

1893.] on the Imaginative Faculty. 121 



highest expression, for in none is demanded of its exponent a more 

 delicate poise, a subtler instinct ; none is more dependent on that 

 acute state of the imagination, on that divine insanity which we call 

 genius. The actor may be said to rank with, if after, the poet. He, 

 like the poet, is independent of recognised laws. The histrionic art 

 is indeed essentially a self-governed one. Its laws are the unwritten 

 laws of the book of nature, illuminated by the imagination. But if 

 the actor can claim exemption from academic training, it would be 

 idle to affirm that he is independent of personal attributes, or that he 

 can reach any degree of eminence without those accomplishments 

 which the strenuous exercise of art alone can give. His Pegasus, 

 however, should be tamed in the broad arena of the stage rather than 

 in the enervating stable of the academy. In acting, in fact, there is 

 an infinity to learn, but infinitely little that can be taught. The 

 actor must be capable, of course, of pronouncing his native language, 

 and of having a reasonable control over the movements of his limbs, 

 but thus equipped, his technical education is practically complete. 

 He is his own " stock-in-trade." The painter has his pigments, the 

 poet his pen, the sculptor his clay, the musician his lute ; the actor 

 is limited to his personality — he plays upon himself. To give free 

 range to the imaginative quality is the highest accomplishment of the 

 actor. He whose imagination is most untrammelled is he who is most 

 likely to touch the imagination of an audience. To arrive at this 

 emancipation of the mind is his ultimate and highest achievement. 

 The development of this sensitive or receptive condition depends 

 largely on the surrounding influences of life. A general knowledge 

 of men and things is, of course, the first essential ; but I doubt 

 whether education, in its accepted sense, is so necessary or indeed 

 desirable in an artistic career as it is in what I may call the more 

 concrete walks of life. What is meat to one is often poison to the 

 other. The midwife of science is sometimes the undertaker of art. 

 I have touched upon what, in its restricting influence on the imagi- 

 native faculty, I have called the pernicious habit of reading books — a 

 practice which in its too free indulgence may tend to fetter the 

 exercise of that imagination and that observation of life which are so 

 essential to the development of the artist. Some people are educated 

 by their memories, others by observation, aided by the imagination. 

 One man will be able by a look at a picture, or by the scanning of 

 an old manuscript, to project himself into any period of history ; 

 while another will by laborious unimaginative study acquire no more 

 artistic inspiration than can be obtained by learning the ' Encyclo- 

 paedia Britannica ' by heart. I have often noticed that those who 

 devote their spare energies to indiscriminate reading acquire a habit 

 of thinking by memory, and thus gradually lose the faculty which 

 the spontaneous observation of life tends to quicken. Their thought 

 becomes artificial — they think by machinery — originality loses its 

 muscle ; the memory is developed at the expense of the imagination. 

 Take any incident of everyday life — to the man who is not in the 



