patches of primary colours, almost as though the picture had been painted with confetti. Assuming you are unaccustomed to this form of application, you will declare against it with insular promptitude. But give the picture a chance—step back and view it from the far wall, and like as not you will find that these chaotic colours have blended and commingled, have ceased to exist as individual items and become merged in a single statement of meaning the artist intended to convey.
It is not always want of a single material that persuades the fashioning of a patchwork quilt. Patchwork, in its way, is as complete as are the green plush curtains that hang so soberly from the lacquered pole in your neighbour’s parlour.
There is a motive in this preamble; I did not leap from a canvas to a patchwork quilt without purpose. When you have read these pages, if so be you have the patience and inclination, you will perceive what that motive is. Let me then forestall the inevitable criticism, “Why, this is but a series of events strung together by a mere thread of personality,” and say at once, “Agreed; but that was the intention.” And I would ask you to hold out the book at arm’s length, get a fair perspective, and admit that it was not possible to deal with the subject otherwise, and that these disjointed clippings tumble together in a kind of united whole.
The life of a touring actor is as no other man’s. It is a series of ever-changing pictures connected only by the Sunday train-journey. The most we can do is to catch a glimpse here and there as he halts upon the Road.
Here, then, are a few such glimpses for your approval or contempt.
ROLAND PERTWEE.
B.E.F.,
France, 1917.