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The Colour of Life-Part4_Alice Meynell(1847-1924)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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are in spirit almost as extraterritorial as the rushes. In proof of



this he very often cuts them down, out of the view, once for all.

The view is better, as a view, without them. Though their roots are



in his ground right enough, there is a something about their heads -

. But the reason he gives for wishing them away is merely that they



are "thin." A man does not always say everything.

ELEONORA DUSE



The Italian woman is very near to Nature; so is true drama.

Acting is not to be judged like some other of the arts, and praised



for a "noble convention." Painting, indeed, is not praised amiss

with that word; painting is obviously" target="_blank" title="ad.明显地；显而易见地">obviously an art that exists by its



convention - the convention is the art. But far otherwise is it

with the art of acting, where there is no representative material;



where, that is, the man is his own material, and there is nothing

between. With the actor the style is the man, in another, a more



immediate, and a more obvious sense than was ever intended by that

saying. Therefore we may allow the critic - and not accuse him of



reaction - to speak of the division between art and Nature in the

painting of a landscape, but we cannot let him say the same things



of acting. Acting has a technique, but no convention.

Once for all, then, to say that acting reaches the point of Nature,



and touches it quick, is to say all. In other arts imitation is

more or less fatuous, illusion more or less vulgar. But acting is,



at its less good, imitation; at its best, illusion; at its worst,

and when it ceases to be an art, convention.



But the idea that acting is conventional has inevitably come about

in England. For it is, in fact, obliged, with us, to defeat and



destroy itself by taking a very full, entire, tedious, and impotent

convention; a complete body of convention; a convention of



demonstrativeness - of voice and manners intended to be expressive,

and, in particular, a whole weak and unimpulsive convention of



gesture. The English manners of real life are so negative and still

as to present no visible or audible drama; and drama is for hearing



and for vision. Therefore our acting (granting that we have any

acting, which is granting much) has to create its little different



and complementary world, and to make the division of "art" from

Nature - the division which, in this one art, is fatal.



This is one simple and sufficient reason why we have no considerable

acting; though we may have more or less interesting and energetic or



graceful conventions that pass for art. But any student of

international character knows well enough that there are also



supplementary reasons of weight. For example, it is bad to make a

conventional world of the stage, but it is doubly bad to make it



badly - which, it must be granted, we do. When we are anything of

the kind, we are intellectual rather than intelligent; whereas



outward-streaming intelligence makes the actor. We are pre-

occupied, and therefore never single, never wholly possessed by the



one thing at a time; and so forth.

On the other hand, Italians are expressive. They are so possessed



by the one thing at a time as never to be habitual in any lifeless

sense. They have no habits to overcome by something arbitrary and



intentional. Accordingly, you will find in the open-air theatre of

many an Italian province, away from the high roads, an art of drama



that our capital cannot show, so high is it, so fine, so simple, so

complete, so direct, so momentary and impassioned, so full of



singleness and of multitudinous impulses of passion.

Signora Duse is not different in kind from these unrenowned. What



they are, she is in a greater degree. She goes yet further, and yet

closer. She has an exceptionally large and liberalintelligence.



If lesser actors give themselves entirely to the part, and to the

large moment of the part, she, giving herself, has more to give.



Add to this nature of hers that she stages herself and her acting

with singular knowledge and ease, and has her technique so



thoroughly as to be able to forget it - for this is the one only

thing that is the better for habit, and ought to be habitual. There



is but one passage of her mere technique in which she fails so to




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