UC-NRLF $B 31 MSE ( illH I II li I liii II ! ! I li! 11 ^ » vcv. ®l|f Art of Artittg WotkB bjj K J. HHarkag The Art of Acting Voca Gymnastics / The Emotional Analysis of Shakespeare's Dramatic Characters | (In Preparation) ®If ^ Art 0f Arttng «8 3. 3. Harkag lEmbraring ®I|0 AttalgatB 0f iExpr^a0t0tt iramattr Sltt^ratur^ 3F. J. jHarkag 23 MttX 44ti} i^trert laia COPYRIGHT. 191 3 BY F. F. MACKAY ALL RIGHTS RESERVED (HcnttntB Portrait of the Author 4 Dedication 9 Introduction . 11 Edwin Booth's Letter to the Author . . 14 What is Acting ? Is it an Art ? . . . 25 The Passion 63 ^Emotions 67 Definitions of the Technique of Speech . 83 Z^xpression 94 Utterance 96 Voice 104 Force 119 Stress 137 Pitch and Inflection 156 Time 173 Gesture and Pose 189 ^Laughter 215 ^RYING AND WeEPING 227 .Personal Magnetism 240 Drama 246 The Dramatic Director 261 Make-Up 278 Analysis of the Dramatic Composition . 289 331044 T O my sons— Charles, William, and Edward — I dedicate this book. My sons, in this volume you will find re- corded my observations resulting from fifty- ^ five years of study and practice in the Art of Acting and Teaching, The matter herein contained is the only legacy I am able to leave to you; but I have a hope, almost a belief, that you, starting upon a higher plane of general intelligence, and with a clearer conception of art, may achieve a richer harvest of those "rascal counters'' by which the world still estimates the value of the man. But while struggling for existence, love and develop art. The ap- probation won by the exposition of art is always honest; and the friendship gained by art is always true. The true artist finds in his work a satisfying pleasure which the mere money hunter never experiences. The doing as well as the contemplation of the fine arts, always begets a restful condition of the mind that may not improperly be called hap- piness. And, after all, what is life without its resting places — those oases in the arid t Art 0f Arttns plains of strife — those moments when the mind may cease perceptive work and reflect. The preciseness of mathematical calcu- lation does not seem to harmonize with the qualities of mind that make the most suc- cessful developments of the fine arts, yet I would respectfully suggest that a knowledge of arithmetic, sufficient to reckon the sum of one's daily dependence, is absolutely neces- sary for the preservation of personal liberty and the dignity of freedom. I would there- fore advise you to bring your learning in mathematics to bear, occasionally, in ascer- taining the value of your art, that you may not be merely the servants of buyers and sellers. Dealers in art will never rate you higher than the value you place upon your- selves. Finally, read, observe, and think for your- selves. Trusting that you will find pleasure and profit in correcting the errors and promul- gating the truths of this book; wishing you each and all greater success than has fallen to my lot; and with the assurance that none is less happy and some are happier because I have lived, I am Your affectionate father, F. F. MAC KAY. SnttBhtxttixin THE exponent of Supreme Power and Om- niscience is creation. The exponent of all human knowledge and power is Art. The greatest pleasure that the mind can know comes from its recognition of Nature's forces — the solution of her secrets, and a knowledge of her ways. The scientific mind revels in the study of Na- ture, and the intellectual man listens with delight to an exposition of her mysteries. The greatest mystery in Nature is the ignorance of man. We know nothing positively; but even com- parative knowledge makes a good foundation from which imagination may project her flights. Facts lead us to the boundaries of creation, where fancy flies into unlimited space, with each mo- ment of progress growing and strengthening in the hope that, from the regions of the unknown, 11 UUft Art 0f Arttng imagination may bring a true theory of that Power that bade all things that are, to be. Men who love Nature find pleasure in imitat- ing her works. The poet seeks to describe in words the impres- sions that Nature makes upon his mind; the mu- sician strives to harmonize the sounds that fall upon his ear, from the bird note to the deep toned thunder ; while the painter, with lines and colors, tells the story that Nature reads to him through all her forms by light and shadow tinged. The dramatist and the actor retell with words, with voice, with pose and gesture, the passion and the emotions of the mind. The basic principle of all mental expression by physical action is the mimetic power. All men are not born great ; nor do all men in- herit mimetic power in equal degrees. The object of this work is to present a method by which the art of acting may be acquired through study, by those who have the inherent fitness for the work of illustrating the dramatis personae of the dramatist. 12 Sntx ixhnttxnn This is a subject that I think ought to engage the attention of all lovers of art ; and, if I fail to awaken sympathy and to arouse interest in the matter, let the failure be attributed to the inabil- ity of the writer, rather than to the absence of worthiness in the Art of Acting. 13 ®lj^ Art 0f Arttng THAT the dramatic art takes a high antiquity has been shown by the Oriental scholar, Horace Hayman Wilson, who in 1828 published in London several Indian dramas which he had translated from the Sanscrit, dating some five hundred years before Thespis, who is said to have been a dramatic writer and actor, nearly six hundred years before the establishment of the Christian Church. If age may bring respect, then certainly the art of acting ought to rank among the honorable callings. But acting has something more than age to recommend it to our favorable consideration. It has been regarded as an exponent of great men- tal culture among all enlightened nations. Act- ing is worthy of encouragement, because it is to-day our most intellectual public entertainment, and because it is a powerful factor in the highest 17 ^^^ ®I}^ Art 0f Arttng and best civilizing influences of the world. Acting is worthy of consideration because it strengthens, develops, and beautifies mentally all who study it as an art. Painting and Sculpture have always been the protegees of refinement ; and though, unlike them, acting cannot leave a visible, tangible record, yet in its exhibition it has the power to win and hold more general attention and sympathy than either of them. The painter and the sculptor may present the linear poses of emotions, but the actor re-presents v the emotions themselves. He stands their em- bodiment. He not only arouses the passion, but he begets motion in the sympathies he awakens, and compels an immediate demonstration for or against the re-presentation. That the art of acting has not within it the power of self-preservation is a loss, but not a fault nor blemish in the art. It is fleeting as a breath. A pose of the body, a tone of the voice, a glance of the eye, a quiver of the lip, and it is gone; but in its passage it touches the passion 18 ©Ifj? Art 0f Arttttg and moves every sensation from joy to despair; and, more than any other art, it makes man for- get his selfishness to laugh or weep with the joys or sorrows of his fellow-men. Shakespeare says: "Reputation is an idle and most false impo- \ sition, oft got without merit and lost without I deserving." Perhaps to no class of people is the truth of this quotation more entirely applicable, than to dramatic artists. It often happens that actors, from the repre- sentation of characters which have fine situations in a play, due entirely to the constructive ability of the author, are accredited with genius which they do not possess ; and while people in the walks of private life may pass through the entire round of dissipation without achieving notoriety, be- yond their own immediate neighborhood, dra- matic artists are, from the publicity of their call- ing, liable to the broadest and severest censure for the slightest declensions in morals, or lapse in general deportment. 19 >* : A ®Ij^ Art 0f Arttng But if the moral status of the theatrical pro- fession is sometimes unjustly criticized through the ignorance and prejudice of those who judge without comparison and pronounce without thought, so too is unstinted approbation often bestowed upon the merest pretense to art; and the readiness with which actors frequently ap- propriate to themselves the honors which belong to the author, the scenic artist, the machinist, the property-maker, and the calcium-light man espe- cially, is only equalled by the persistent liberality of auditors who, in the excitement of the moment, are ready to bestow fame and favor upon the rep- resentative actor, quite unmindful of the author and these auxiliaries. Other things being equal, better dramatic char- acters make better actors, in the estimation of the general public, and even professional critics often fall into the error of mistaking for the actor's art those effects which properly belong to the dramatist. In proof of this last proposi- tion, it may be asserted without fear of contra- diction — that no actor, whatever his general in- 20 ®If^ Art 0f Arttttg telligence, has ever succeeded in making a great reputation by the impersonation of inferior char- acters; and it has often occurred that a novice quite unknown to fame, has achieved distinction in a single evening through some accident which forced the manager to entrust the struggHng aspirant with the "leading role." There may be half a dozen Forrests, Davenports, and Booths on the stage during the evening performance, while there can be but one Hamlet, one Lear, or one Macbeth, as the play may be for the occa- sion. All actors may be artists, but all cannot hope to win distinction in the same play, at the same time ; for it is not in the power of any author to place all his dramatis personae in an equally favorable light. There must be shadows in every picture to strengthen the lights and produce a proper effect ; and it generally occurs in the dramatic pictures presented on the stage, that the shadows which require the most careful handling and put the ability of the artist to the severest test, produce, after all, only discouraging results to the actor; 21 SIIi^ Art 0f Arttttg for the general audience bestow their favors upon the successful hero or virtuous heroine, not be- cause they are represented by the superior artists, but because they are the agreeable "high lights" of the play; while the most artistic efforts of the villain, unless illumined with the glamour of a great name, are lost in the "shadow" with which the author has surrounded him. A good looking "juvenile man" in a stock company would be "called out" for his impersonation of Charles Surface in the comedy of "School for Scandal," while the most artistic efforts of an equally good actor in the character of Joseph Surface would, with most audiences, win for him the reputation of being a "mean sort of a fellow anyway." This effect comes from the auditor's being more interested in the story or plot of the play than in the art of acting. Indeed there is labor in drawing just conclusions upon any art, and how much of that kind of labor shall be per- formed, is a question that must always rest with the public. But it may not be inopportune to assert that the dramatic art, or art of acting, 22 Wift Art nf Arttng would make more rapid improvement if, like the art of painting, it might sometimes be considered and judged apart from the framework — situa- tions made by the author. If criticisms were more frequently the result of reason and not the outburst of an impulse — then the patrons of the theatre would be favored with better perform- ances; for true artists, finding themselves appre- ciated for their art, would be content to remain in stock companies, instead of "Starring the Country" to appear in "tremendous dramatic sit- uations" or to display individual peculiarities, regardless of the surroundings, or the unities of the play. With just discriminations on the part of the public, actors would be led to adopt a higher standard of excellence than that achieved by, appropriating to themselves the applause . be- stowed by an audience upon the author's "situ- ations." One of the bad effects of this "misfit" applause is that it often encourages the actor to get en- tirely away from the truth of the character, and to become thoroughly absorbed in presenting his 23 Sij^ Art 0f Arttttg own personality, which is not always a perfect illustration of the author's intention; though it is quite the fashion among weak and merely mer- cenary authors of the present time, to adapt their work to the idiosyncrasies of some popular actor or actress instead of requiring the dramatic artist to impersonate the characters of the play. 24 HJIjat XB Arttng? 3(b tt an Art? mijat is Art? A VERY distinguished actor* writing upon ^ ^ this subject, quite recently, said: "Art I define as a whole, wherein a large element of beauty clothes and makes acceptable a still larger element of truth." Now while there can be no doubt about the gentleman's ability as an artist, there is great obscurity in his definition of Art, and, as a consequence, there may be some doubt as to its correctness. How shall we, then, define art? Let us seek for a definition through a brief process of induc- tion. Two words in our language, "Nature" and "Art," limit and define the universe of things. Art is not Nature, for the reason that Nature is creat ed and Art is made, and again, — *Coquelin. 25 ®If^ Art 0f Atttng Art is not Nature for the reason that Nature re-produces plant and animal after their kind, and Art only re-presents them, and again, — Art is not Nature for the reason that Nature is ever crescent and Art is ever decaying. Everything that man finds here he calls Nature. Everything that he makes he calls Art. Nature is created. Art is made. To create, in its orig- inal sense, is to bring forth a visible, tangible something from an invisible, intangible nothing; while to make, is simply to re-arrange material already created. But to re-arrange — that is, to make — demands a mental and a physical force, and, therefore, art is a result of the application of the impressional force to mental conceptions through muscular action. Under this definition art becomes a generic term which includes the useful as well as the fine arts — two species based in different causes, and with very distinctive effects. The useful arts are the outcome of the mental and physical forces, striving for the perpetuity of the animal man, but eventually demoralizing 26 at t0 Arttng? and depreciating the very forces by which they come into existence. As thus: Suppose two mechanics to seek employment in the office of a machine shop, one man at the age of thirty, the other at the age of sixty-five. Is there any doubt as to which one will obtain the employment, other things being equal? But suppose the question were of oratory, poetry or painting, would we seek the artist of sixty-five, with his experience and years of successful work, and, more than all, with his certain knowledge of his art, or would we intrust the work to the inexperienced man of thirty, who is just beginning his career? The answer is obvious. The fine arts, which result from the efTort of the mind to re-present its im- pressions of nature, actually develop and strengthen the artist, while giving pleasure and thereby happiness to all who are permitted to observe them, through any of the five senses. The power of a people to develop fine art has ever been the limiting power of its highest civilization. It is very generally asserted and commonly be- lieved that excellence in acting is merely a matter 27 t Art nf Arttng of individual feeling on the part of the actor, and taste on the part of the audience. To the promulgation and acceptance of this theory of acting, may be attributed much of the indifferent, not to say bad, acting on the American stage. This theory not only prevents a due considera- tion and proper appreciation of a very delightful art, among cultivated men and women, but it fosters the egotism of a class of actors and nov- ices who believe they were really born great. This pride of innate greatness is a quality common in the human mind. It shows itself in the love of domination. The desire to be thought a creature especially favored by the Creator is so strong that even the so-called "self-made man" — he to whom the world accords the honor of seeming to shape his own destiny — will often in boasting of his own personal achievements, fall back upon the history of his ancestors, and assert that he has a right to the position accorded him by his admirers, because of his mental hereditaments from some progenitor who lived high up in the family tree. 28 at ta Artittg? Egotism — unquestioning belief in self — is a lib- eral purveyor to human vanity. It is, perhaps, a fortunate thing for many who live by the exhibition of theatrical performances, that so little attention is paid to the art of acting by the public in general and by the critics in par- ticular, but, for the art itself, it is to be regretted that there are but few disciples on the stage, and very few managers, who present acting to the public through love of art, or for any other pur- pose than that which moves the merchant to pre- sent his wares for sale — solely for the acquisition of money. Well, is not the dealer entitled to all he can acquire by labor expended in handling an article or an art? Undoubtedly. But the theatrical manager has less moral right to allow the art of acting to deteriorate by his handling than the merchant has to adulterate his merchandise or to present a damaged article as first class. The pur- chaser of adulterated teas may examine before he buys, but the purchaser of a theatre ticket must buy before he examines. 