ges of our great dramatists
which will not repay original study. But at least we must recognize
the vast advantages with which a practised actor, impregnated by the
associations of his life, and by study--with all the practical and
critical skill of his profession up to the date at which he appears,
whether he adopts or rejects tradition--addresses himself to the
interpretation of any great character, even if he have no originality
whatever. There is something still more than this, however, in acting.
Every one who has the smallest histrionic gift has a natural dramatic
fertility; so that as soon as he knows the author's text, and obtains
self-possession, and feels at home in a part without being too
familiar with it, the mere automatic action of rehearsing and playing
it at once begins to place the author in new lights, and to give the
personage being played an individuality partly independent of, and
yet consistent with, and rendering more powerfully visible, the
dramatist's conception. It is the vast power a good actor has in this
way which has led the French to speak of creating a part when they
mean its being first played; and French authors are so conscious of
the extent and value of this co-operation of actors with them, that
they have never objected to the phrase, but, on the contrary, are
uniformly lavish in their homage to the artists who have created on
the boards the parts which they themselves have created on paper.

I must add, as an additional reason for valuing the theatre, that
while there is only one Shakespeare, and while there are comparatively
few dramatists who are sufficiently classic to be read with close
attention, there is a great deal of average dramatic work excellently
suited for representation. From this the public derive pleasure. From
this they receive--as from fiction in literature--a great deal of
instruction and mental stimulus. Some may be worldly, some social,
some cynical, some merely humorous and witty, but a great deal of it,
though its literary merit is secondary, is well qualified to bring
out all that is most fruitful of good in common sympathies. Now, it
is plain that if, because Shakespeare is good reading, people were to
give the cold shoulder to the theatre, the world would lose all the
vast advantage which comes to it through the dramatic faculty in forms
not rising to essentially literary excellence. As respects the other
feeling which used to stand more than it does now