s, never acrid or wounding. His
speech abounded with unconscious epigram. He had his beliefs and stood
by them; but he was never aggressive. Cleaner speech never fell from the
lips of man. I never heard him use a profanity. We once agreed between
ourselves to draw a line across the salacious stories so much in vogue
during our day; the wit must exceed the dirt; where the dirt exceeded
the wit we would none of it.

He was a singularly self-respecting man; genuinely a modest man. The
actor is supposed to be so familiar with the pubic as to be proof
against surprises. Before his audience he must be master of himself,
holding the situation and his art by the firmest grip. He must simulate,
not experience emotion, the effect referable to the seeming, never to
the actuality involving the realization.

Mr. Jefferson held to this doctrine and applied it rigorously. On a
certain occasion he was playing Caleb Plummer. In the scene between
the old toy-maker and his blind daughter, when the father discovers the
dreadful result of his dissimulation--an awkward hitch; and, the climax
quite thwarted, the curtain came down. I was standing at the wings.

"Did you see that?" he said as he brushed by me, going to his
dressing-room.

"No," said I, following him. "What was it?"

He turned, his eyes still wet and his voice choked. "I broke down," said
he; "completely broke down. I turned away from the audience to recover
myself. But I failed and had the curtain rung."

The scene had been spoiled because the actor had been overcome by a
sudden flood of real feeling, whereas he was to render by his art the
feeling of a fictitious character and so to communicate this to his
audience. Caleb's cue was tears, but not Jefferson's.

On another occasion I saw his self-possession tried in a different
way. We were dining with a gentleman who had overpartaken of his own
hospitality. Mr. Murat Halstead was of the company. There was also a
German of distinction, whose knowledge of English was limited. The Rip
Van Winkle craze was at its height. After sufficiently impressing the
German with the rare opportunity he was having in meeting a man so
famous as Mr. Jefferson, our host, encouraged by Mr. Halstead, and I am
afraid not discouraged by me, began to urge Mr. Jefferson to give us, as
he said, "a touch of his mettle," and failing to draw the great comedian
out he undertook himself to give a few descriptive passages from the
drama which was carryi