poetry, not to declaim it,--to
inspire genius, not to embody it,--a Muse, not a Sibyl.

Once, when she was more than usually earnest in pleading for her
plan,--not merely on the strength of her own deep, prophetic conviction
of her fitness for a dramatic career, but on the ground of an urgent and
bitter necessity for exertion on her part, to ward off actual
destitution and suffering,--he exclaimed, somewhat impatiently,--"Why,
Zelma, it is an impossibility, almost an absurdity, you urge! You could
never make an actress. You are too hopelessly natural, erratic, and
impulsive. You would follow no teaching implicitly, but, when you saw
fit, would trample on conventionalities and venerable stage-traditions.
You would set up the standard of revolt against the ancient canons of
Art, and flout it in the faces of the critics, and--_fail_,--ay, fail,
in spite of your great, staring eyes, the tragic weight of your brows,
and the fiery swell of your nostril."

"I should certainly tread my own ways on the boards, as elsewhere,"
replied Zelma, quietly,--"move and act from the central force, the
instinct and inspiration of Nature,--letting the passion of my part work
itself out in its own gestures, postures, looks, and tones,--falling
short of, or going beyond, mere stage-traditions. With all due deference
for authorities, this would be my art, as it has been the art of all
truly great actors. I shall certainly not adopt my husband's profession
without his consent,--but I shall never cease importuning him for that
consent."

Lawrence "laughed a laugh of merry scorn," and left her to her solitary
studies and the patient nursing of her purpose.

It was finally, for Zelma's sake, through the unsolicited influence of
Sir Harry Willerton, that "Mr. Lawrence Bury, Tragedian," attained to a
high point in a provincial actor's ambition,--a London engagement.

After a disheartening period of waiting and idleness, during which he
and his wife made actual face-to-face acquaintance with want, and both
came near playing their parts in the high-tragedy of starvation in a
garret, he made his first appearance before the audience of Covent
Garden, in the part of Mercutio. He was young, shapely, handsome, and
clever,--full of flash and dash, and, above all, _new_. He had chosen
well his part,--Mercutio,--that graceful frolic of fancy, which less
requires sustained intellectual power than the exaltation of animal
spirits,--that brief sunburst of l