iscovered,"
I'm sure I must have looked as jaded and tear-worn as poor Mrs.
Beverley ever did. However, all went well with me till the last
act, when my father's acting and my own previous state of
nervousness combined to make my part of the tragedy anything but
feigning; I sobbed so violently that I could hardly articulate my
words, and at the last fell upon the dead body of Beverley with a
hysterical cry that had all the merit of pure nature, if none
other, to recommend it. Fortunately the curtain fell then, and I
was carried to my dressing-room to finish my fit in private. The
last act of that play gives me such pains in my arms and legs, with
sheer nervous distress, that I am ready to drop down with
exhaustion at the end of it; and this reminds me of the very
difficult question which you expect me to answer, respecting the
species of power which is called into play in the act, so called,
of _acting_.

I am the worst reasoner, analyzer, and metaphysician that ever was
born; and therefore whatever I say on the subject can be worth very
little, as a reply to your question, but may furnish you with some
data for making a theory about it for yourself.

It appears to me that the two indispensable elements of fine acting
are a certain amount of poetical imagination and a power of
assumption, which is a good deal the rarer gift of the two; in
addition to these, a sort of vigilant presence of mind is
necessary, which constantly looks after and avoids or removes the
petty obstacles that are perpetually destroying the imaginary
illusion, and reminding one in one's own despite that one is not
really Juliet or Belvidera. The curious part of acting, to me, is
the sort of double process which the mind carries on at once, the
combined operation of one's faculties, so to speak, in
diametrically opposite directions; for instance, in that very last
scene of Mrs. Beverley, while I was half dead with crying in the
midst of the real grief, created by an entirely unreal cause, I
perceived that my tears were falling like rain all over my silk
dress, and spoiling it; and I calculated and measured most
accurately the space that my father would require to fall in, and
moved myself and my train accordingly in the midst of the anguish I
was to feign, and absolu