29 Slf^ Art 0f Arttttg This is treating of acting in the very lowest line of consideration — as mere traffic in the struggle for existence, by those who deal in it. If there be any truth in the assertion of the philosopher who said : "Every man owes some- thing to the art whereby he lives/' then, certain- ly, the professors and dealers in histrionism owe something to the art of acting ; for it may be as- serted, without fear of successful contradiction, that there is no other art that makes such large returns upon the financial and intellectual capital invested. Is acting merely a matter of taste? Taste is a result of mental action. It may be inherent and it may be cultivated and its function is to accept or reject, to approve or disapprove of a thing already made. Taste never makes any- thing — it never does anything except to select or to reject, for its own gratification. Taste is a mental quality and not a factor in physical force. Taste is a kind of censor that sits in judgment on all the exterior and interior circumstances of life ; and its services are just as necessary to the 30 / Ulfat XB Arttng? acknowledged arts of Poetry, Music and Paint- ing as to the disputed art of Acting. All poets, musicians and painters will admit the influence of taste in their art, but none of them will admit that their art is merely taste. Feeling is one of the senses common to animal life. It is a faculty in human nature on which no one relies — except for first impressions — when he can bring his judgment to bear, or have the advantage of deductions made by compari- sons.y/Feeling is that sense that places human nature in or out of sympathy with its surround- ings whether mental or physical. It is therefore a faculty absolutely necessary to the art of act- in^pi^Feeling is an elementary motor to art; for as taste prompts to the selection, so does feeling prompt to the doing. But as power without proper direction may destroy the very object for whose advancement it is raised, so feeling tm- controlled may make a lunatic instead of an art- ist. The modern crank is a result of misdirected feeling. Shakespeare says : "The purpose of playing,'* 31 ®Ij^ Art 0f Arttttg that is, acting, "both at the first and now, was and is to hold, as 't were, the mirror up to nature" • — by imitation — **to show virtue her own fea- ture, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure." Therefore, acting does something. It makes something. Acting makes physical pictures of mental conceptions Acting is therefore an art. It results from a constant application of mental force to a physical effect, in the re-presentations of Nature. It is pleasing to the beholder and strengthening to the doer. Acting is therefore a I fine art, and may be defined as the art of re-pre- / senting human emotions by a just expression of ' the artificial and the natural language. Taste and feeling are not arts. Acting is an art ; therefore, acting is not a mere matter of taste and feeling. Taste and feeling are, however, necessary to the art of acting. And although the function of taste in acting is as genuine as it would nec- essarily be in the selection of this or that kind of discourse for a serious or joyous occasion, or the 32 Mlfat t0 Arttttg? selection of this or that kind of color in arranging pleasing effects in costumes or draperies, or in selecting this or that quality of music for a funeral or a jubilee; yet the feeling that appears, or seems to be, in acting, is not necessarily the genuine sensation of the emotion of the dramatic character represented, but a likeness of the emo- tion in accordance with the actor's conception of his author's presentation. An emotion is the result of self-love affected by an exterior circumstance, either past or pres- ent, and may be divided into three parts — im- pression, sensation and expression — the out- come in voice, pose and gesture. In nature all of these factors are active in the presentation of joy, sorrow, anger, or whatever emotion or phase of an emotion is presented. In the art of acting, sensation may be absent but judgment resulting from observation and comparison must, through the faculty of memory, and the mimetic force, direct the physical action so as to produce a like- ness of the emotion. In proof of the position here assumed, that the 33 arif^ Art 0f Arttng art of acting does not necessitate, on the part of the actor, the genuine sensation or feeling of love or joy, or anger, or whatever emotion the author may be describing by his situations, may be cited two or three illustrations that are familiar to actors and are perhaps worth the consideration of the public as facts that will enable them to better understand true art in acting. The opinion prevails largely that actors who are capable of intense earnestness in their efforts to imitate the signs of an emotion, actually feel the sensation of the emotion they are re-present- ing. Now this theory of feeling is just as appli- cable to the poet, the painter, or the musician, as it is to the actor. The poet, the painter, and the musician are subject to cold feet and hands, and fevered, ach- ing heads, though sitting apparently quiet in the chair, doing the labor of their respective arts ; yet no one thinks of asking the poet if he feels distressed because he fancies that "up the high hill he heaves a huge round stone." Nor does any one ask the musician if the vibrations of the 34 miiat ia Arttng? low notes in his compositions have jarred him into a headache. Nor do we ask the painter if his fatigue comes from mental perturbations be- cause he is painting a rearing horse. No, we at- tribute the distress to the intense mental labor of re-presenting mental impressions by word pic- tures, tone pictures, and line and color pictures. So do the signs of distress manifested by a histrionic artist after a great effort, result from an over-draught of the nervous and muscular force, prompted by self-love struggling, through love of art, for approbation. Earnestness is a prime factor in success. Greatness cannot be achieved without it. Earn- estness in what ? Earnestness in doings the. imitation. Is it pos- sible that Mme. B.'s Camille is only an imitation — a sham ? Yes, 'tis true — and no pity 'tis true — Mme. B.'s Camille is a sham, but the presentation is good, solid, earnest work, — a severe tax on nerve and muscle for the evening. There are many who believe that Mme. B. actually feels all the joys and sorrows described 35 ®Ij^ Art 0f Arttttg in the character of Camille, when she plays it. If this were true "Camille" would undoubtedly soon pass from the popular stage performances of the day for, at the end of the third act, the grief of Camille at parting with her lover is so great that she is ill for six weeks. Now suppose Mme. B. actually experienced the feelings of Camille, the curtain couldn't go up on the fourth act for six weeks — a long stage wait. People who are so eager to catch the early train that they rise before the final curtain is fairly down, would probably be a little late in their return home. No, Mme. B. does not feel as Camille felt. But who knows it? Not the audience; for if the audience can for a moment think that the artist is not suf- fering with those whom they see suffer, then Mme. B.'s performance is a failure in the art of acting, which must be a perfect imitation of nature. Who knows, then, that this apparent suffering is not reality? Let us step behind the scenes for a moment. Perhaps some of you have been there already. 36 So much the better. True art is better appreci- ated where it is well known. Well, here we are, and the Camille of the eve- ning is just preparing to go on, in the third act — a long and difficult scene. Before the curtain rises she calls her maid and says: "J^^^* yo^^ know this scene is very long, and I am always very much fatigued at the end of it, so do have something to refresh me when I come off," and Jane replies : "Yes, ma'am, the same as usual ?" Camille says: "Yes, I think so. Yes, that will do, only let it be very cold — or, no, I think I'd better have—" Here the call boy says : "Curtain's up, Madame B." and away Camille flies to the entrance, leav- ing Jane in doubt as to whether she desires a glass of iced tea or a glass of lemonade. The scene progresses — Camille chats with Mme. Prudence, Nichette and Gustave. She talks of their friendship, the love of Armand, that is making her life like a dream of happiness. She pictures herself in simple summer dress skip- ping through the fields, or sailing on the water 37 aijf? Art 0f Arting by his side and her happiness grows in the sim- pHcity and quietness of her Hfe, until she sees herself a child again. Then comes Armand's father on the scene — like cloud o'er summer sun — casting a shadow over her brightest hopes. He crushes her heart to save his own. He pleads for the honor of his family, and for his son's future. He exacts a promise that she will bid Armand farewell forever. She writes her fare- well to Armand! He comes on the scene and finds her agitated, and in tears! He exclaims: "Ah, Camille, how can I ever return such de- votion and love!" Then follows the outburst of her love, losing itself in the sobs and tears of grief at parting. "And you are happy, are you not ? And when you recall, one day, the little proofs of love I have bestowed on you, you will not despise nor curse my memory. Oh do not, do not curse me when you learn how I have loved you I" "But why these tears, Camille ?" "Do not heed them, Armand. See, they are all gone ! No more tears. And you, too, are smil- ing. Ah ! I will live on that smile until we meet again. bee, I, too, can smile. You can read 38 Hljat ta Arttns? until your father comes, and think of me ; for I shall never cease to think of you! Adieu, Ar- mand! Adieu forever!" Camille disappears, and sinks exhausted on a sofa behind the scenes. Her maid approaches with a glass of cold tea, which the actress no sooner tastes than she rejects with an expres- sion of disgust, and exclaims against her maid: ''Oh ! You stupid thing ! I told you to give me a glass of lemonade! I don't want cold tea! IVe told you so a thousand times ! There, there, don't talk, but take it away." And thus the love and grief of Camille in- stantly disappears in the impatience of Madame B., who, ignorant of the true cause of her pros- tration, fancies that her distress results from ex- periencing the genuine feelings of Camille; but Jane knows, even while the delighted audience are applauding an artistic representation of love and grief, that their Camille, who radiant with smiles answers to their "cair* before the curtain, is still her impatient, petulant mistress, — ready to re- peat the imitation of her loves and sorrows and 39 ®if^ An of Arting final death, every night of the six weeks' "run," the period of time through which Dumas says the original Camille suffered illness, almost to death, because of her experiences with the genuine feel- ings or sensations of love and grief. Then, too, if the artiste really feels the joys and sorrows of Camille, it follows that in order to be consistent with this theory of acting, Mme B. should also experience the sensations which caused Camille's death ; for if, in order to be artistic in represent- ing joy and sorrow, it is absolutely necessary to feel the joys and sorrows of the character that the artist is illustrating or portraying, how can she represent artistically the death scene of Camille, without feeling the throes of death ? In short, upon this theory of absolute necessity of feeling or experiencing the sensations of the character that the artist is illustrating or portray- ing, how can she represent artistically the death scene of Camille, without feeling the throes of death? In short, upon this theory of absolute necessity of feeling or experiencing the sensa- tions of the character to be portrayed, how can 40 mifut XB Arttttg? the true artist represent Camille's death without herself dying? Truly a sad condition for a fine art to fall into — where the professors must die in order to live. Why, upon this theory the dramatic profession would need a whole nation to recruit from, — that is, if the actors were obliged to feel all the emo- tions, to experience all the sensations, of the he- roes and heroines, as, for example, the Hamlets, the Macbeths, the Othellos, the Ophelias, the Desdemonas and the Ladies Macbeth. And when the artist asserts that the imperson- ation must be correct because it was the outcome of feeling, it may not be too censorious to assert that such a statement is not only the result of ignorance of the laws that govern a highly sensi- tive being who must suffer fatigue in doing art under the exhausting demands of self-love, for approbation, but it is an acknowledgment of ig- norance of the true science that underlies the art of acting. And to assimie that feeling without judgment can truly portray the dramatic crea- tures of such a writer as Shakespeare, or any 41 ®Ij^ Art 0f Arttng other dramatic writer whose works take rank with the best literature of our language, indicates the same inability to arrive at just conclusions that would be manifested by a mariner who, be- caused his ship was propelled by an engine of ten thousand horse power, should attempt to cross the ocean without rudder or compass. It is by the public in general contended that in order to make the auditor feel, the orator and the actor must feel the sensation he is presenting. The fallacy of this argument may be illus- trated thus: The farmer plants his crop of corn in the springtime. When the corn sprout rises above the ground an inch or two the crow comes from the adjacent forest and plucks it up to get the sweet swollen kernel. To frighten the crow the farmer takes a suit of old clothes, stuffs it with straw, puts a pair of boots on the legs, a hat on the top and hangs it up or stands it up in the cornfield. The crow, seeing the figure of a man, flies away. May we not fairly assume that the crow flies away because it feels fear? What 42 at XB Arttng? does the figure of the man feel that produced fear in the crow? Nothing. The more perfect the sign, the stronger will be the responsive sensa- tion. Now add to the actor the love of approba- tion as a driving force and the tone, pose and gesture are the signs of the author's mental in- tention. Not only does the theory of acting by feeling retard the art by obscuring from the actors the necessity of study, but it must necessarily often destroy the intention of the author. Great dra- matic composition is a result of the highest devel- opment of all of the senses that combine to make human intelligence. And it takes its position in every civilized country among its proudest liter- ary achievements. The history of Greece and Rome in ancient times, and Spain, France, Eng- land and Germany in modern times, will warrant the position. At any rate, the dramatic works of Shakespeare are ranked so high in the scale of rational productions, that his hundreds of com- mentators have wondered at his beautiful congre- gations of facts, fancies and philosophy, while not 43 ^ift Art 0f Arttttg a few scholars both of America and of England have tried to credit these productions to the great Sir Francis Bacon, who through his accumulated knowledge and power of reasoning achieved the reputation of being one of the wisest men of his nation. Whatever else this may mean, it cer- tainly is a great compliment to the intellectuality of dramatic writings. And can it be possible that the players' art, the art of illustrating the works of such great thinkers, shall be relegated to feel- ing, which is only one of the five senses that com- bine to make up reason ? The dramatic writer is a constructor of indi- vidual characters. He congregates and adjusts human emotions, and so expresses them in arti- ficial language that their kind and their degree are through his medium made known. Hamlet, Macbeth and Othello, Ophelia, Lady Macbeth and Desdemona have long been recognized as distinct characters, as susceptible to mental form- ation and physical representation by the students of the dramatic art, as are the statues of the Apollo Belvidere or the Venus de Milo, to repro- 44 Hlfat iB Artittg? duction by the students of sculpture or the plastic art. It is true, perhaps, that among actors, no two of them present the same characteristics in their impersonation of Hamlet. The differences in the Hamlets presented cannot result from any change in Hamlet himself; for the author — ^the constructor of that character — ^has been dead now nearly three centuries, and Shakespeare's Hamlet must remain the Hamlet till doomsday. But just as two painters might contend for the truth of different lights and shadows in a picture, after having made their studies from opposite points of view, and each, inspired by feeling, asserts that he alone is right, so do some actors, unable to analyze for the truth, alter the text, inject action and interpolate language so as to change the construction of Shakespeare's work, fitting it to their own peculiarities, until it is no longer the work of the great dramatist, but the maimed and halting production of the actor's idiosyncrasies. Whatever feeling may do for nat- ural language, it certainly has not the power to analyze and determine the meaning of words and 45 ®lj^ Art 0f Artttts phrases in artificial language. And as the works of great dramatic writers are admitted to be among the best rational as well as emotional achievements in all languages, is it not probable that an actor will find a more truthful conception of a dramatic situation or speech by seeking for it through the functions of memory and comparison than by groping for it through the operations of feeling? Feeling is not only a good, but a necessary, motor in acting; but it must be governed by rea- son if we would obtain best results. That feeling ungoverned by reason may pro- duce results quite foreign to the author's inten- tion, is clearly shown through the analysis, given by herself, of the feelings of a celebrated actress,* on which she based her representations of the Sleep-walking Scene of "Lady Macbeth." The actress in a press interview said: "I stand there smitten with horror, dumb with remorse, till the tears run down slowly and silently on my cheeks, before my lips can utter a word." *Ristori. 