For This Brief Moment, We Are Here to Do Our Best

Do we grow wiser as we get older, or have we just, like an old dog, learned a few extra tricks? I am 17 going on 80. I have learned, I have discovered, I have dismissed. I have led; I have been led, nose-ringed, by the past. In the end we must decide for ourselves; but it is making the right decisions that counts, deciding and holding on to your own beliefs, for it is you, and only you, at the end of the day, who can look after yourself. No one else really cares; you don’t need glasses to see that self-preservation is on the menu. You must have the strength, the will and the determination of an ox, and you must believe in your own beliefs. Can a man preach from a Sunday pulpit and not believe? I think not, for if he does we will surely see the dust on his dog collar. We must, in the end, look to ourselves. We can take counsel, we can take advice, but in the end we must decide; it must be our decision. This is not to say we mustn’t learn--we must. We must pick the brains of those who went before us; watch, learn and listen, research and discover; but above all, the final decision must be our own.

Moments will remain in our memory, things that we have thought valuable, stored away somewhere in those decaying memory cells. Of course, there will always be a flavor of the past, for the past is a fact; but it is the future we should be looking towards, because it is the future that will be looking back at us. It is the future that will be looking at yesterday, which is our present, and in its turn will decide whether to retain or reject. This does not mean that we should perform with one eye on posterity; it does mean that we must perform with integrity. Youth will always impersonate until it has found its confidence and its own roots.

I am 17 going on 80. I will continue to learn until all ceases to function. I know that the earth turns and that the sun sets and the sun rises, but I must always remember that somewhere in the shadows there are new things to be seen.

Blazing away out there are the spirits of Burbage, Garrick, Kean and Irving, lighting the theatrical sky forever. Smiling, grinning, laughing and saying, “Follow that!” I think that’s how it will always be: “Who’s on next?” It’s the music hall with the act numbers lighting up at the side. It’s not important to be top of the bill; it’s important to be the best.

Not everyone can join those giants who straddle the theatrical world, grinning down at the Lilliputians, but we can try. We must try. Above all we must be good. That is all we can be, good. It is for other people to daub the statue with what they will: genius, greatness or whatever. But for this brief moment we are here, treading the mill that has been trod before, getting our ankles wet and hoping that the horn will not be too green for too long. Lead me by the nose, Richard, David, Edmund, Henry; lead me by the nose and then release me. Let me make the judges think that I am the best bull in the ring.