of her magnetic imaginative power,
without which no interpreter can hope to become an artist. This, it
seems to me, is the highest form of stage art; certainly it is the form
which on the whole is the most successful in exposing the intention of
author and composer, although occasionally a Geraldine Farrar or a
Salvini will make it apparent that the inspiration of the moment also
has its value. However, I cannot believe that the true artist often
experiments in public. He conceives in seclusion and exposes his
conception, completely realized, breathed into, so to speak, on the
stage. When he first studies a character it is his duty to feel the
emotions of that character, and later he must project these across the
footlights into the hearts of his audience; but he cannot be expected to
feel these emotions every night. He must _remember_ how he felt them
before. And sometimes even this ideal interpreter makes mistakes.
Neither instinct nor intelligence--not even genius--can compass every
range.

Miss Garden's career has been closely identified with the French lyric
stage and, in at least two operas, she has been the principal
interpreter--and a material factor in their success--of works which have
left their mark on the epoch, stepping-stones in the musical brook. The
roles in which she has most nearly approached the ideal are perhaps
Melisande, Jean (_Le Jongleur de Notre Dame_), Sapho, Thais, Louise,
Marguerite (in Gounod's _Faust_), Chrysis (in _Aphrodite_), and Monna
Vanna. I cannot speak personally of her Tosca, her Orlanda, her Manon,
her Violetta, or her Cherubin (in Massenet's opera of the same name). I
do not care for her Carmen as a whole, and to my mind her interpretation
of Salome lacks the inevitable quality which stamped Olive Fremstad's
performance. In certain respects she realizes the characters and sings
the music of Juliet and Ophelie, but this is _vieux jeu_ for her, and I
do not think she has effaced the memory of Emma Eames in the one and
Emma Calve in the other of these roles. She was somewhat vague and not
altogether satisfactory (this may be ascribed to the paltriness of the
parts) as Prince Charmant in _Cendrillon, la belle_ Dulcinee in _Don
Quichotte_, and Griselidis. On the other hand, in _Natoma_--her only
appearance thus far in opera in English--she made a much more important
contribution to the lyric stage than either author or composer.

Mary Garden was born in Scotland, but her family came