46 at t0 Arttttg? Now, however much opinions may vary about the first part of "Lady Macbeth," it is generally admitted that her death results from remorse, — an overpowering- depression of self-love when tor- tured by the fear of punishment for wrong- doing ; and when the judgment settles into a con- viction that repentance and atonement cannot re- gain the lost approbation of the world, despair, the offspring of hopeless remorse, seizes the vic- tim, paralyzes the mind, destroys its healthful relations with the outside world, self-love is lost, self-preservation forgotten, the will power ceases, and the body dies. In the fever of remorse there are no tears. Through repentance the mind may again be put in harmony with its surroundings and the penitent may live; but Lady Macbeth dies of remorse; therefore, we may conclude she did not repent. In Lady Macbeth's remorse there is despair, but no contrition. There is that mental gnawing that disjoints her mind, breaks her repose, and ends in a mania or melancholia through which death must ensue. 47 JSift Art nf Arltng Nowhere in all her character do we find a line declaring or indicating repentance; and no one will, for a moment, doubt Shakespeare's ability to furnish words of contrition had he desired to make Lady Macbeth express sorrow for her sinful act. Look at the sublime soliloquy of King Claudius in "Hamlet," — ^acknowledging his guilt, express- ing his hope and praying for pardon. On the contrary, Shakespeare seems to have marked out a course of mental disease and final death for Lady Macbeth; for when Macbeth is breaking under the effects of the horror induced by the scene of the murder that he has just com- mitted. Lady Macbeth says : "These deeds must not be thought After these ways, so ; it will make us mad." In the Fifth Act the physician who watches with the gentlewoman, after observing all her ac- tions and hearing her words, says : "More needs she the divine than the physi- cian." And again, in reply to Macbeth's question — 48 at 10 Arttttg? "How does your patient, doctor ?" the physician replies : "Not so sick, my lord, As she is troubled with thick-coming fancies, That keep her from her rest." Then Macbeth rejoins : "Cure her of that: Canst thou not minister to a mind diseas'd ; Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow; Raze out the written troubles of the brain; And with some sweet oblivious antidote Cleanse the stuff 'd bosom of that perilous stuff ?" "Therein the patient Must minister to himself," replies the physician. How do criminals minister to themselves? What is it that brings quiet to the mind, and the re-establishment of its healthful action? Repentance. With repentance comes sympathy from the world; and, through sym- pathy, pity for self is aroused, and through this pity or compassion for self come tears. In honest communion with ourselves, through love of ap- probation, begotten of self-love, we pity our own failures and condemn our own misdeeds. 49 aUji? Art 0f Arttttg But Lady Macbeth did not repent; therefore, we may conclude she did not seek the sympathy of the world, did not receive the sympathy of the world ; but that a lingering pride, the remnant of her great selfishness, that led her to seek royal honors by ambition's cruel ways, even through the horrid murder of the aged King, sustained her in the despair of her remorse ; and, therefore, Lady Macbeth did not weep. Yet the actress says she weeps whenever she attempts to re-present this part of Lady Mac- beth*s character. And she says she cannot help it. Naturally she weeps, for she is a woman of fine feeling, of strong sympathetic nature, and she pities Lady Macbeth as she looks upon her mental and physical ruin — a wreck of the earlier Lady Macbeth: And when she weeps her tears flow from sorrow for the sufferings of another. '' Her condition is perfectly natural, but it is not therefore artistic. If you should go to a lunatic asylum to see a former friend, a woman with whom you had been well acquainted, a woman whose physical beauty 50 Wijat IB Artttig? and mental strength had inspired you with ad- miration, and upon this, your first visit, she should come before you so changed in feature that you could scarcely recognize her — a shriveled form, a death-pale face, with shrunken cheeks, with staring, glassy eyes; and if, instead of rec- ognizing and saluting you, she should, with idiotic leer, pass you by, or stand muttering broken and discordant sentences, — what would be your feelings in such a situation ? Undoubted- ly you would feel pity for your lost friend, and you would shed tears of sympathy for her condi- tion. This picture places before us two individ- uals — the one a woman ignorant of her condition, and entirely devoid of any sign of acute suffering — the other a sympathetic friend weeping for the weakness of poor human nature that can be so wrecked. The maniac is Lady Macbeth. The sympathetic lady is the actress who acts upon feelings aroused in her by looking at Shakes- peare's wonderful mental wreckage, and so pre- sents herself instead of re-presenting the emotions of Lady Macbeth. And, thus, through feeling, 51 ©Ij^ Art of Arttttg this great tragic character is robbed of one of its most awe-inspiring effects — death without repent- ance. That the actor himself is practically false to this theory of feeling may be clearly shown by stepping into his dressing-room almost any even- ing in the week, especially, if that evening be dur- ing the season of field sports. He returns late from the game to take up his work for the public. As he enters the precinct of grease paint and character costumes, he throws himself on the three-legged chair with a broken back,* and, heaving a long sigh, says: ''By Jove! I don't feel a bit lik^ this thing to-night. It was fear- fully stupid of me to stay so late, when I know I must get through this thing once more." He lights a cigar, puffs awhile, and discourses with a fellow actor upon the merits of the tobacco and the great beauty of the game he has wit- nessed, until the call boy's voice is heard an- nouncing "Half hour," when the actor starts up with "Well, I must get ready; and to say the *The bad condition of the stock actor's dressing-room. 52 at ta Artttis? truth, I feel as stupid as an owl! But there is one comfort, twelve o'clock must come and the curtain must come down." Then he dresses for the character — straightens up his body — takes in a long breath — walks up and down in his room or behind the scenes — thinks over his lines, and, having aroused sufficient force of determined mental action to overcome the relaxation result- ing from the fatigue of the day, he begins to con- centrate on the illustration of the character, with all its emotions and phases of emotions, and in spite of his feeling of fatigue, his mental weari- ness or his actual headache from too much nerv- ous strain during the afternoon, or, from the unexpected illness of one of the cast, the artist is frequently complimented for his art, by his admir- ing friends waiting for him at the back door ; and the actor immediately remarks: "Well, I didn't feel a bit like it to-night I" Will not these illustrations, by foregoing state- ments of facts, permit us to assume that the dra- matic artist never, or, at best, but very seldom, feels like the character; and that egotism, 53 ailj? Art 0f Arttttg prompted by the love of approbation, leads some actors to think that their ability to portray char- acters by re-presenting emotions, is a special gift. But just so surely as obtrusive egotism is the outcome of selfishness, so is the theory of feeling in acting the result of ignorance of the science of emotions, the art of acting and of the powers of human endurance Suppose we assume for the sake of argument that Lady Macbeth was six months dying, from the remorse she felt because of her crime. Now let us suppose a run of one hundred and eighty nights of this play. And suppose the actress really did feel all the sensations that Lady Macbeth felt. Then at the end of the first performance she would have lost the one hundred and eightieth part of her force. How could she on the second night of the "run'* ^ play the first part of the character with all neces- sary force? And if we were to assume that the actress recovered each day from the remorse of the night before, she would not die at the end of the run of the one hundred and eighty nights, or 54 WJfat ia Arttng? six months ; and so, would not her condition any- where along the line prove that she did not feel as Lady Macbeth felt? Then, if it be impossible for the artist to feel like the character portrayed, what should he feel like? He should feel like an artist who has trained his nerve and muscular force to submit his mimetic force entirely to his judgment in re- presenting the intellectual and emotional char- acters made by authors of dramatic compositions. The actor must have a cultivated mind to ar- rive at correct conclusions in analyzing the sen- tences of an author. He must have a trained body to enable him to present in physical pictures — the mental conceptions — resulting from such analysis. We know that acting is doing something; and we know that doing is the result of muscular force under mental control; and we know that under mental control muscle can be trained to do anything, from the beautiful posing of the grace- ful danseuse, or the eccentric suppleness of the contortionist in a circus, to the feats of the strong 55 ®I}^ Art 0f Arttttg man, whose breast supports a two thousand pound cannon, while it is being discharged. If acting is the art of re-presenting human emotions by just expression — true outward signs that made known internal feelings — through artificial and natural language, then certainly a knowledge of emotions and the various forms in which they present themselves, must be a necessary factor in representing the truth, or true art. This knowledge to be available, must be systematized ; and knowledge so arranged as to be easily remembered and readily referred to is science. In nearly all discussions on technique, there has been expressed the fear that technique, if pursued with special care, might destroy or cover up the true meaning of the phrase or sentence to which it is applied. This fear is a fancy to be dis- carded; for technique is nothing more than the premeditated use of the forms of voice, pose and gesture, through which sensation presents itself in nature. And the question, "If acting is all technique, why cannot every man with a good 56 Mljat 10 Arting? voice and brains act 'Hamlet?''' is assumed by its propounders to be an insurpassable barrier, estopping the further progress of debate on the question of real and imitated emotions. This is in the first place misleading in its assumptions; for it IS not asserted by all professors of dramatic art that acting is all technique. And again, it is not asserted by any thoughtful professor of dra- matic art that every man with a good voice and brains cannot act "Hamlet." By parity of reasoning or an analogous mode of questioning, one might ask: "If singing is all technique why can't every woman with a good voice and brains sing 'Carmen ?' " or, "If horse racing is all technique, why cannot every horse with four legs and good brains win on the race course?" Well, this is a simple answer. Every horse with four good legs and brains cannot win on the race course because there is a standard of time that he cannot achieve. Every woman with a good voice and brains cannot sing "Carmen" because there is a standard in singing that she cannot reach. And every man with a good voice 57 Qllfp Art nf Artittg and brains cannot act "Hamlet" because there is a standard of excellence in acting, with which he does not favorably compare. This analysis shows a defect in the question. {/ There is a standard of excellence for skill. To present the intention of the propounders the ques- tion may be thus stated: "If acting is all tech- nique, why cannot every man with a good voice and brains act 'Hamlet' up to the same standard of excellence?" Now for the answer. It is not asserted by pro- fessors of dramatic art that every man with a good voice and brains cannot act "Hamlet." But it is asserted that acting is an art. Art is always a result of the application of impressional force to mental conceptions, through muscular action. Art never creates anything, but always makes something by rearranging things already created ; and the basic principle of the ability to rearrange things already created is the imitative quality in the human mind, and the history of in- dividuals that make up the group of dramatic aspirants including "every man with a good voice 58 Wlfnt XB Arttns? and brains," will confirm the statement that there are no two men with good voices and brains whose mental and physical conditions, either in quantity or in quality, are exactly alike. Conse- quently, the quantity of the imitative quality that enters into the mind of each individual, will not be of equal force in all men with good voices and brains; just as the ability to perceive, compare, and deduce is not the same in all men with good voices and brains. Then, since the power of imitation in all men with good voices and brains differs in quantity and quality, and the responsiveness of the muscu- lar system under the control of impressional force formulating technique, by the direction of the mimetic quality of the minds of all men with good voices and brains is not the same, it follows that all men with good voices and brains will not pro- duce the same technique. Therefore, although ail men with good voices and brains may act "Hamlet," yet, because all men with good voices and brains cannot produce the same technique, every man with a good voice and brains cannot 59 ®If^ Art 0f Arttttg act "Hamlet'' up to the same standard of excel- lence. The technique of an art is the formulated result of a muscular action, under the control of the impressional force that makes the mental conception. Not only does the impressional force, coming from exterior circurnstances, differ; but the muscular system whose action makes the formulas called technique, is not, in all men with good voices and brains, equally responsive to the impressional force that makes, at once, the im- pression and the resultant, which when it is re- peated for the purpose of re-presenting the con- ception, is called technique. That some people misplace technique and that many attempt technique without due preparation, is undoubtedly a cause of great dissatisfaction to the critical; but to discourage the study of the forms of voice as it changes under the influence of environments, is as injurious to the science and art of elocution in its application to reading, reci- tation, and acting, as it would be to object to the technique of the composer in arranging a se- quence of sounds to be called music. It is not im- 60 at XB Arltng? probable to thinking people that some teachers of elocution object to technique because they rather choose to rely on the impulse of the moment, than do the mental and physical drudgery of training themselves in this kind of work. But "nothing can come of nothing," and even genius cannot im- part its specialty except by a deliberately system- atized mental action expressed in physical illus- tration. Genius is the quickest application muscle to the doing of a mental conception. There is a science underlying all truthful act- ing; and, therefore, acting is both a science and w/ an art. As a science it recognizes emotion, dis- sects it, arranges it, and presents for study the factors that produce it. As an art it puts into practice the appropriate natural and artificial means by which an emotion can be expressed. The word "emotion'' and its derivative "emo- tional," are constantly in use to define plays and limit the qualifications of actors ; and yet, so im- properly are these words used that they do not clearly limit nor define anything. We hear of 61 Slf^ Art 0f Arttitg "emotional plays/' and "situations with strong emotions/' What is an emotional play? What is an emotion f An emotion, as its derivation sig- nifies (e et moveo), means "to move out/' What is it that moves out ? There is the ques- tion that must send us back for another starting point, — the passion. 