Cashel Byron's Profession

"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.