Page:The Tragic Muse (London & New York, Macmillan & Co., 1890), Volume 1.djvu/220

212 what to invent: between you you'll kill me!" the girl declared. "I think there's a secret league between you to spoil my voice, or at least to weaken my wind, before I get it. But à la guerre comme à la guerre! How can I read Shelley, however, when I don't understand him?"

"That's just what I want to make you do. It's a part of your general training. You may do without that, of course—without culture and taste and perception; but in that case you'll be nothing but a vulgar cabotine, and nothing will be of any consequence." Sherringham had a theory that the great lyric poets (he induced her to read and recite as well long passages of Wordsworth and of Swinburne) would teach her many of the secrets of competent utterance, the mysteries of rhythm, the communicableness of style, the latent music of the language and the art of "composing" copious speeches and of keeping her wind in hand. He held in perfect sincerity that there was an indirect enlightenment which would be of the highest importance to her and to which it was precisely, by good fortune, in his power to contribute. She would do better in proportion as she had more knowledge—even knowledge that might appear to have but a remote connection with her business. The actor's talent was essentially a gift, a thing by itself, implanted, instinctive, accidental, equally unconnected with intellect and with virtue—Sherringham was completely of that opinion; but it seemed to him no contradiction to consider at the same time that intellect (leaving virtue, for the moment, out of the question) might be brought into fruitful relation with it. It would be a larger thing if a better mind were projected upon it without