62 rx^ HAT self-preservation is the first law of na- -^ ture is a proposition enunciated and gen- erally believed by all civilized peoples. The in- fliction of a penalty for the breaking of a law, may be taken as the final proof of the sincere con- viction of a people, in the truth of the law. And all Christian nations are so thoroughly convinced of the truth of the law of self-preser- vation, that self-destruction fixes upon the suicide the taint of insanity as the penalty for its in- fringement; and however slight the mental aber- ration, however brief the period of its wander- ing, in the moment of destruction, the suicide is, in the opinion of the world, insane or unsound as to this law. 63 ®Ij^ Art 0f Arttttg And so it may be assumed that mankind gener- ally believes in the law of self-preservation. And now we ask: Self-preservation for whom ? We find the answer in self-love, that in- herent principle in our nature which is common to all animal life, and is just as much a necessary part of our 'mentality, as the leg, or the arm, or even the head is a necessary part of our physical J form. Self-love is the passion of the mind; a force that, being acted upon, shows itself by re- action. And if self-preservation be a first law of na- ture, then self-love is the first motor to every human action ; for it is the cause of self-preserva- tion. This is asserted upon the basis of human reason ; and those who choose to wander beyond the limits of reason, to seek the cause in a su- perior power, may hang their arguments upon any of the branches which I shall, in aiming at another point, leave disjointed and projecting. Self-love is the primal motor of the ego in man. Through self-love, life and happiness are the first desires of all men. It is common to speak 64 disparagingly of self-love; but such disparage- ment results from ignorance. It cannot be otherwise ; for self-love begets our highest aspirations here, making us struggle con- stantly for the approbation of our fellow-men and filling us with fear to lose the good opinion of the world. Self-love is the source of our best actions, the basis of our laws, the foundation of our highest wisdom and for this reason Christ said : "Do unto others as you would that others should do unto you ; for in that you have the law and the prophets" — the rule of life and the wis- dom of the world. Here we find self-love not only admitted as a principle in life, but taken as the standard of jus- tice between man and man. And here a thought : If our system of education were based upon a knowledge of personal rights as suggested by self-love, instead of a knowledge of arithmetic, in its relation to dollars and cents, might we not hope for a higher standard of morality than we now have? Self-love is a powerful factor in social life, and 65 ®Ij^ Art nf Artitts a governing force in individual existence. While its action may elevate mentality to its high- est flights, it can also depress to lowest depths. It can distract the mind and kill the body. Self- love expresses itself by emotions, and these emo- tions or outcome of self-love we call joy, fear, anger, grief and many other names describing various phases of these emotions all gathered under the generic term "passion." Self-love must not be confounded with selfish- ness. Selfishness is a static condition of the ego to which everything comes and from which nothing is given off. It is a rudimentary force of the animal in man lacking every quality of human in- telligence that serves to make social life agree- able and happiness possible. Self-love recognizes an ego in every alter. Selfishness sees no ego but self. Selfishness al- ways receives but never gives. Self-love is al- ways giving, in order that it may justly receive. 66 lEmnltntta rr^ HE subject of passion and emotions has been -■- discussed and presented for the considera- tion of students in the field of psychology, by men notable as scholars and analysts; and yet, as the matter stands at the present time, there seems to be much obscurity as to the true meaning and proper application of these words. Some persons, in using the words "passion" and "emotion," speak of them as being entirely synonymous. Others use these words as if they always expressed the same thing in kind but dif- ferent in degree ; and other speakers, after using the words passion and emotion, seek to make their meaning more explicit by defining them as 67 Sfijf Art 0f Arttne heart and soul, words that are also frequently used as interchangeable terms. Here the obscur- ity becomes so great that there seems to be no real meaning to any of the words. Actors often use the words "emotion" and "emotional" as if they were the very antithesis of the word "legitimate/' e. g., emotional drama and legitimate drama. And they describe the artist who enacts the character of Lady Macbeth as a "legitimate actress," while the artist who enacts the character of Camille is called an "emotional actress." It requires but little thought to know that the two characters above named are both "emotional" and both "legitimate." In the field of amusement, everything is legitimate that en- tertains and does not demoralize. Happiness is the first desire of every human being in the world. The agnostic seeks happiness here. Those who believe in a future life, fail- ing to achieve happiness here, have a final hope for happiness in a state of existence hereafter; and even the atheistic materialist, whose mind cannot conceive a hereafter, looks forward to the 68 iEm0tt0ttB termination of life, for the extinction of his un- happiness, and so negatively expresses his de- sire for happiness. Self-love is the first active principle of life, in whatever form, the first motor to every human action. The passion of the human mind is ever prompting the ego to seek happiness. Self-love is an individual motor and always acts independ- ently for the happiness of the individual. Un- like selfishness, which is a static condition of self, self-love is always active, re-acting upon self and, by reflection from the alter, bringing happi- ness or unhappiness to the ego. Self-love, being an individual force, and ever constant in its action for happiness, is always impelling the ego under the pressure of impulse or the power of reason, to seek that condition of repose from physical toil and mental strife that man calls hap- piness. Self-love is not only the sustaining power of the ego, but it is an indisputable fact in nature that self-love is the first motor to every human action. Upon a merely superficial view of this 69 t Art 0f Arttttg proposition, it would seem to lead to the conclu- sion that there must be an absorption or seizure by the individual of every outlying thing to grat- ify animal selfishness. The history of the world shows that this is true, and that, as a rule, your neighbor envies you all you possess except your diseases; but history also shows — that is, undis- puted general history — that the earth has always borne communities of human beings who, while acting under the influence of this self-love, have nevertheless been compelled by their very nature, to obey the first law that self-love teaches, viz., self-preservation, which is a law of man's nature, always prompting to safety, in order that the ego may enjoy happiness. Happiness is the aim of man's life. Every circumstance — every environment — that affects self-love, either by elating or by de- pressing the mind must produce its effect through the force of impression, begetting a sensation in the nerve system, which, being communicated to the muscular system, presents exterior signs which we call emotion. It will thus be seen that 70 an emotion is made up of three parts, impression, sensation, and exterior action — expression. Self-love is the foundation of the human here- ditament called mentality. It may be called a passion, indeed it might be called the passion, since it is the first motor to every human action. Apparently lying a dormant force, even at birth, it is brought into action only through im- pressions which it suffers, and it expresses its pleasure or displeasure by the emotions which we name joy, sorrow, love, anger, etc. These emo- tions are either elating, and therefore tensive in their muscular action, or they are depressing and consequently relaxing to the muscular system. Again, each emotion is a sign of good or evil . intention; therefore, emotions either are benevo-v lent or they are malevolent. For example : Joy is a benevolent emotion, tensive in its action, — a bold, abrupt, strong outburst of self-love, pro- _ claiming its gratification and satisfaction with exterior circumstances — past or present envi- ronments. Anger is malevolent emotion, tensive in its 71 ®lj? Art 0f Artiitg action on the muscular, and elating to the mental — a strong, abrupt explosion of self-love in op- position to the impression-making environment or circumstances past or present. Hatred is chronic or unsatisfied anger — male- volent in its nature, expulsive in utterance, slow in movement, orotund and pectoral in tone, a van- ishing stress, and with a general tendency to downward inflection, as if seeking emphasis. Jealousy is a complex emotion, resulting from the alternate action of the sensations love and anger. Love and anger do not blend in the pro- duction of jealousy, but the separate sensations crystallize as they approach each other, and act upon the individual through the inhering force of each of the sensations. Love and anger, the elements of jealousy, act by force of attraction and repulsion, each for the moment quite inde- pendent of the other; and the wreckage or de- struction of the affected being will depend for its degree upon the strength of the sensation love, the force of the anger and the power of broad mental discipline to suppress their combined ac- 72 tion. Jealousy is a mental disease, most appar- ent in youth, where from lack of experience there is no dominating judgment to direct or to ex- haust the forces combining against the desired happiness of the being. Jealousy presents itself in ever-varying ways. In voice it runs through every tone or quality, and with all degrees of force. At other times it is silent as to voice and shows itself in muscular action, from the twitch- ing of the facial muscles to the most abrupt and forceful gestures and poses of the body. The look askance, the stolen side-wise glance, the furtive, restless eye, the contraction of the corrugator sii- percillii, the drooping corners of the mouth, are signs of the mental concentration and depression, resulting from jealousy. Though love and anger may ferment in silence and in seeming quiet, while the subject has power to hold them in suppression, yet there comes a point in time when they cannot be contained ; then follows abrupt ex- plosive utterance, quick and angular actions and such abnormal mental and physical conditions that the subject is for the time being insane. 73 sill? Art 0f Artttig Study of the action of an impression is an ab- solute necessity if the artist would know how to imitate the effect through the dramatic author's medium, his words and sentences. Perhaps for this purpose a partial list of emotions and phases of emotion here inserted may be of service. Benevolent Emotions. Joy Gladness Mirth Merriment Happiness Cheerfulness Hope Desire Expectancy Grief Sorrow Sadness Pity Melancholy Regret Penitence Gratitude Mercy Love Friendship Sympathy Tenderness Admiration Fascination Infatuation Confidence Malevolent Emotions. Wrath Hate Jealousy Envy Suspicion Irritation Enmity Pique Pride Vanity Anger Indignation Impatience Vexation Chagrin Remorse Shame Humiliation Suffering Bewilderment Terror Horror Fear Dread Fright Awe Wonder Astonishment Amazement Surprise' 74 f iEmotinnB Tensive and Elating Emotions. Joy Gladness Mirth Merriment Hope Desire Expectancy Confidence Wrath Anger Indignation Vexation Impatience Irritation Hate Jealousy Envy Suspicion Pride Vanity Pique Terror Fear Fright Timidity Wonder Astonishment Amazement Surprise Relaxing and Depressing Emotions. Horror Dread Awe Dejection Regret Remorse Grief Sorrow Sadness Melancholy Despair Despondency Shame Humiliation Chagrin Mortification Penitence Contrition Restive Emotions. Love Mercy Happiness Gratitude Friendship Tenderness Cheerfulness Pity Sympathy Compassion Qualifying Words. Rapture Fervor Buoyancy Ecstasy Enthusiasm Exhilaration Rage Fury Violent 75 ailj? Art 0f Arttng It is not here assumed that this is a complete list of the words in our language which name emotions or phases of emotions, but that con- sideration by the reader of these few words will help to better understand the art of acting. Of all the emotions that sway the heart or warp the judgment of men and women, none is more potent than the emotion called "love.'* Love has been the theme of song and story since men could communicate their thoughts and feel- ings. It has been the prime mover in every so- cial change and is the chief projector and sup- porter of our social life. What is love and whence comes it? What is that mental effect which is to mind as is the perfume of the rose to the tree that bears it? Its highest development. Whatever may be the final scheme in the indi- viduation of man and woman, we are forced to regard their individual mentality as only parts of a creation whose entity must come from the union of the parts. Self-love is equally strong in man and woman, and is constantly striving in 76 each to perpetuate the ego. This restless long- ing proves the imperfection of the individual. Something is wanting — repose. And the outcome of self-love seeking rest by the confiding mental associations of man and woman is the emotion that we call "love." Love begets the entity of man. And the high- est happiness that the ego can know is when two self-loves so perfectly conjoin that love controls the two as one. Love is always aggressive, leveling in its na- ture and unlimited in force. It may be trained and led by social laws ; but, when society seeks to check its course, love mocks at precedent and rule, laughs at bolts and bars and bids defiance even to death itself; yet this emotion, so powerful, is al- ways soft, tender and persuasive in expression. How beautifully and how truly has that great linguist of the emotions, Shakespeare, described the vocal expression of this emotion is : "How silver sweet sound lovers' tongues by night, Like softest music to attending ears." 11 ®If? Art 0f Arttng In those two lines what a lesson for actors; and yet in the entire catalogue of passion, there is perhaps no emotion more falsely re-presented on the stage than the emotion — love. In many instances, the actor, possessing a full, orotund quality of voice, and seeking approba- tion for personal qualities, rather than for artistic merit, belies the emotion by the use of declama- tory force, making it bravado instead of an ex- pression of supplication and persuasion. Let the dramatic artist remember that we sing for sound, but we should talk for sense. So strong are the habits of tradition in the theatre, that the monotonous and rhythmical ef- fect heard in reading on the stage undoubtedly comes to us from the earliest times of plays in England, when the monks used to chant the Mys- teries and Miracles. But the monotony in qual- ity of voice, and sameness of inflection, by reason of the constant recurrence of these factors at cer- tain given intervals of time, are not always the signs of ignorance in the art of acting. They are sometimes the result of an insuppressible de- 78 sire in the ego of the artist that delights in the musical effect of swelling rhythmical tones. This defect