It was plain enough to Frank that the “old-time” actor who resorted to vocal gymnastics, roaring or cooing, as he fancied the occasion required, did not possess so much actual force as some quiet “new-school” actors, who seldom raised their voices above a certain pitch, yet who succeeded in putting deep intensity into their expressions.
Merry had decided that the beginning and end of the actor’s study should be the art of delivery. The other things an actor must learn are comparatively easy, but the art of “reading” well is so difficult that very few actors become sufficiently acquainted with it to discover how difficult it really is.
Frank knew he could not learn to deliver his part properly in the short time given him to commit it, but he resolved to do his best on the lines he did commit, and so he studied them over carefully to discover just how they should be spoken.
It was plain enough to him that “the art of elocution” as taught by ninety-nine elocutionists out of a hundred was something that had far better be left unlearned if a person really wished to become an actor, for those “elocutionists” give their attention almost wholly to modulation, and very little to the meaning of what they read.
In the matter of emphasis, elocution teachers, as a rule, instruct their pupils to emphasize words, but properly it is ideas and not words that should be emphasized.
Books on elocution give certain arbitrary rules to be followed, but no rule that will apply to all cases can be made, and brains are far better than rules.
Merriwell shut himself up in his room to give his brains a chance to study out certain things in connection with his lines, as well as to commit the words to memory. Almost anybody can commit words so they may be reeled off parrot-like, but it takes intellect to speak words thus committed so that they convey the meaning the author intended they should convey.
So intent was Frank on his work that he did not notice when his door swung open, and he did not know two persons had entered the room till one of them spoke to the other. That one said:
“Shut the door and lock it, Sargent! We’ve got him alone, and I’ll black both his eyes before anybody can come up and stop the muss.”
Frank whirled about, dropping the manuscript play on his bed.