122 Mr. Herbert Beerbohm Tree [May 26, 



habit of exercising his imagination it will appear as a vulgar fact ; to 

 him who sees the, same incident with the dramatic, the [imaginative 

 eye, it will give birth to an original thought, which is often more 

 vital than a quotation. 



The education of the artist, then, should be directed rather to the 

 development of the imagination than to the storage of facts. For 

 purposes of immediate information the British Museum is always 

 open to him ; the judges of the land are ever ready to set him right 

 on points of law into a misapprehension of which a too lively imagi- 

 nation may have led him. I am so bold as to think that an university 

 education, which is so propitious to success in other callings may 

 be a source of danger to the artist. The point of view is apt to 

 become academic, the academic to degenerate into the didactic, for 

 all cliques, even the most illustrious, have a narrowing tendency. 

 The development of those qualities which are so favourable to dis- 

 tinction in other callings may tend to check in the artist that origi- 

 nality which is so essential to the exercise of our fascinating, if fan- 

 tastic, calling. The very social advantages which an university career 

 brings may tend to inculcate a conventional regard for the " good form " 

 of a " set," and to divert the current of youthful enthusiasm into an 

 undue sense of the importance of boot-varnish. I maintain that such 

 surroundings, and the influences of a too prosperous society, may tend 

 to hinder rather than to foster the growth of this sensitive plant, 

 which will often flourish in the rude winds of adversity and perish in 

 the scent-laden salons of fashion. To argue that the artist should 

 shut himself off from the world, and wrap himself round with a 

 mantle of dignified ignorance, would of course be absurd. I have 

 already said that a knowledge of men and things is essential to 

 him, and this knowledge is manifestly impossible unless he is in 

 sympathetic touch with his generation, for we cannot give out what 

 we have not taken in. His should be the bird's-eye view. But the 

 allurements of society should never be allowed to absorb or enslave 

 him — lest in sipping its enervating narcotic he should drift from 

 the broad stream of life into the backwater of self-indulgence. The 

 23oet, like the soldier, may " caper nimbly in a lady's chamber to the 

 lascivious pleasing of a lute," but if he dances a too frequent attend- 

 ance in the antechamber of fashion, the jealous muse deserts him, 

 and the poet's song henceforth finds utterance in the lisping treble 

 of the " vers de Societe" and a fitful inspiration in the chronicling of 

 an illustrious birth or a serene demise. It takes a genius to sur- 

 vive being made Poet-Laureate — indeed this official reward might 

 often be conferred only on the poet when he is dead, to benefit his 

 family and to point out the beauties of his works to an otherwise 

 indifferent posterity. 



Of all the fetters which cramp the imagination, none is so frequent 

 as self-consciousness. With many of us this failing becomes a dis- 

 ease. The actor is more liable to its attacks than any other artist, 

 since he cannot separate his personality from his work. This is the 