is commonly described as being in love with one's own voice. But there is still an- other cause for the habit of impinging sound on sound. This form of utterance becomes an as- sistant to memory. The abrupt pause — the en- tire cessation of sound — and change of inflections make a chasm in the action, over which the mind will not always successfully leap to the next word. Clever artists fill up the accident to mem- ory with pantomime; others bridge the space with tones and inflections ; novices generally fill up these spaces or pauses, made by the slips of memory, with the repetition of words already spoken. Anything for sound ! Let the student remem- ber that it is not sound sense to lose sense in sotmd. By this musical trick in the voice, mem- ory catches on and the "stick'' is avoided. There is another effect in speaking, produced by the application of force to the middle of the sound — a kind of crescendo and diminuendo > 79 iHtit Art 0f Arttng movement of the voice, which being musical in its nature has a soothing, quieting influence on the auditor. We hear this effect of the voice in all themes of tenderness — sentiments of love and friendship. With light force it prevails in the language of melancholy, and awakens sympathy in the tones of regret. And even when force or loudness of voice is applied to the words, this form of stress has the power to prevent the mind of the auditor from dwelling on the facts in a statement by im- pressing the hearer with a conception of intense feeling on the part of the speaker, which concep- tion begets feeling in the listener, sometimes overwhelming the judgment. The mind loses its power of comparison and the auditor often re- sponds in an uncontrolled outburst of feeling in harmony with the speaker. This crescendo and diminuendo form of force being musical in its nature, appeals to feeling. And where the speaker is gifted with a good flow of language, a good voice and an emotional na- ture, his oratory, to nervous, sensitive people, be- 80 comes quite overpowering. The extreme of the effect of loudness and this musical stress is often seen in camp-meeting oratory, where both men and women are sometimes thrown into spasms, and physically prostrated by its power. These factors in expression should have no place in didactic matter where the appeal is to mental equilibrium only. Every word in a dramatic composition is the sign of an idea, or something relative to an idea; and if it be true that we can and do analyze a written sentence for the purpose of arriving at a correct conclusion as to its meaning, do we not thereby admit that the sentence, with its principal and subordinate clauses, is only a means of conveyance, by a rational process, of the emotions which the writer would record, of their kind, and in their place? If we make this analysis by a constant reference to our stored up memories of the laws that govern the construc- tion of the written language, then does it not fol- low, as probable to thinking, that if one's memory be filled with the laws that govern the movements 81 ailf^ Art 0f Artittg of an emotion, that by placing the several factors of an emotion in their proper relation to each other, we shall be able to re-present the emotional part of the composition, if our logical conclusion be correct? Every sound that we make in expressing thought and feeling must have utterance, quality of voice, force, stress, time, inflections, pose and* gesture, — factors of expression that present themselves so abundantly on every hand that we really never know their true value, until we attempt to invigorate the inanimate signs by which the author has recorded his mental pic- tures. 82 fl^ftttttt0tt0 0f lift ^ttiiniqnt nf TN defining the art of acting, the phrase, "by •^ the just expression of artificial and natural language," is used. The word "just" may be taken upon its ordi- nary interpretation as meaning "correct," "true;" while the word "expression" in its origi- nal sense means "to send out" or "to push out." Thus, we find that the just expression of an emo- tion means to enunciate, to utter the artificial lan- guage, so harmoniously blended with the natural language as to present to the mind a true physi- cal picture of the emotion. What is natural language, and what is arti- ficial language? Natural language is made up of the tones of 83 ®lf? Art 0f Arttng the voice with all the variations of modes of ut- terance, qualities of voice, force, stress, inflec- tions and time, together with the gesticulations and positions of the body. Artificial language is made up of the words that we speak. We call the tones of the voice, the gesticulations and positions of the body, natural language, be- cause all people of whatever nation understand, without special instruction, the tones of the voice and the actions of the body. For instance, an American would readily un- derstand the groan, or the laugh, of a Chinaman, although he might not understand a word of the written Chinese tongue. Written language is clearly artificial, because it is made. We must study it and agree as to what it shall mean. We are constantly manufacturing words in the Eng- lish language. It is not a great many years since the word "telegram'' was made and pre- sented, in our vocabulary. Previously to 1853, we used to talk of "a telegraph despatch," but the phrase was too long for the rapid movement of American life, and so, as soon as we could agree 84 irfittttf0ttH upon it, the phrase gave way to the word; and after this manner words have been made and multiplied until our language has grown so rich that almost every sensation and thought may be described without a single movement, except the movements of the vocal and articulating organs. That words are artificial, and may mean any- thing by agreement, will perhaps be clearly shown if we write the word "pain" on the blackboard and ask a Frenchman and an American to inter- pret it. The Frenchman will tell us that it means "bread," while the American will tell us that it means "physical distress." These are two very opposite meanings, but each of these nations has agreed upon the meaning; and so the written word "pain" presents to the mind of each na- tionality whatever the people of that nation have agreed upon. Words as we write them, are made up of ele- mentary characters, and as we speak them, they are rnade up of elementary sounds. It is gener- ally agreed that the elementary characters of the English language are twenty-six in number ; but 85 tSkt Art 0f Artitt3 the agreement upon the number of elementary sounds is not so harmonious. Some writers on this subject have asserted that there are forty-six, others forty-four, while others have contended that there are but forty-two elementary sounds; and some of these are compound, resolvable into a lesser number of simple sounds. Even if we admit the lowest number, it will be largely in excess of the number of elementary characters used in writing the language. This scarcity of characters for the presentation of sounds, makes one of the greatest difficulties that the stranger has to overcome, in studying our language; and it reduces the perfect speakers to a small percentage among our own people. The French readers find in the body of whatever book or paper they read, signs placed over the charac- ters that give the exact sound to each form, but we have no such signs, and one character must stand for one, two and even four different sounds as thus : a in an, art, all, ale. This state of things is very perplexing to those foreigners who seek to know our language. However, this 86 is a matter for the philologist, and as I purpose to write only of the art of acting, I shall confine myself to the necessities of that art in using the. sounds as we find them, instead of discussing the question, why are they so obscurely charac- terized ? Since in the art of acting we must speak, we ought to know what we speak, and how to speak The basis of the English language, in speak-, ing, is the elementary sounds. I am of the opinion that there are but forty- two; and even some of these are compounds, or partial compounds of a lesser number of single sounds. As, for example, the sound made in pronouncing the long or alphabetical i, is com- posed of the sound of a, as we hear it in father, and the long sound of e. And the sound made in pronouncing the alphabetical a is made up of a sound that is only found in itself, and the long or alphabetical sound of e. These forty-two elementary sounds may be di- vided into three classes, and so named as to define their nature, as 87 ®ij^ Art 0f Arttns Tonic. a as in ale a as in arm a as in all « as in and e as in eve e as in end i as in ice i as in fm/^ o as in o/a? o as in move as in on it as in tune u as in w/> ti as in /w// ow as in out 01 as in oil SUBTONIC. b as in hahe d as in did g as in ^a^ j as in yo3; z/ as in vile tJi as in then 2 as in zone z as in a^wr^ / as in lull m as in mar n as in wo^ r as in /ar r as in run ng as in sing ze; as in well Atonic. p as in pipe t as in tent ^ as in kite ch as in child f as in fate th as in. think s as in ^m sh as in ^/i^ /i as in hat wh as in what y as in yet There are sixteen tonic, sixteen subtonic, and ten atonic elementary sounds. The tonic elements are those sounds that make up the round full form of our language when we speak. By the tonic elements we present and sustain the different qualities of voice, the force, 68 the stress, the inflections, and the time of move- ment in speaking. The subtonics assist the ton- ics in supporting or carrying these parts of ex- pression, while, together with the atonic elements, they serve to cut up and separate the tonic ele- ments into words and syllables. The base of every syllable in the English language must be a tonic element. Although there are but sixteen of these tonics to give variety of tone to the voice, yet quite one- fourth (twenty-five per cent.) of the fullness and boldness of our language is thrown away by careless speakers in substituting the sound of u in up for the five sounds a a a o u and e in the words was, for, and, of, and all words terminating in ent and ment; eg., patience, government. This is a very large percentage of sound thrown away when we re- member that men do business and grow rich upon one-eighth of one per cent. To one who de- sires to make clearly defined vocal pictures, the study of the tonic elements of our language is of very great importance. As separatives and articulators, the subtonics 89 SIj^ Art nf Artttig and atonies are deserving of very nice attention in the study of oratory; but to the actor these elements become especially interesting, and a knowledge of their powers peculiarly valuable. It is through this knowledge that the student may at once recognize the transposition of ele- mentary sounds that foreigners make in their ef- forts to pronounce the English language; and such knowledge must certainly be a very desir- able acquisition to the dramatic artist since in his professional capacity he is frequently called upon to give imitations of broken English in the characterization of foreigners. However good the acting might be in certain other respects, we could not recognize the Irishman without those transpositions that make his brogue, nor the Frenchman without his transpositions and nasal effect in voice, nor the German without his trans- positions and guttural sounds. And with all due respect, I say to those distinguished foreigners, who have been seen on the American stage and much admired by many, that the art of acting cannot be perfect while the articulation and the 90 pronunciation of the language are imperfect; foi the audience will always desire to know the cause of action; and this they cannot know unless the speaking as well as the gesticulation and posi- tions be artistic. No speaking can be truly artis- tic without precision in articulation and correct- ness in pronunciation. Correct pronunciation is articulating the sounds properly and accenting the syllables of a word according to an accepted dictionary. Articulation and pronunciation are but the necessary mechanism of enunciation or utterance, the first factor of expression, by which the words, the signs of an idea, may be intelligently pre- sented to the sense of hearing. Any one with properly formed lips, teeth, tongue and palate may articulate precisely, and, with memory, may always pronounce correctly. To neglect articulation and pronunciation is to throw away two powerful assistants to the dra- matic art ; for, with perfection in articulation, the sounds, by the muscular action of the lips and tongue, are compacted and driven through the 91 ®IH> Art 0f Arting auditorium of a theatre to strike the auricular nerve of the auditor with a proper effect, like a bullet sent to the bull's-eye of a target from the muzzle of a gun; while sounds projected care- lessly may be likened to a ball of sawdust that by atmospheric resistance is exploded and scattered, never reaching the object at which it was aimed. By reason of the neglect of this simple part of the art of acting, we hear people, even in the mid- dle distance of the auditorium of a theatre in- quiring of a neighbor, with an apology for the intrusion, — "What did he say? I didn't hear him." Of course, the inquirer did hear but did not understand because of the speaker's imperfect articulation. A few minutes of practice each day, in the analysis of words, that is, resolving them into their elementary sounds, and doing them with the organs of articulation, will in a short time produce most gratifying results to the artist and to his auditors. The artist may find excellent practice in analyzing the second person singular of the indicative mood, present and past tense, of, 92 iFftnittntiB any verb in our language; e. g., "Thou trou-brst." 'Thou trou-brdst/' "Thou charm^st/' "Thou charm'dst/' Correct pronunciation means simply the put- ting together of the elementary sounds into syl- lables and words and accenting the syllable of a word according to the best usage of the language. In all cultivated languages there are standard dictionaries for the study of the history, the meaning, accentuation and euphqny of words. It is true that the lexicographers differ about the meaning, the elementary sounds, and the ac- cent of words; and the actor should therefore, and because of his position before the public, se- lect for his authority a dictionary that gives the fullest history and the most perfect euphony to the words. The actor should, in pronunciation, be a good authority and a satisfactory reference for the patrons of his art. To be ignorant of a sufficient authority upon the question of a dis- puted word, is unworthy a true dramatic artist. 93 T) Y the use of the word "expression," in defin- ■"^ ing the art of acting, we understand a re- sult arising from combining all the elementary principles of artificial and natural language, and their presentation or sending out, for an effect, which effect should be a true, visible and auricu- lar picture of the author's mental conceptions. Articulation and pronunciation are merely the mechanism of expression, the absolutely neces- sary machinery by which the thoughts and sen- sations of the mind are conveyed to the sense of hearing. The more perfect this machinery, the more certain the effect of the emotion. But whether it be the rage of anger or of grief, the shout of joy, the murmur of happiness, the wail i 94 of despair, or the merriment of laughter — what- ever the emotion or the phase of emotion — it must be recognized through the factors of expression; and however great or small the dissimilarity in emotions, the difference in expression always re- sults from a transposition of the modes of utter- ance, the qualities of the voice, the force of the voice, the stress, the time, and the inflections of the voice, just as the forms of grammar and the figures of rhetoric result from the position and transposition of words and phrases in a sentence. Grammar, rhetoric and logic are intellectual arts ; so is acting an intellectual art; but, while in the study of the first three arts named, we are to con- sider only the rational processes, in acting we are to study feeling — that is, sensation as it appears by the various emotions. Through the science of grammar, rhetoric and logic, we learn from words the true conceptions of the author; through the science of emotions we vitalize those conceptions; and by the art of acting we re-present them in dramatic charac- ters. 95 T)Y utterance we understand merely the mode -^^ of sending out the sounds made by the or- gans of speech. There are seven modes of utterance. The ef- fusive, the expulsive, the explosive, the sighing, the sobbing, the panting and the gasping. This factor of expression, mode of utterance, is heard on all sides of us, and in some of the above forms, at all hours of the day and night; so that one needs to have but small powers of observation to acquire a knowledge of it; and, with a Httle daily practice, one may make the imitation quite in perfection. Each mode of utterance has its peculiar dra- matic language ; that is, as a factor in expression it has its own peculiar power. 