nored in the
breach than in the observance among many of our eminent actors of the
present time. When Richard Mansfield played the part of Brutus, he
destroyed the nice balance of the quarrel scene with Cassius by attracting
all of the attention of the audience to himself, whereas a right reading of
the scene would demand a constant shifting of attention from one hero to
the other. When Joseph Haworth spoke the great speech of Cassius beginning,
"Come, Antony, and young Octavius, come!", he was shrouded in the shadow of
the tent, while the lime-light fell full upon the form of Brutus. This
arrangement so distracted the audience from the true dramatic value of the
scene that neither Mansfield's heroic carriage, nor his eye like Mars to
threaten and command, nor the titanic resonance of his ventriloquial
utterance, could atone for the mischief that was done.

In an earlier paragraph, we noticed the way in which the "star system" may
be used to advantage by the dramatist to economise the attention of the
audience; but it will be observed, on the other hand, that the same system
is pernicious in its influence on the actor. A performer who is accustomed
to the centre of the stage often finds it difficult to keep himself in the
background at moments when the scene should be dominated by other, and
sometimes lesser, actors. Artistic self-denial is one of the rarest of
virtues. This is the reason why "all-star" performances are almost always
bad. A famous player is cast for a minor part; and in his effort to exploit
his talents, he violates the principle of economy of attention by
attracting undue notice to a subordinate feature of the performance. That's
villainous, and shows a most pitiful ambition, as Hamlet truly says. A rare
proof of the genius of the great Coquelin was given by his performances of
Pere Duval and the Baron Scarpia in support of the Camille and Tosca of
Mme. Sarah Bernhardt. These parts are both subordinate; and, in playing
them, Coquelin so far succeeded in obliterating his own special talents
that he never once distracted the attention of the audience from the acting
of his fellow star. This was an artistic triumph worthy of ranking with the
same actor's sweeping and enthralling performance of Cyrano de
Bergerac,--perhaps the richest acting part in the history of the theatre.

A story is told of how Sir Henry Irving, many years ago, played the role of
Joseph Surface at a special revival of _The School for