surrounds what has been with a nimbus of
perennial glory, and treats what is with
contempt; according to whom Art has been
glorious, and is now hopelessly despicable.

So much for one kind of Theatrical
Talker. It behoves us now to bestow a few
lines on another.

The Talker of the new-school, like the
Talker of the old-school, is hard to please;
but for a different reason. He is hard to
please, because he is so dreadfully knowing.
He is acquainted with all the stage
traditions, and settles exactly what are the
points which an actor who understands his
business ought to make, in every part he
plays; knowing all this, and a great deal
besides, he is down upon any member
of the profession who does not please
him, with relentless severity. He has
been to Paris— the theatrical amateur has
always just been to Paris, as the artistic
amateur has always just been to Venice—
and has come back with a standard of
criticism so elevated that no English actor can
hope to come up to it. "I saw the play in
Parit," he says, in allusion to some drama
(from the French) which is creating a
furore in England, "and I do assure you
that after seeing Mouche in the principal
part, it is impossible not to regard Fly's
performance of the character, over here, as
something almost amounting to sacrilege.
He misses every point in the piece. He
lets every opportunity slip. He has so
little comprehension of what he is aiming
at, that he never gets hold of his audience
for a single moment from beginning to
end. I could do the thing better myself.
Hanged if I couldn't!"

Strange and unutterable presumption,
which would seem absolutely incredible if
we did not meet with instances of it every
day! There are some circles in which one
never listens to the description of theatrical
topics without hearing the law laid down
by some amateur, who has been in the habit
of playing at acting, in the feeblest and
most dilettante fashion, and whose braggart
talk reminds one of the fop in Henry the
Fourth, who provoked "professional"
Hotspur so excusably.

Ah, if this Talker did but know how
much of study, and labour, and experience
it has taken to fit this actor whose
performance he criticises to take his place on
the stage as an audible, visible,
intelligible exponent of the part which he has
undertaken to embody! If he knew this,
surely he would speak a little more
respectfully and a little more diffidently in
criticising his victim's performance.

How very much has the professional actor
to understand, and how much to do, before
he can be looked upon as capable of fulfilling
his vocation. And first of his understanding:
he understands that from the moment
of his passing on to that stage on which he
is to act he is to be for the time whatever he
professes to be. He must convey to you (the
public) the idea that the character which he
represents has had an existence before you
see him. Certain episodical moments of his
life happen to be passing, where you can
observe them on that stage, but his story
has had a beginning which you do not see,
and will go on when you are not looking.
Understanding this and putting himself, by
aid of the imagination, in that very position
in which the play supposes him, all the
rest must go right. Whatever he has to
do will be done under the influence of this
conviction. If in the course of the scene
he lias to plead for his life, or for another
life dearer to him than his own, it is not
necessary that he should school himself
into declaiming with energy and animation;
to him it is a fact that his life (or
that other life) is in danger; how can he
help pleading eagerly? So when he knows
of a plot being hatched against the character
of the woman whom he loves, it is not
needful that he should say to himself, "I
must appear to listen eagerly." He cannot
help listening. Her happiness is in danger;
by listening to the plot against her he may
save her, and so he does listen, and the
audience sees that he does.

This logical perception of his position is
what the good actor masters first. That
done, he has to consider the mechanical and
technical part of his business, and to learn
how to make the intonations of his voice,
and the external movements and gestures of
his body, true, and at the same time
intelligible, exponents of what is going on
within him. To acquire the requisite
control over his voice, and to learn how to
manage and make the most of it, so that
his words shall be heard, and understood,
in the remotest parts of the theatre in
which he is acting, is a task to be
accomplished only by means of enormous labour
and persistent effort. And this has to be
done, it must be remembered, without
having recourse to mouthing and bellowing.
This conveying of his meaning to those who
are seated on the farthest-off benches, without
seeming exaggerated or overstrained to
those who are near, is one of the most difficult
of all the tasks which the actor sets
himself. Nor is this a question of voice and
intonation only, but also of gesture and