Herein the personality of the interpreter counts for much. The music, it is true, carries its own meaning and message, but this is reinforced by the mediumship and the imagination of the performer. "Imagination is the life of art. Why so many performers give such little pleasure and leave the audience coldly critical is simply because their imagination is of the feeblest."[12] Necessarily there is always a certain coloration from the mind which transmits the message, just as the tones of two violins though played by the same hand might be different. Moreover, as a resonant instrument would amplify the sound and an inferior one would hamper it, so a greater artist would interpret a message to more effect than one less capable. The gramophone will give us the actual notes of the singer, but it depends upon ourselves as to whether we catch the real thing or not. What is actually there is the shell: there is no personality unless we ourselves build up that personality of the singer in our imagination. We must supply that which the machine lacks, or else perforce go without. When the artist is present in person we need no effort of the imagination, and though the machine can give us a personal rendering it can never offer us the personality. In much the same way the mechanical piano-player may give So-and-so's exact rendering if only we follow the requisite directions, but it is impossible for it to be the same. Two things seem alike, but one is stuffed, and the other hollow. [Note 12: Lancelot, in the "Referee."] Personality, then, must always be a vital factor since it colours and vitalises, as well as reinforces the meaning of the music. Spirit is a fact, but a beautiful personality will invest it with all the glamour of romance. The emotion may be "pure joy" but it needs a warm heart to give it out to full effect to a coldish world. Consequently, for the beauty to shine through, the artist's personality must be finely wrought. A selfish soul might sing a love-song, but a woman would not be taken in by it--unless she thought twice: it would not ring true enough. Beauty lies in the heart of all worthy music, so the artist who studies it and lives in its atmosphere gradually builds that beauty into the life and the character: the mere expression henceforth makes it part of him through memory. So, beautiful thoughts are needful food to the mind of the artist, and no amount of cleverness in the simulation of this or that emotion will ever enable the same effect to be produced, as when beauty is reinforced by beauty. Personality counts beyond all calculation.