96 TSitttv^ntt Effusive utterance is the language of repose. It is the result of a quiet, undisturbed condition of the mind, and is, in short, voice produced by the vocalization of our normal breathing. It is pouring out sound. Therefore, this mode of ut- terance is applicable, in acting, to all those pass- ages, in dramatic composition, that convey the idea of physical and mental repose. Expulsive utterance is the language of sus- tained mental activity — that degree of mental force that sets the muscular system to work com- pressing the air in the lungs and driving it out with a louder sound — a more determined effort to be heard. In acting, the expulsive mode of utterance ap- plies to all sustained, didactic, argumentative pas- sages, and descriptive matter, whether moderate or declamatory in force. Explosive utterance results from sudden men- tal impressions producing abrupt muscular ac- tion. It is, therefore, the language of everything impulsive, and in acting applies to exclamations of all kinds, whatever the emotion seeking rec- 97 Uiift Art 0f Arltttg ognition. The shout of joy, the shriek of terror, the outburst of laughter, gladness and mirth, though differing in force, are all explosive in utterance; and even argument, though didactic in its nature, becomes explosive in utterance when it assumes the dogmatic form. The dogmatic speaker is always impulsive and his utterance be- comes a series of explosions, as if he were shoot- ing each word at his auditors. The sighing utterance is the language of men- tal distress, and is the outcome of a large, quick, though not abrupt, inhalation, and prolonged ex- halation in the expulsive mode. The sigh tells of muscular suppression through long continued mental action. It is always dramatic, for it indi- cates, at the moment, the resumption of the physi- cal activity. The sigh in dramatic composition is generally signified by the words "Ah!" or "Oh!" sometimes by "O!" and "Ah, ha!" The well-known sigh in the celebrated Sleep-walking Scene, in "Macbeth," is written with three con- secutive "O's," which a celebrated foreign actress, because of her ignorance of the English 98 T&tUxnntt language, delivered as if they were three consecu- tive sighs — although the attendant immediately says, "What a sigh was there !" As well might we assume, whenever we meet with the three forms "ha, ha, ha," so common in dramatic writing, that they mean three consecutive laughs. Sobbing utterance is the language of mental distress in a greater degree than is expressed by the sigh. The sob generally terminates a long strain of weeping. It shows the inability of the mind to control the physique. It is made by a spasmodic inhalation and an expulsive exhalation of the breath. The absence of this factor of ex- pression in imitating the subsidence of an over- whelming outburst of grief, destroys the truth- fulness of the representation, and shows the lack of study in the would-be artist. The opportuni- ties for observation are almost as common as are the chances for studying the sigh, for the sob fre- quently remains as the language of mental dis- tress hours after the cause of the outburst has passed away. The lack of this very simple part in terminat- 99 ®if^ Art 0f Arttng ing Juliet's scene with the Nurse, wherein Juliet learns of the banishment of Romeo, as the conclu- sion of a heartrending grief, generally exposes the actress to the criticism that she is only play- ing that she is acting. Panting utterance results from any unusual and violent exercise, as fast walking, jumping and running. The breathing is made up of short, quick inhalations with rapid expulsions. The ac- tion of the abdominal, intercostal and pectoral muscles is abnormal both in tension and in relaxa- tion, indicating a larger consumption of the vital- izing principle of the air than can be taken in by the ordinary sustained breathing. Therefore, the panting utterance is the language of physical dis- tress. Panting utterance projects a sentence brok- en into phrases disjoined in sense; and when the panting is very violent, it utters merely the words, with sometimes long pauses between. The defect in this kind of utterance on the stage is, that the physical distress generally dis- appears too quickly, and so destroys, almost in its inception, the illusion which a longer continued 100 TUtUvnntt action might perfect. A very fair specimen of this kind of utterance may be found in the lines of the Nurse in the scene with Juliet, when, to the old woman hastening home with news of Romeo, Juliet exclaims : "O honey nurse, what news ?" The Nurse talks of her weariness, her aching bones, and the jaunt she has had, and when Juliet further implores her with "Good, good nurse, speak !" the Nurse replies : "Jesu, what haste! can you — not stay — awhile? Do you — not see — that I — am — out of —breath?"* Panting utterance is an important factor in the representation of great fatigue in wrestling, box- ing and fencing on the stage, and, quite as much as any other part of expression, helps the audience to appreciate the dramatic situation. This mode of utterance is very simple in form and easy of acquisition. By a little practice in doing and judgment in the application, another element may be added to beautify the art. Gasping utterance is made by a long, slow and *Also the Messenger in "Macbeth," Act V., Scene V. 101 iSlit Art 0f Arttns continuously weakening exhalation and a short, abrupt inhalation. It is the language of physical exhaustion. It seems like an intense muscular contraction for the purpose of retaining the breath, which the gradual relaxation, through growing weakness, allows to escape in an expul- sive manner at first, but which terminates in mere effusion ; and then by an abrupt contraction, as if the will power had suddenly determined to live on, the breath is snatched back again at the very point of its final exit. The words and phrases of a sentence ride out upon the expiring breath with a general diminu- tion of force until the final cessation of the cause by either recovery or death. This mode of utterance is more difficult to ac- quire than either the "sobbing" or the "panting," because of its complex and unnatural action, and also because the opportunities for observation are not so frequent. However, there are always op- portunities for study in hospitals of any large city. This factor of expression belongs to nearly all heroic death scenes on the stage, for they are 102 generally the result of violence, forcing a strong will to contend with a decaying or broken phy- sique. Mercutio's death scene furnishes a very fine specimen of this mode of utterance. Mercutio. Why the devil — came you between us ? — I was, hurt under your arm. Romeo, I thought all for the best. Mercutio. Help me into some house — Benvolio — or I shall faint — a plague o' both your houses — They have made worm's meat — of me — I have it — ^and soundly, too your houses ! 103 Vnitt ^ M^ HE next factor in expression to be consid- •^ ered is Voice. On this factor a volume might be written without exhausting the subject. But as the cause, development, and effect of voice in dramatic art only are the object of this essay, I shall speak of the voice only in its application to acting. Every actor has a voice of some kind; either harsh or soft, squeaking or musical, orotund or thin, pectoral or nasal, guttural or head tone ; and if the characters to be assumed were each fitted to the actor's peculiar quality of voice, he might always seem to be an artist. But the actor's art is not only limited, but sadly belittled when the dramatist is compelled to fit all of his dramatis personae to the natural conditions of the actor. This form of dramatic writing, considered quite 104 an accomplishment by some local dramatists, lim- its the writer and represents the defects of the actor until His "sameness" grows tiresome. There may be money for the manager in this form of dramatic writing and acting, but there is also death to dramatic art in the line of impersona- tion and illustration of the heroic characters of Shakespeare and other great dramatists. The dramatic author's art is — "To show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure," in words so arranged as to present human emo- tions in their true relation and resemblance to na- ture; and the actor's art is, through the applica- tion of his intelligence and the adaptability of his physique, to illustrate the works of the author. In the expression of an emotion, voice is a powerful factor ; and every actor may, if there be no physical defect, so cultivate his voice as to be able through its changes, not only to re-present correctly the varying phases of emotions, but also to present a repertoire of perhaps three or four 105 ®If^ Art 0f Arttttg distinct characters without allowing his individu- ality to appear. A repertoire of four entirely distinct characters would indeed be very remarkable. I do not re- member to have seen any actor with such versa- tility. Voice is always made in the larynx at the top of the trachea, by the vibration of the vocal cords, which cords are in themselves merely muscles. Upon the strength of these vocal cords, together with the firmness and hardness of the general muscular and the osseous systems, will depend the timbre — the ringing musical tone of the voice. Upon the tension of the vocal cords and the length of the column of air between the larynx and the mouth, will depend the inflections of the voice, and upon the place of principal resonance will de- pend the quality of the voice. As a factor in speech, voice is vocalized breath conveying thought and sensation. Now, while the human being has but one voice, we have all observed a great difference in the same voice under differing circumstances — e, g., 106 t the mother will call her child to her with one effect of voice, and command her servant with quite another effect of voice. A man will talk of the beauty of the park near Niagara Falls with one effect of voice, while he will speak his admi- ration and wonder on beholding the grandeur of the Falls themselves, with quite another effect. These are phenomena of the voice so common that the simplest student of nature must have observed them. But perhaps all have not asked why is this or that effect? Why are these changes? The answer is plain and lies before us as thus : Voice is a result of muscular action under mental im- pressions, and mental impressions are the result of continually changing circumstances ; so that we may conclude that voice, like every other factor, in the expression of an emotion is governed by some exterior circumstance, past or present. The effects of voice that we hear in nature un- der varying circumstances, may be divided for dramatic purposes into three qualities agreeing with the place of principal resonance, as: Head tone, because the place of principal resonance is 107 JJljj Art 0f Artittg in the head; Pectoral {pectus, the chest), because the place of principal resonance is in the chest; and the Orotund, from os et rotundum, because the place of principal resonance is in the mouth. The orotund is in reality a combination of the head tone and the pectoral quality and is not only the best vocal exponent of the dignity and grandeur of the human voice, but it is largest in its compass, and the most musical and varied. It touches the head tone and dips down into the pectoral. The true orotund quality, resulting from proper cultivation of well developed vocal organs, is the very perfection of the human voice. To know of these distinctions in voice, and to know how to make the several qualities, is some- thing; but to the actor all this knowledge is worthless, unless he knows the dramatic lan- guage of each of these qualities, so that, after hearing them in nature, he may properly apply them in speaking the language of the dramatic author. The Head tone, because of its penetrating pow- er, and because of its susceptibility to smoothness 108 and softness, is heard, in nature, in all of those situations where mental conviction and persua- sion are aimed at, where the speaker seeks rather to present the power of his mentality than to overwhelm by his superior physical force. There- fore, the head tone prevails in argumentation and didactic matter. The emotion love, and all of its phases, friendship, tender sympathy, re- gret, sadness, melancholy and some phases of joy, as gladness and mirth, assume, with different ut- terances and varying forces, the head tone. The outburst of anger is generally in the head tone, and through this quality of voice expresses the weakness of the speaker. The shriek of terror, though it may terminate in a broken falsetto, generally begins in the head tone. The head tone properly prevails in the ordi- nary conversation of domestic life — the every day local relations ; but because of a lack of action in opening the mouth, the tone is much perverted by a resonance through the nose, sometimes de- scribed as a "nasal twang;" and because of care- lessness in articulation, we have that disagree- 109 Shr Art nf Arttttg able redundancy even in drawing-room dis- courses, "I beg pardon." An excellent illustration of the head tone with an explosive utterance may be made with the raillery of Mercutio throughout the "Queen Mab speech," except where the voice must vary in tone to give the imitation of strength, as in tlie last part wherein he describes the soldier. The Orotund quality is the vocal representation of strength, power and command. It requires great strength to produce it, and we find it eman- ating in words when the speaker is seeking to im- press others with his own strength or when he is describing the power and grandeur of nature. We look for it in the dramatic hero, because we always associate heroism with strength. We listen for it in the shout of joy, and in the word of command. Without its aid indignation would be changed into anger, and sublime description would become ridiculous. While a military com- mand delivered with a head tone would be laugh- able ; the emotion love presented with the orotimd quality becomes a bombastic absurdity. In the 110 Vttxtt first instance the strength of the situation would not be expressed; and in the second instance the sentiment would be overburdened with volume of sound. A good illustration of the effect of these two qualities of voice may be made with that brief speech of Othello, wherein he dismisses Michael Cassio, because of his drunkenness while on guard at Cyprus on the first night of Othello's arrival in the island. It will be remembered that Othello and Cassio were very close friends; for Desdemona, when suing to Othello for Cassio's reinstatement, says : "What! Michael Cassio, That came a-wooing with you; and so many a time. When I have spoken of you dispraisingly. Hath ta'en your part; to have so much to do To bring him in !" This shows at least a very strong friendship, and Byron says: "Friendship is love without wings." In dismissing this very dear friend, Othello says: ". . . . Cassio, I love thee, But never more be officer of mine." Now if we were to read this entire passage 111 Slljf Art 0f Arttng with head tone, expulsive utterance, moderate force, a median stress, and slow time, we might discover all of Othello's professed love, but none of the strength nor dignity of his office; and if on the other hand we were to read it with an oro- tund quality throughout, we should find in the voice, power, but no love. What then must we do with it? Divide the sentence into two parts, and use the quality of voice in harmony with the sentiments of each part. Impressions come upon us with the rapidity of lightning, and the sensation will make changes with all the speed that the machinery of the mus- cles will allow. The actor may therefore make variation in quality in every phrase or even on a single word in a sentence, if the emotion change in either phase or kind. The pectoral quality of voice is less common in use than the other qualities just described ; but it is not less natural than the head tone and the orotund. The pectoral quality is much lower in reso- nance than the orotund, and seems to come into 112 action as a part of expression at that point where the lowest range of orotund ceases to express strength. The pectoral quality has breadth and volume; but the moment that energy of muscle is applied to drive out the sound, the Increase of tension produces orotund, and immediately changes the effect. The pectoral quality is more monotonous in its movement than either of the other qualities, and its range in expression is therefore smaller. The principal resonance of the pectoral quality is in the chest, and results from a partly re- laxed condition of the entire muscular system under any impression that compels the mind to recognize the weakness and dependence of the human being upon some superior power. It is the language of awe. Every circumstance that inspires the human being with a profound re- spect for a Superior Power, that can but will not destroy, seems to throw down the physical force, and even in the quality of voice declares the weakness of man. Whether we contemplate the silence and vast- 113 ®lj? Art 0f Arttng ness of the desert, or wonder at the volume and breadth of the ocean, or seek to scan the moun- tain peak lost in the shadowing clouds, or, look- ing into space, behold the myriad worlds that con- stitute the universe, the impression comes upon the mind that behind all of these phenomena, there is a Supreme and Everlasting Power; and human power is humbled by the thought. The awful as well as the grand and beautiful in na- ture must find a fitting representative in the qual- ity of voice. To one who justly appreciates the grandeur and power of Niagara, how absurd would seem the head tone of the beholder who might exclaim, "Oh, how beautiful!'' Even the orotund would sound inadequate, while exclaiming in its strength and boldness, "Oh, how grand !" for we should expect with the next breath a suggestion for race-ways, to harness the mighty cataract to mill stones and to the spindles and looms of woolen factories. But the truly awe-inspired looker-on speaks his admiring fear with aspirated pectoral in a single word "Wonderful!" 