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Show d Heredity Of Art IN an interesting article published in New York, the burden Is that the actor's B; art is in great measure inherited. It was Hj prompted by the appearance of two descendants Hj of the great Garrick on the New York stage. We H do not see why any argument is needed to show B that special gifts and characteristics are often H transmitted to posterity. We say gifts and char- Hj ' acteristics because there is a difference. If a Hi j person has the natural gifts of an actor, still he H J or she has to be trained until those gifts become H! 5 developed, and make for the possessor a second H nature. H At the same time the offspring of many great H. artists are most commonplace people. They give H no sign of the blood that is in them. But in H, such cases the gifts are liable to appear in the Hi third generation. The germ that was dormant in H the first generation suddenly vitalizes into active H' , life. The child of two mulattoes may not show a Hj I trace of African blood, but the child of that child, H, i with one pure white parent, is liable to be nearly H. I -as dark as a native African child. Note the case H' I of the great Napoleon. The germ that caused the H Roman women to look placidly on during a fight H ! j of gladiators, when the fight was to the death, H; J had been dormant for twenty generations, but it H j suddenly, roused by the French revolution, burst H into life and the child of the humble Corsicans be- H came a second Caesar. H ' No other element within us isso persistent as H heredity. It cannot be bred out. It should be H all the more pronounced in the descendants of B j! great actors and actresses, for their work is so H v intense that all the faculties are enlisted and kept m f on a strain until the habit of the stage uncon- B sciously becomes the habit of life. Brain, heart, H j gesture the whole being is saturated with it. H J What so natural as that it should be renewed in H !! -posterity? |