But it is better to exaggerate a style than to have no style at
all. That is what is the matter with these others--these quiet,
shifty, shamefaced others they have no style at all. And as is the
difference between the old actor and them, so, precisely was the
difference between Sir William Harcourt and the modern members.
I do not desire the new actors to model themselves on the old, whose
manner is quite incongruous with the character of modern drama. All I
would have them do is to achieve the manner for which they are darkly
fumbling. Even so, I do not demand oratory of the modern senators.
Oratory I love, but I admit that the time for it is bygone. It
belonged to the age of port. On plenty of port the orator spoke, and
on plenty of port his audience listened to him. A diet-bound
generation can hardly produce an orator; and if, by some mysterious
throw-back, an orator actually is produced, he falls very flat. There
was in my college at Oxford a little `Essay Society,' to which I found
myself belonging. We used to meet every Thursday evening in the room
of this or that member; and, when coffee had been handed round, one of
us read an essay--a calm little mild essay on one of those vast themes
that no undergraduate can resist. After this, we had a calm little
mild discussion `It seems to me that the reader of the paper has
hardly laid enough stress on.
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