114 Within the past few years there has been much discussion among the actors of what is called the "Natural School of Acting" — which simply means doing what is natural to themselves — about the proper quality of voice to be used in representing the true characteristics of the Ghost in "Hamlet." It has been contended that the head tone and the orotund qualities should ap- pear in the voice of the Ghost, according to the emotion to be expressed, just as they might have appeared in the natural or normal condition of Hamlet, the father, when he was King of Den- mark. This may be a proper outcome to the merely grammatical and logical study of the Ghost's speeches ; but for dramatic purposes we must con- sider the emotional part of the character. As a dramatic person in the play, what is the Ghost, and whence comes he ? There are no such creatures in nature ; and yet in the play the Ghost exists — that is, he comes upon the scene as other characters do. We may find the likeness of any of the other characters of this play in real life; 115 ®lf^ Art 0f Artittg but no where among the realisms of nature do we find a ghost. The Ghost is, therefore, supernat- ural — the creature begotten of an awful imagina- ation; for to the poetical temperament, to the strongly emotional man to reach into the realms of the Supreme Power and fetch thence that which the original creator has destroyed, to bring back to earth the dead, to revivify a fraction of that mentality which is the human hereditament from ages of circumstances, with their innumer- able impressions, and to make that being do and suffer with a semblance of life, is a truly awful outcome of the imagination. Whatever may be thought of the reality of the confines from which the Ghost comes, a belief in the everlasting fires of that place cannot but terrify the mind, and thoughts of the unlimited torture of his "prison- house" must horrify the body. The Ghost is therefore begotten of awe and horror. If it be true that the mind, untrammeled by the artificial rules of society, is constantly seeking to present its impressions through ever-varying qualities of voice in harmony with the circum- 116 Vnxtt stance and the impression, then it will follow that we cannot accept this extraordinary char- acter, as speaking with the ordinary qualities of voice. The familiar head tone would dispel the awful by arousing sympathy; and the orotund quality, as the vocal representation of strength, woujd make the auditor feel that the Ghost must be a voluntary prisoner in his fiery cell, else with such power he might escape from those horrors, the story of which would make "one's eyes start from their spheres." The Ghost must be awful and his story horri- fying, or the dramatic situation is lost. If we have not a quality, quantity and movement of voice to impress the mind of the auditor, and lead it out into the regions of the supernatural, then the Ghost becomes ridiculous by the contrast of the real with the assumed unreal. As the low notes of the church organ, vibrat- ing on the air, thrill the nerves of sensation and compel the mind to recognize the solemnity of the place as the boundary line between earth and heaven, so does the pectoral quality of voice im- 117 SJfie Art 0f Arttng press the auditor with the awfulness of that "un- discovered country from whose bourn" nought but the shades formed of incorporate air return. In the presentation of awe resulting from the contemplation of the powerful, the grand, and the sublime in nature, the pectoral quality is pure; but when horror ensues as the final result of terror, the voice becomes strongly aspirate. In hatred — that is, chronic, deliberate anger — the pectoral mingles with the guttural, — a quality of voice made by a partial resonance or vibration of the pharynx in imitation of the low, harsh notes of animals that growl, thus expressing the ani- mal nature of the sensation. A good example of the pectoral aflPected by guttural resonance, is found in several speeches of Shylock, when expressing his hatred for An- tonio. A particularly strong example is in that speech which closes out his terrific scene with Tubal, when his hatred, raging for revenge, says : "Go, Tubal, fee me an officer ; bespeak him a fortnight before ; — I will have the heart of him if he forfeit ; for were he out of Venice I can make what merchandize I will." 118 rr^ HE term "force/* as applied to the art of -■" acting, is purely technical, and is used to limit and define energy of muscle and loudness of voice. There is an opinion prevailing that "loud- ness" and "energy" are synonymous terms ; but if we reflect that, although we cannot have great loudness without great energy of muscle, we can nevertheless have great energy of muscle without loudness, we may perceive that the word "force" covers something more than loudness of voice. So we may say that force describes the activity and strength of the voice-producing organs. We cannot divide the force of the speaking voice into the precise degrees named in the sing- ing voice, where the singer and the instrument 119 ®ij^ Art 0f Arlittg must harmonize through moderato, forte, fortis- simo, piano and pianissimo; nor is it at all neces- sary, for speaking is never done in concert, ex- cept to weaken and destroy, while concert in music strengthens and beautifies the effect. Mu- sic seeks its expression through sound, while speech is nothing unless it conveys the sense of each particular word. For the practical purpose of arriving at the dramatic language of force, we may divide the force of the speaking voice into five degrees, which shall approximately express all thought and sensation, as whispering, suppressed, moder- ate, declamatory and impassioned. Those who have given no thought to the science that under- lies the art of acting are quite likely to think these divisions and names arbitrary; that the teacher selects the word for naming a degree of force, and then fits the force to the name ; but with only a little observation one may see that the reverse of this is true. We hear the various degrees of force in nature, and we simply name them, in or- der that we may bring them in from the field of 120 observation and apply them correctly in the art of re-presenting. The degree of force is entirely dis- tinct from the quality of voice. For example, in secretiveness, or in ^weakness, we hear the whisper. Secrecy is the result of a mental de- termination to avoid discovery, and weakness the inability to control purity of tone in the voice. Hence, we say that the whisper, when voluntary, is the language of secretiveness, and when it is involuntary, it is the language of weakness. It requires but little thought to see the truth of this statement; and any intelligent actor, with but little study of the dramatic situation, will readily learn the just application of this powerful factor in expression. Although there may be none of the loudness that results from purity of tone and energy of muscle, yet the energy of muscle may be so great as to drive the whisper to the farthest corner of the auditorium in either the lecture room, the church, or the theatre. I think the most powerful prayer made as an appeal to the mercy of Omnipotence that I ever listened to, was begun with the whispering force and 121 ®If? Art of Arttng never arose above suppressed force during the entire time of delivery. It was the most truthful presentation of profound respect to the Supreme Power that I have ever had the pleasure of hear- ing. I felt that the speaker was fully impressed with the awfulness of coming into the presence of Deity. Through lack of this kind of force on the part of the attending physician and gentlewoman, the Sleep-walking Scene of Lady Macbeth is gener- ally destroyed. The horror and alarm of Lady Macbeth's "To bed, to bed, there's knocking at the gate," cannot be expressed without the whisper. Suppressed Force. Suppressed force is the outcome of very in- tense emotion. Although it resembles the impas- sioned force, yet there is always a sufficient men- tal control to prevent the extreme muscular ac- tion, resulting in tremor of voice, by the addition of which the suppressed becomes the impassioned force. The suppressed force is made up of the whis- 122 per and whatever quality of voice the situation may call for, as head tone, orotund, or pectoral. In the suppressed force, the whisper in the voice will present the secretiveness of the situation, or the weakness of the speaker, while the tone will present the tenderness, the strength or the horror, as the emotion may be. The suppressed force with the head tone, may be heard among the groups around the sick-bed, around the bier, at the funeral of a friend, or in the cemetery where friends assemble to pay a tender respect to the dead, and in the words of love and friendship, when the situation is secretive. It is the pres- ence of the suppressed force with the head tone that makes the Balcony Scene of "Romeo and Juliet'' truly dramatic, and it is the absence of this suppression in the orotund quality of voice, with which many actors play the murder scene between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, that entire- ly destroys the awfulness of the crime — their oro- tund declamation making it appear an act of hero- ism to be known and admired by the whole world, rather than a foul deed to be concealed even in 123 QIIH? Art 0f Arttng the very suppression of their breath. And no- where can we find a better situation for the illus- tration of the suppressed pectoral, than in the closing part of this scene, when Macbeth, break- ing under the influence of the horror with which the recognition of his brutal, gory murder fills him, exclaims as he is startled by the knocking at the gate, just after Lady Macbeth has left him to replace the daggei "How is't with me, when every noise appals me ? What hands are here ? Ha ! they pluck out mine eyes! Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood Clean from my hand? No; this my hand will rather The multitudinous seas incarnadine. Making the green one red." In the suppressed force there is always combi- nation of feeling and intelligence. There is se- cretiveness or weakness in the aspiration and sensation in the tone. The secretiveness indi- cates, positively, the governing influence of the mind, and weakness does not close out the possi- bility of mental action as a controlling power in the sensation. Even in the continued action of 124 I horror we find mentality seeking relief for the embarrassment of the physical condition. Sup- pressed force, when voluntary, is the outcome of the study of self-control, and its proper use al- ways indicates cultivation in the artist. Moderate Force. We find in nature a degree of loudness which seems always to appeal to the intellect only. It never seeks to arouse feeling and is constantly op- posed to any display of sensation by which men- tality may lose control of the situation. This may be called moderate force. We hear it in all didactic and argumentative matter, where mental education is the object of the speaker. We hear it also in those phases of joy called mirth and gladness, as well as in the earnest discourses upon the serious affairs of life; and although there is sometimes a tendency to suppressed force and an occasional cropping out of declamation among the well disciplined minds of the clergy, still moderate force as a factor of expression, prevails in the solemnity of church service. 125 ®Ij^ Art 0f Arttttg Moderate force with a head tone, an expulsive or explosive utterance, as the abruptness of the thought may sometimes require, will always hold the subject matter down to a purely mental ap- peal. The dramatic writer should not forget that the auditor tires, if held down for a long time with the monotony of this combination of vocal effects. A beautiful illustration of this degree of force may be made with Hamlet's advice to the players ; in which scene he takes to task those ranters who "tear a passion to tatters.'* Of course, in Ham- let's illustration he must himself pass into decla- mation to present the bombastic folly that he is criticizing; but the prevailing force of the scene, as the logical outcome of his instructions will prove, is moderate. Declamatory Force. However calm and intelligent the speaker may be, when he starts to present his propositions as the base or opening of a continued and prolonged oration, the moment that the mind begins to re- ceive impressions from exterior circumstances, 126 Ifntte either through the effect of immediate surround- ings, or through the action of memory, the gen- eral muscular system, including the voice-produc- ing organs, is pulled up to an energy that makes a loudness of voice called declamatory force. Like the suppressed force, it has intelligence and feeling ; but declamation differs from suppres- sion in being always strong as well as open and frank. There is no weakness to present, and no thought to conceal. The loudness of the voice and purity of tone seem to boast of the strength of the speaker, and the muscular energy seems to reach out as if to grasp and hold at once the thinking and sensational processes of the audi- ence. As the suppressed force compels to thought, so does declamatory force arouse in the human be- ing everything that is grand and strong, — open and candid sentiments for the world to hear. Declamation is beautiful and powerful in its place, but when misplaced, as it often is, for want of intelligence in the actor, it becomes bombastic rant, offensive even to common sense, and dis- 127 t Art of Arttng tressful to the cultivated auditor, "the censure of the which, one should in your allowance outweigh a whole theatre of others." There are many beau- tiful speeches for the illustration of declamatory force in nearly all of Shakespeare's plays, but "Julius Caesar" is peculiarly rich in oppor- tunities for the practice of this factor of ex- pression. One of the notable misapplications of this force is generally made in the opening of Othello's oration, commencing with "Most potent, grave and reverend signiors," before the Venetian Senate; for although his remembrance of the "moving accidents by flood and field," and his en- thusiasm over the growing love of Desdemona, may rouse him up to the declamation during the progress of his speech ; yet there can be no doubt that the mental embarrassment of the situation, and the great respect due to the grave and rev- erend senators before whom he was called, would hold the voice down to a moderate force, or even less loudness in the beginning of his discourse. Some actors have partly reformed the bom- bastic destruction of this chaste and beautiful 128 specimen of oratory. "But oh, reform it al- together." Impassioned Force. When mentality is subordinated to the physical, by reason of any sensation whatever, whether the animal nature is showing its selfishness through the shriek of terror, the shout of joy, the groan of horror, or the outburst of grief, we may call the force of the emotion impassioned. Impassioned force, as the phrase implies, indi- cates the absence of mental control. It shows itself in the falsetto of a shriek and in the aspi- rated pectoral of a groan. In nature this force is frequently the cause of death. Anger with im- passioned force may produce apoplexy. The im- passioned sensations of joy sometimes kill, and impassioned grief will dethrone reason, begetting melancholia which generally terminates in death. The imitation of impassioned force on the stage is dangerous, and sometimes brings serious re- sults to the actor. It requires great muscular power to represent it, and great strength of muscle and nerve to sustain the