with the brief dialogue that follows, were spoken in a
thoroughly artificial manner. The voice was exquisite,
but from the point of view of tone it was absolutely false.
It was wrong in colour. It took away all the life from the verse.
It made the passion unreal.

Dorian Gray grew pale as he watched her. He was puzzled and anxious.
Neither of his friends dared to say anything to him. She seemed to them
to be absolutely incompetent. They were horribly disappointed.

Yet they felt that the true test of any Juliet is the balcony scene
of the second act. They waited for that. If she failed there,
there was nothing in her.

She looked charming as she came out in the moonlight.
That could not be denied. But the staginess of her acting
was unbearable, and grew worse as she went on. Her gestures
became absurdly artificial. She overemphasized everything
that she had to say. The beautiful passage--

Thou knowest the mask of night is on my face,
Else would a maiden blush bepaint my cheek
For that which thou hast heard me speak to-night--

was declaimed with the painful precision of a schoolgirl who has been
taught to recite by some second-rate professor of elocution. When she
leaned over the balcony and came to those wonderful lines--

Although I joy in thee,
I have no joy of this contract to-night: