hite and black
On a single fishing smack,
In memory of the man but for whom had gone to wrack
All that France saved from the fight whence England bore the bell.
Go to Paris: rank on rank
Search the heroes flung pell-mell
On the Louvre, face and flank!
You shall look long enough ere you come to Herve Riel.
So, for better and for worse,
Herve Riel, accept my verse!
In my verse, Herve Riel, do thou once more
Save the squadron, honor France, love thy wife the Bell Aurore!

Your imagination can no more follow the flight of the _Formidable_,
steered by Herve Riel, with the French fleet close following her
guidance and "the English at her heels" past the rocks and shoals of
Greve to safe harbor at Solidor, and remain creatively unsensitive to
the pulse of progressive action, than could the actual rescue of his
country's squadron leave unmoved toward the "man who did the deed" the
heart of her Captain Damfreville.

And when your imagination has not only carried you through such
adventure, but stimulated _my_ imagination to like activity, there is no
limit to be set to the development which may result for us both.

Suggestive analysis can be of little help at this point, the work must
be done in the class-room under direction.

To such stimulating exercise in the vocal interpretation of these poems
of action, I leave you and your imagination. I shall hope to find
difficulty in recognizing either of you at our next meeting. Like Mr.
Rhoades's[11] pupil when he emerged from the Ninth book of _Paradise
Lost_, you ought to have "outgrown all your present intellectual
clothes" in the study of these stories in verse.

[11] Read _The Training of the Imagination_, by James Rhoades; John
Lane Publishing Company.

As further material for this study there is no better choice to be made
than Tennyson's great quasi-epic, _The Idylls of the King_, from which
but for lack of space we should have printed selections. The following
suggestions for work in composition at this point are based on the
_Idylls_.

Describe in your own words Camelot.

Write an imaginary scene between Gareth and his mother.

Tell the story of Elaine.

Make the Holy Grail into the form of a miracle play.

FIFTH STUDY

TO DEVELOP DRAMATIC INSTINCT

Our final study in interpretation has for its concern the development of
dramatic instinct. The work just finished should have left no doubt in
you