o whatever
vicissitudes of fortune may yet be decreed.

Jefferson's memoir is a simple message to simple minds. It will find its
way to thousands of readers to whom a paper by Addison or an essay by
Hume would have no meaning. It will point for them the moral of a good
life. It will impress them with the spectacle of a noble actor,
profoundly and passionately true to the high art by which he lives,
bearing eloquent testimony to its beauty and its worth, and to the fine
powers and sterling virtues of the good men and women with whom he has
been associated in its pursuit. It will display to them--and to all
others who may chance to read it--a type of that absolute humility of
spirit which yet is perfectly compatible with a just pride of intellect.
It will help to preserve interesting traits of famous actors of an
earlier time, together with bright stories that illumine the dry
chronicle of our theatrical history. And, in its simple record of the
motives by which he has been impelled, and the artistic purposes that he
has sought to accomplish, it will remain an eloquent, vital,
indestructible memorial to the art and the character of a great
comedian, when the present reality of his exquisite acting shall have
changed to a dim tradition and a fading memory of the past.

VIII.

ON JEFFERSON'S ACTING.

Fifty years from now the historian of the American stage, if he should
be asked to name the actor of this period who was most beloved by the
people of this generation, will answer that it was Joseph Jefferson.
Other actors of our time are famous, and they possess in various degrees
the affection of the public. Jefferson is not only renowned but
universally beloved. To state the cause of this effect is at once to
explain his acting and to do it the honour to which it is entitled. That
cause can be stated in a single sentence. Jefferson is at once a poetic
and a human actor, and he is thus able to charm all minds and to win all
hearts. His success, therefore, is especially important not to himself
alone but to the people.

Public taste is twofold. It has a surface liking, and it has a deep,
instinctive, natural preference. The former is alert, capricious,
incessant, and continually passes from fancy to fancy. It scarcely knows
what it wants, except that it wants excitement and change. Those persons
in the dramatic world who make a point to address it are experimental
speculators, whose one and only object is persona