the actual world to a region where
society was more splendid and careless and brilliant and lax. They did not
aim to produce an illusion of naturalness as our actors do to-day. If we
compare the old-style acting of _The School for Scandal_, that is described
in the essays of Lamb, with the modern performance of _Sweet Kitty
Bellairs_, which dealt with the same period, we shall see at once how
modern acting has grown less presentative and more representative than it
was in the days of Bensley and Bannister.

The Drama of Rhetoric and the Drama of Conversation both struggled on in
sporadic survivals throughout the first half of the nineteenth century; and
during this period the methods of the platform actor and the parlor actor
were consistently maintained. The actor of the "old school," as we are now
fond of calling him, was compelled by the physical conditions of the
theatre to keep within the focus of the footlights, and therefore in close
proximity to the spectators. He could take the audience into his confidence
more readily than can the player of the present. Sometimes even now an
actor steps out of the picture in order to talk intimately with the
audience; but usually at the present day it is customary for actors to seem
totally oblivious of the spectators and remain always within the picture on
the stage. The actor of the "old school" was fond of the long speeches of
the Drama of Rhetoric and the brilliant lines of the Drama of
Conversation. It may be remembered that the old actor in _Trelawny of the
Wells_ condemned a new-style play because it didn't contain "what you could
really call a speech." He wanted what the French term a _tirade_ to
exercise his lungs and split the ears of the groundlings.

But with the growth of the Drama of Illusion, produced within a
picture-frame proscenium, actors have come to recognise and apply the
maxim, "Actions speak louder than words." What an actor _does_ is now
considered more important than what he _says_. The most powerful moment in
Mrs. Fiske's performance of _Hedda Gabler_ was the minute or more in the
last act when she remained absolutely silent. This moment was worth a dozen
of the "real speeches" that were sighed for by the old actor in _Trelawny_.
Few of those who saw James A. Herne in _Shore Acres_ will forget the
impressive close of the play. The stage represented the living-room of a
homely country-house, with a large open fireplace at one side. The night
grew late