"We were talking about effort when this young gentleman took it upon
himself to break the ring. Now, nothing can be what you might call
artistically done if it's done with an effort. If a thing can't be
done light and easy, steady and certain, let it not be done at all.
Sounds strange, doesn't it? But I'll tell you a stranger thing. The
more effort you make, the less effect you produce. A WOULD-BE artist
is no artist at all. I see that in my own profession (never mind
what that profession is just at present, as the ladies might think
the worse of me for it). But in all professions, any work that shows
signs of labor, straining, yearning--as the German gentleman
said--or effort of any kind, is work beyond the man's strength that
does it, and therefore not well done. Perhaps it's beyond his
natural strength; but it is more likely that he was badly taught.
Many teachers set their pupils on to strain, and stretch, so that
they get used up, body and mind, in a few months. Depend upon it,
the same thing is true in other arts. I once taught a fiddler that
used to get a hundred guineas for playing two or three tunes; and he
told me that it was just the same thing with the fiddle--that when
you laid a tight hold on your fiddle-stick, or even set your teeth
hard together, you could do nothing but rasp like the fellows that
play in bands for a few shillings a night."
"How much more of this nonsense must we endure?" said Lucian,
audibly, as Cashel stopped for breath. Cashel turned and looked at
him.
"By Jove!" whispered Lord Worthington to his companion, "that fellow
had better be careful. I wish he would hold his tongue."
"You think it's nonsense, do you?" said Cashel, after a pause. Then
he raised one of the candles, and illuminated a picture that hung on
the wall, "Look at that picture," he said. "You see that fellow in
armor--St. George and the dragon, or whatever he may be. He's jumped
down from his horse to fight the other fellow--that one with his
head in a big helmet, whose horse has tumbled. The lady in the
gallery is half crazy with anxiety for St. George; and well she may
be. THERE'S a posture for a man to fight in! His weight isn't
resting on his legs; one touch of a child's finger would upset him.
Look at his neck craned out in front of him, and his face as flat as
a full moon towards his man, as if he was inviting him to shut up
both his eyes with one blow. You can all see that he's as weak and
nervous as a cat, and that he doesn't know how to fight. And why
does he give you that idea? Just because he's all strain and
stretch; because he isn't at his ease; because he carries the weight
of his body as foolishly as one of the ladies here would carry a hod
of bricks; because he isn't safe, steady, and light on his pins, as
he would be if he could forget himself for a minute, and leave his
body to find its proper balance of its own accord. If the painter of
that picture had known his business he would never have sent his man
up to the scratch in such a figure and condition as that. But you
can see with one eye that he didn't understand--I won't say the
principles of fighting, but the universal principles that I've told
you of, that ease and strength, effort and weakness, go together.
Now," added Cashel, again addressing Lucian; "do you still think
that notion of mine nonsense?" And he smacked his lips with
satisfaction; for his criticism of the picture had produced a marked
sensation, and he did not know that this was due to the fact that
the painter, Mr. Adrian Herbert, was present.