He began with Vane. He found him just leaving his own house. After the usual compliments, some such dialogue as this took place between Telemachus and pseudo Mentor:
“I trust you are not really in the power of this actress?”
“You are the slave of a word,” replied Vane. “Would you confound black and white because both are colors? She is like that sisterhood in nothing but a name. Even on the stage they have nothing in common. They are puppets—all attitude and trick; she is all ease, grace and nature.”
“Nature!” cried Pomander. “Laissez-moi tranquille. They have artifice—nature's libel. She has art—nature's counterfeit.”
“Her voice is truth told by music,” cried the poetical lover; “theirs are jingling instruments of falsehood.”
“They are all instruments,” said the satirist; “she is rather the best tuned and played.”
“Her face speaks in every lineament; theirs are rouged and wrinkled masks.”
“Her mask is the best made, mounted, and moved; that is all.”
“She is a fountain of true feeling.”
“No; a pipe that conveys it without spilling or holding a drop.”