criticise, if we be so moved. Can anything be
more absurd than to hear people discussing the conception of a part of
which the execution doesn't exist--the idea of a character which never
arrives at form? Think what it is, that form, as an accomplished actor
may give it to us, and admit that we have enough to do to hold him to
this particular honor.

Auberon. Do you mean to say you don't think some conceptions are better
than some others?

Dorriforth. Most assuredly, some are better: the proof of the pudding
is in the eating. The best are those which yield the most points,
which have the largest face; those, in other words, that are the most
demonstrable, or, in other words still, the most actable. The most
intelligent performer is he who recognizes most surely this "actable"
and distinguishes in it the more from the less. But we are so far from
being in possession of a subjective pattern to which we have a right to
hold him that he is entitled directly to contradict any such absolute by
presenting us with different versions of the same text, each completely
colored, completely consistent with itself. Every actor in whom the
artistic life is strong must often feel the challenge to do that. I
should never think, for instance, of contesting an actress's right to
represent Lady Macbeth as a charming, insinuating woman, if she really
sees the figure that way. I may be surprised at such a vision; but so
far from being scandalized, I am positively thankful for the extension
of knowledge, of pleasure, that she is able to open to me.

Auberon. A reading, as they say, either commends itself to one's sense
of truth or it doesn't. In the one case--

Dorriforth. In the one case I recognize--even--or especially--when the
presumption may have been against the particular attempt, a consummate
illustration of what art can do. In the other I moralize indulgently
upon human rashness.

Florentia. You have an assurance _a taute epreuve_; but you are
deplorably superficial. There is a whole group of plays and a whole
category of acting to which your generalizations quite fail to apply.
Help me, Auberon.

Auberon. You're easily exhausted. I suppose she means that it's far from
true everywhere that the scenery is everything. It may be true--I don't
say it is!--of two or three good-natured playhouses in London. It isn't
true--how can it be?--of the provincial theatres or of the others in the
capital. Put it even that they would be all