line, or even of one forcible
word. Has not this made the passage far more real and human to you
than all the thought you have devoted to it? An accomplished critic
has said that Shakespeare himself might have been surprised had he
heard the "Fool, fool, fool!" of Edmund Kean. And though all actors
are not Keans, they have in varying degree this power of making a
dramatic character step out of the page, and come nearer to our hearts
and our understandings.

After all, the best and most convincing exposition of the whole art
of acting is given by Shakespeare himself: "To hold, as 'twere, the
mirror up to nature, to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own
image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure."
Thus the poet recognized the actor's art as a most potent ally in the
representation of human life. He believed that to hold the mirror up
to nature was one of the worthiest functions in the sphere of labor,
and actors are content to point to his definition of their work as the
charter of their privileges.

III.

PRACTICE OF THE ART.

The practice of the art of acting is a subject difficult to treat with
the necessary brevity. Beginners are naturally anxious to know what
course they should pursue. In common with other actors, I receive
letters from young people many of whom are very earnest in their
ambition to adopt the dramatic calling, but not sufficiently alive to
the fact that success does not depend on a few lessons in declamation.
When I was a boy I had a habit which I think would be useful to all
young students. Before going to see a play of Shakespeare's I used to
form--in a very juvenile way--a theory as to the working out of the
whole drama, so as to correct my conceptions by those of the actors;
and though I was, as a rule, absurdly wrong, there can be no doubt
that any method of independent study is of enormous importance, not
only to youngsters, but also to students of a larger growth.
Without it the mind is apt to take its stamp from the first forcible
impression it receives, and to fall into a servile dependence upon
traditions, which, robbed of the spirit that created them, are apt
to be purely mischievous. What was natural to the creator is often
unnatural and lifeless in the imitator. No two people form the same
conceptions of character, and therefore it is always advantageous to
see an independent and courageous exposition of an original ideal.
There can be no objec