Thomas B. Reed

[Speech of William S. Gilbert at a dinner given to him and to Sir Arthur Sullivan by the Lotos Club, New York City, November 8, 1879. Whitelaw Reid, the President, in introducing Mr. Gilbert and Mr. Sullivan, said: "We do not welcome them as men of genius. It sometimes happens that men of genius do not deserve welcome. But we do greet them as men who have used their undoubted genius to increase the happiness of their kind [applause]; men whose success has extended throughout the nations and has added bright hours to the life of every man and woman it has touched. [Applause.] That success has depended on no unworthy means. Respecting themselves and their art, they have always respected their audiences. They have so married wit and humor, and a most delicate fancy, and the best light music of the time, to the public temper, that we have seen here in New York, for example, their piece so popular that we hadn't theatres enough in town to hold the people who simultaneously and unanimously wanted to hear it. I propose first the health of a gentleman who, not merely in the piece that has so long been the rage of the town, but in a brilliant series of previous successes, has always given us wit without dirt [applause]—a drama in which the hero is not a rake, and the heroine is not perpetually posing and poising between innocence and adultery."]

Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen:—As my friend Sullivan and I were driving to this Club this evening, both of us being very nervous and very sensitive, and both of us men who are highly conscious of our oratorical defects and deficiencies, and having before us vividly the ordeal awaiting us, we cast about for a comparison of our then condition. We likened ourselves to two authors driving down to a theatre at which a play of theirs was to be played for the first time. The thought was somewhat harassing, but we dismissed it, because we remembered that there was always an even chance of success [laughter], whereas in the performance in which we were about to take part there was no prospect of aught but humiliating failure.

We were rather in the position of prisoners surrendering to their bail, and we beg of you to extend to us your most merciful consideration. But it is expected of me, perhaps, that in replying to this toast with which your chairman has so kindly coupled my name, I shall do so in a tone of the lightest possible comedy. [Laughter.] I had almost said that I am sorry to say that I cannot do so; but in truth I am not sorry. A man who has been welcomed as we have been here by the leaders in literature and art in this city, a man who could look upon that welcome as a string on which to hang a series of small jokes would show that he was responding to an honor to which he was not entitled. For it is no light thing to come to a country which you have been taught to regard as a foreign country, and to find ourselves in the best sense of the word "at home" [applause] among a people whom we are taught to regard as strangers, but whom we are astonished to find are our intimate friends [applause]; and that proffered friendship is so dear to us that I am disposed, in behalf of my collaborateur and myself, to stray somewhat from the beaten paths of after-dinner oratory, and to endeavor to justify ourselves in respect to a matter in which we have some reason to feel that we have been misrepresented.

I have seen in several London journals well-meant but injudicious paragraphs saying that we have a grievance against the New York managers because they have played our pieces and have offered us no share of the profits. [Laughter.] We have no grievance whatever. Our only complaint is that there is no international copyright act. [Applause.] The author of a play in which there is no copyright is very much in the position of an author or the descendants of an author whose copyright has expired. I am not aware that our London publishers are in the habit of seeking the descendants of Sir Walter Scott or Lord Byron, or Captain Marryat, and offering them a share of the profits on their publications. [Laughter.] I have yet to learn that our London managers seek out the living representatives of Oliver Goldsmith, or Richard Brinsley Sheridan or William Shakespeare, in order to pay them any share of the profits from the production of "She Stoops to Conquer," or "The Good-Natured Man," or "The Merchant of Venice." [Laughter.] If they do so, they do it on the principle that the right hand knows not what the left hand doeth [laughter], and as we have not heard of it, we presume, therefore, that they have not done so. And we believe that if those eminent men were to request a share of the profits, they would be met with the reply that the copyright on those works had expired.

And so if we should suggest it to the managers of this country, they would perhaps reply with at least equal justice: "Gentlemen, your copyright never existed." That it has never existed is due entirely to our own fault.

We consulted a New York lawyer, and were informed that, although an alien author has no right in his works, yet so long as they remain unpublished, we held the real title in them, and there was no process necessary to make them our own. We, therefore, thought we would keep it in unpublished form, and make more profit from the sale of the pianoforte score and the words of the songs at the theatres and at the music publishers.

We imagined that the allusions in the piece were so purely British in their character, so insular in fact, that they would be of no interest on this side; but events have shown that in that conclusion we were mistaken. At all events, we have also arrived at the conclusion that we have nobody to blame but ourselves. As it is, we have realized by the sale of the book and the piano score in London about $7,500 apiece, and under those circumstances I do not think we need to be pitied. [Laughter.] For myself, I certainly do not pose as an object of compassion. [Laughter.]

We propose to open here on the first of December at the Fifth Avenue Theatre with a performance of "Pinafore." I will not add the prefixing initials, because I have no desire to offend your republican sympathies. [Laughter.] I may say, however, that I have read in some journals that we have come over here to show you how that piece should be played, but that I disclaim, both for myself and my collaborateur. We came here to teach nothing—we have nothing to teach—and perhaps we should have no pupils if we did. [Laughter.] But apart from the fact that we have no copyright, and are not yet managers in the United States, we see no reason why we should be the only ones who are not to be permitted to play this piece here. [Laughter and applause.]

I think you will admit that we have a legitimate object in opening with it. We have no means of knowing how it has been played in this country, but we are informed that it has been played more broadly than in the old country—and you know that may be better or worse. [Laughter.]

Afterward we propose to produce another piece, and in the fulness of time the longer it is delayed perhaps the better for us [laughter], and we propose to present it to an audience [laughter] in the same spirit in which we presented "Pinafore"—in a most serious spirit—not to permit the audience to see by anything that occurs on the stage that the actors are conscious of the really absurd things they are doing. Whether right or not, that is the way in which it was presented in London. We open with "Pinafore," not to show how that ought to be played, but to show how the piece that succeeds is about to be played, and to prepare the audiences for the reception of our new and highly preposterous story. [Applause.]

The kindness with which we have been received this evening emboldens me to believe that perhaps you will not consider this explanation altogether indecent or ill-timed. I have nothing more, gentlemen, to say, except to thank you most heartily for the complimentary manner in which you proposed our health, and to assure you that it is a compliment which is to me personally as delightful as it is undeserved. [Applause.]