the actor looks simply for the life; and yet, how well the
great actors have appreciated that marvellous music of words, which in
Shakespeare, at any rate, is so vital an element of poetic power, if,
indeed, it be not equally so in the case of all who have any claim to be
regarded as true poets. 'The sensual life of verse,' says Keats, in a
dramatic criticism published in the _Champion_, 'springs warm from the
lips of Kean, and to one learned in Shakespearian hieroglyphics, learned
in the spiritual portion of those lines to which Kean adds a sensual
grandeur, his tongue must seem to have robbed the Hybla bees and left
them honeyless.' This particular feeling, of which Keats speaks, is
familiar to all who have heard Salvini, Sarah Bernhardt, Ristori, or any
of the great artists of our day, and it is a feeling that one cannot, I
think, gain merely by reading the passage to oneself. For my own part, I
must confess that it was not until I heard Sarah Bernhardt in _Phedre_
that I absolutely realized the sweetness of the music of Racine. As for
Mr. Birrell's statement that actors have the words of literature for ever
on their lips, but none of its truths engraved on their hearts, all that
one can say is that, if it be true, it is a defect which actors share
with the majority of literary critics.

The account Madame Ristori gives of her own struggles, voyages and
adventures, is very pleasant reading indeed. The child of poor actors,
she made her first appearance when she was three months old, being
brought on in a hamper as a New Year's gift to a selfish old gentleman
who would not forgive his daughter for having married for love. As,
however, she began to cry long before the hamper was opened, the comedy
became a farce, to the immense amusement of the public. She next
appeared in a mediaeval melodrama, being then three years of age, and was
so terrified at the machinations of the villain that she ran away at the
most critical moment. However, her stage-fright seems to have
disappeared, and we find her playing Silvio Pellico's _Francesca da
Rimini_ at fifteen, and at eighteen making her _debut_ as Marie Stuart.
At this time the naturalism of the French method was gradually displacing
the artificial elocution and academic poses of the Italian school of
acting. Madame Ristori seems to have tried to combine simplicity with
style, and the passion of nature with the self-restraint of the artist.
'J'ai voulu fondre les deux