sentences,--beginning
with very simple expressions, and taking sentences that express more
and more feeling as your freedom is better established. This practice
can be continued until you are able to recite the potion scene in
Juliet, or any of Lady Macbeth's most powerful speeches, with an case
and freedom which is surprising. This refers only to the voice; the
practice which has been spoken of in a previous chapter brings the same
effect in gesture.

It will be readily seen that this power once gained, no actor would
find it necessary to skip every other night, in consequence of the
severe fatigue which follows the acting of an emotional role. Not only
is the physical fatigue saved, but the power of expression, the power
for intense acting, so far as it impresses the audience, is steadily
increased.

The inability of young persons to express an emotion which they feel
and appreciate heartily, can be always overcome in this way. Relaxing
frees the channels, and the channels being open the real poetic or
dramatic feeling cannot be held back. The relief is as if one were let
out of prison. Personal faults that come from self-consciousness and
nervous tension may be often cured entirely without the necessity of
drawing attention to them, simply by relaxing.

Dramatic instinct is a delicate perception of, quick and keen
sympathies for, and ability to express the various phases of human
nature. Deep study and care are necessary for the best development of
these faculties; but the nerves must be left free to be guided to the
true expression,--neither allowed to vibrate to the ecstatic delight of
the impressions, or in mistaken sympathy with them, but kept clear as
conductors of all the heart can feel and the mind understand in the
character or poem to be interpreted.

This may sound cold. It is not; it is merely a process of relieving
superfluous nervous tension in acting, by which obstructions are
removed so that real sympathetic emotions can be stronger and fuller,
and perceptions keener. Those who get no farther than emotional
vibrations of the nerves in acting, know nothing whatever of the
greatness or power of true dramatic instinct.

There are three distinct schools of dramatic art,--one may be called
dramatic hysteria, the second dramatic hypocrisy. The first means
emotional excitement and nervous exhaustion; the second artificial
simulation of a feeling. Dramatic sincerity is the third school, and
the school