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A DRAMATIC CRITIC
France much better than we in America,
and their success has demonstrated the
justness of their method. Our actors have
the root of the matter in them, — are sen-
sitive, facile, intelligent, and richly en-
dowed with the mimetic gift; but they
lack the highest finish and certainty of
touch, and the moment they pass outside
the rapid give-and-take and short speeches
of the modern comic or romantic drama
they fail at many important points, espe-
cially in gesture, in clean enunciation, and
in the ability to declaim passages of mod-
erate length, wherein a nice adjustment
and proportion of emphasis are essential.
A hundred instances might be cited. It
will suffice to mention two: Miss Maude
Adams, whose impersonation of the Due
de Reichstadt in L'Aiglon — an impersonation
of much beauty and pathos —
is marred by the artist's powerlessness to
enunciate intelligibly when extreme pas-
sion and speed are demanded by a "ti-
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