effect. No per- 129 Sllf^ Art 0f Arttttg son unskilled in acting can imitate impassioned force with impunity; for if the native feeling be so strong as entirely to control the muscular en- ergy, he will first be in danger of the accidents that happen in real life, or if his physique be strong enough to escape these, he will, in ninety- nine cases in the hundred, overact the situation and so bring down the censure of the audience. And again, if, without proper training, he relies entirely upon his mental direction, by impulse, he will find his untutored muscles unequal to the work, awkwardness will result, and the laugh will come when tears are expected. It is only through the ability to re-present im- passioned force that an artist may truthfully por- tray the heroic emotions of Shakespeare's dra- matic characters. Such creatures as Macbeth and Lady Macbeth demand from the artist not only a well cultivated and developed mind to conceive their mental at- tributes, but a thoroughly well trained physique to act those conceptions. It is for the want of attention to the requirements of an art that make 130 Iftivtt such drafts upon the vitaUty of the performer, that we have to-day but few native American actresses who can present a truthful picture of the wonderfully woeful grandeur of Lady Mac- beth's selfish and destructive remorse. Impassioned force, in addition to the aspiration of the voice, caused by driving more breath upon the vocal cords than can be converted into pure vocality, assumes a trembling, shaking movement because of the momentum of the sensation as it passes over the body, producing a vibratory mo- tion. Therefore, an aspirated tremor will appear in impassioned force whatever the quality of voice. Even the piercing falsetto in a shriek of terror, will become aspirated and vibratory, if the cause of the emotion should produce many repeti- tions of the expression. Horror, the unrelieved condition of terror, not only produces this shaky movement of the voice, but it also causes such ab- normal contractions and relaxations of the entire body, as to break up the continuity of sound, changing the quantity and quality of the voice at almost every instant of its duration, begetting 131 aijf^ Art 0f Arttng discords in tone and time that are truly distress- ful to the listener. One may sometimes see a full expression of ter- ror in the effect of thunder and lightning upon a herd of cattle in the prairies. The wild running, the muscular contractions, and the unnatural bel- lowings of the terrified animals are fearful to be- hold. A truly terrified or horrified man is an animal with such cultivated powers of communi- cation as enable him to pray for existence. We jnay suppose sufficient mentality to suppress the extreme expression of impassioned force, but this very suppression of voice will produce tremulous and disjointed action. There is a very fine study of impassioned force by mental suppression in the Horatio and Hamlet scenes with the Ghost in the First Act of "Ham- let." These scenes are full of impassioned force held down in its vocal effort by the disciplined minds of the speakers, but manifesting itself in the tremor of the body, which should produce dis- jointed action of the voice in both Horatio and Hamlet. Marcellus says : 132 3tittt "How now, Horatio, you tremble and look pale." and Hamlet in his first speech to the Ghost says : "What may this mean. That thou, dead corse, again in complete steel, Revisit'st thus the glimpses of the moon. Making night hideous, and we fools of nature So horridly to shake our disposition With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls ?" There is a fine expression of uncontrolled ter- ror in Macbeth's scenes with the ghost of Banquo, when the sensation of impending danger is so great as entirely to dethrone reason for the time, compelling him to play the madman at the very moment when he had most need for all the diplo- macy of the courtier and the majestic dignity of the king. His emotion of terror breaks up the banquet "with most admired disorder." Mac- beth's two speeches upon the second appearance of the ghost, beginning with "Avaunt! and quit my sight!" and "What man dare, I dare," are very strong illustrations of the impassioned force, resulting from the desperation of terror, wherein we see the hero challenging a "horrible shadow," 133 ®ifr Art 0f Artittg an "unreal mockery," to be alive again, and meet him in mortal combat. Terror has so over- whelmed Macbeth's intellectual functions that he entirely ignores the presence of the "good peers'* by whom he is surrounded, and talks like a mad- man. He even wonders that others can "keep the natural ruby" of their cheeks while his "are blanch'd with fear." And when the ghost dis- appears he says : '*Why so ; — being gone, I am a man again — " thus admitting that he has been shaken from his manhood. Macduff's return from the chamber where the murdered king lay is a very severe test of the actor's knowledge of the science and art of his profession. In the traditional acting of this scene the actor enters with his sword drawn and with declama- tory force in voice, while beating the canvas walls of the castle with the flat of his sword till they shake from foundation to turret, he shouts : 134 "O ! horror, horror, horror, "Tongue nor heart cannot conceive nor name thee. Confusion now hath made his masterpiece ; Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope The Lord's anointed temple and stole thence The life o' the building." Such a representation of this scene is too ab- surd for a student of dramatic art, yet this was the manner of acting adopted by the most im- portant actors — ^men who had filled "leading" positions in the profession. If we may judge from the words spoken by Macduff when he enters, we must conclude that horror is the sensation that is prompting to speech. Horror relaxes the muscles and produces a tremulous condition of the whole body. The voice is aspirated, the utterance explosive and spasmodic. The face is pale and much distorted — the eyes are widely open and staring — the walk a kind of stagger, but not like the move- ments of a drunken person, for there the mental force is striving to control the action. Macduff should enter quickly, speaking with 135 ®In? Art 0f Arttits aspirated voice, uneven in movement and irregu- lar in pause. He should move about the court- yard as he speaks, and at the line, "the life o' the building," he should throw himself on a set- tee and remain there through the speech ending with, "see and speak for yourselves." At Macbeth's exit Macduff should start up quickly, and while passing from one point to an- other, indicating the several sleeping chambers, having partly recovered from the effects of horror, he should shout with great energy and loudness the lines beginning with "Awake ! Awake ! Ring the alarum-bell." When Banquo enters he should throw himself on Banquo's breast and with tremulous, broken voice speak the lines — "O, Banquo ! Banquo ! Our royal master's murdered." 136 ^tttBB Tj> VERY tonic element uttered must have -*— ' duration or length of sound, and so must have a beginning, a middle, and an ending. Now it has been observed, as one of the phenomena of expression, that the force of the voice in speak- ing is continually changing its location in the sound, according to the nature of the emotion or thought to be expressed. Sometimes the force is heard evenly distributed throughout the en- tire length of the sound; sometimes its main strength, or blow, falls upon the initial or radi- cal part of the sound; sometimes on the middle; sometimes on the final; and sometimes it is broken up in tittles, making a kind of trembling of the voice that continues from the beginning to 137 ®i)? Art 0f Arttttg the end of the sound. This ever-shifting force is called stress. Therefore, we may define stress as the application of force to some given part of the sound; and, in order that we may study the different effects produced by stress we may narae them from their place or location in the sound as, Thorough Stress, Radical Stress, Median Stress, Vanishing Stress, and the Stress of Tremor. These various stresses, existing in our spoken language, may be heard at all times, and may be studied among all classes of speakers, whatever may be their skill in pronunciation, grammar or rhetoric. Stress must be wherever there is force. Each kind of stress has its own dramatic lan- guage. And through the knowledge of this lan- guage, as it is heard in nature, the actor must be able to apply the factor stress, in re-presenting the author's emotions that lie hidden among his words. Thorough Stress. The Thorough Stress is the language of mental equilibrium and prevails whenever the sit- 138 uation calls for a sustained force, as in the purely mechanical effort of shouting, calling or com- manding. It is the language of dignity, and it gives the monotonous effect heard in the expres- sions of awe, grandeur and sublimity. This stress may be heard with declamatory force in Macduff's call, "Awake ! awake ! — Ring the alarum-bell : — murder and treason 1 Banquo and Donalbain! Malcolm! awake! Shake off this downy sleep, death's counterfeit, And look on death itself ! up, up, and see The great doom's image! Malcolm! Banquo! As from your graves rise up, and walk like sprites, To countenance this horror !" The thorough stress also expresses the awful ness of the voice that cried : "Sleep no more ; to all the house : Glamis hath murdered sleep and therefore Cawdor Shall sleep no more: Macbeth shall sleep no more :" This stress might prevail throughout the Ghost's story to Hamlet, and is undoubtedly the 139 (Jlf? Art 0f Artttt5 only stress that can truly convey the awful sensa- tions of Macbeth while contemplating his sur- roundings after the hallucination of the dagger has passed from his mind and the realities of the time and the place present themselves to him. "Now o'er the one-half world Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse The curtained sleep ; now witchcraft celebrates Pale Hecate's offerings ; and wither 'd murder Alarum'd by his sentinel, the wolf. Whose howFs his watch, thus with his stealthy pace. With Tarquin's ravishing strides, toward his design Moves like a ghost. Thou sure and firm-set earth. Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear The very stones prate of my whereabout, And take the present horror from the time. Which now suits with it." Radical Stress. Radical Stress is the language of impulse. All of those emotions in which the sensation is so abrupt as to be explosive in utterance, expend 140 the greater part of the force on the opening of the sound and thus become initial or radical in stress. Joy and anger, though they may differ in quality of voice, will be the same in mode of utterance and stress — that is, explosive in utter- ance and initial or radical in stress. All the acute, active phases of joy, as gladness, mirth and merriment, though less in force and differing in quality of voice, will still manifest themselves through explosive utterance and radical stress. This kind of stress is the weapon with which the precisely didactic and dogmatic speaker de- livers a mental blow at the understanding of his auditors. It has power to arouse and keep awake the perceptive faculties and is always sure to hold the attention. Used in excess, the radical stress is the language of arrogant egotism. One may find a very happy illustration of the predominence of initial stress in the merriment of Gratiano's speech in the "Merchant of Venice:" "Let me play the fool : With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come ; 141 ^ift Art 0f Attittg And let my liver rather heat with wine Than my heart cool with mortifying groans. Why should a man, whose blood is warm within, Sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster? Sleep when he wakes? and creep into the jaun- dice By being peevish ? I tell thee what, Antonio, — I love thee, and it is my love that speaks — " Up to this point in the speech certainly the radical or initial stress prevails; but, from this place, the thorough stress would run through the next seven lines to present the assumed mental equilibrium and dignity of the would-be oracles — "A sort of men whose visages Do cream and mantle like a standing pond. And do a wilful stillness entertain. With purpose to be dress'd in an opinion Of wisdom, gravity, profound conceit; As who should say, / am Sir Oracle, And, when I ope my lips, let no dog barkT And, again, the merriment of Gratiano breaks into the radical stress and explosive utterance of laughter with the abrupt exclamation : "Oh, my Antonio, I do know of these. That therefore only are reputed wise For saying nothing." Another fine illustration of radical stress and 142 explosive utterance may be found in Shylock*s reply to Solanio and Salarino after they have as- sisted Lorenzo in eloping with Jessica. Solanio, meeting Shylock, says: "How now, Shylock ? What news among the merchants ?" With an outburst of anger Shylock replies : "You knew, none so well, none so well as you, of my daughter's flight." And again the radical stress and explosive utter- ance, with the impassioned force, very clearly expresses the malignant joy that Shylock feels when Tubal tells him that "Antonio is certainly undone." Shylock replies : "Nay, that's true ; that's very true. Go, Tubal, fee me an officer; bespeak him a fortnight be- fore. I will have the heart of him if he forfeit ; for, were he out of Venice, I can make what merchandise I will. Go, go, Tubal, and meet me at our synagogue; go, good Tubal; at our synagogue. Tubal." The radical stress, with moderate force and varying qualities of voice from head tone to orotund, will prevail in the didactic and argu- 143 Wilt Art nf Arting mentative matter of Hamlet's advice to the play- ers: "Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue: but if you mouth it, as many of our players do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines." Median Stress. When the emotion expresses the pleasing sensations of the speaker, or when it seeks to arouse a feeling of pleasure in the auditor, we find the force of the voice locating itself in the middle of the sound by a crescendo and diminu- endo movement that produces a decidedly mu- sical effect. This form of the application of force is called median or middle stress. This stress being musical in its nature has within itself the power to take the mind from the realisms of its surroundings, and wholly to en- gage it merely with the pleasures of sound. It stops the projection of thought and checks reflec- tion, and so the truth of the situation is not ques- tioned. The mind simply longs for, or desires, a continuance of present enjoyment. 144 The median stress prevails in the language of love, friendship, mercy, happiness and pity ; and, through pity for self, this stress is heard in the language of sadness, melancholy, regret and penitence. The dramatic language of the median stress is persuasion. This stress, when properly applied, gives a charm to the speaking voice that is only exceeded by the singing voice, which, through the science of music, deals alone with sound, and has the power to charm, even without the sense of the words. A very beautiful illustration of the median stress, with suppressed force, may be found in the Balcony Scene between Romeo and Juliet in Shakespeare's play. In this scene, love, under circumstances which compel secrecy, is the prompting emotion. Portia's speech on the quality of mercy in the Fourth Act of the "Merchant of Venice" affords another fine opportunity for the use of this stress. The object of the speaker is to awaken the feel- ings of Shylock to sympathy, and, through sym- 145 Bift Art 0f Arttttg pathy with a divine attribute, to beget in his mind pity for Antonio. "The quality of mercy is not strained; It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven Upon the place beneath ; it is twice bless'd ; It blesseth him that gives and him that takes : 'Tis mightiest in the mightiest. It becomes The throned monarch better than his crown ; His sceptre shows the force of temporal power. The attribute to law and majesty, Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings ; But mercy is above this scepter'd sway, — It is enthroned in the heart of kings, It is an attribute to God himself ; And earthly power doth then show likest God's When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew, Though justice be thy plea, consider this — That in the course of justice none of us Should see salvation : we do pray for mercy ; And that same prayer doth teach us all to render The deeds of mercy." In the regret and penitence of Wolsey in "King Henry VIII" there is another fine illustra- tion of the median stress. Wolsey evidently pities himself when he says : "O Cromwell, Cromwell ! Had I but served my God with half the zeal I served my King, he would not in mine age Have left me naked to mine enemies." 146 I r Through the median stress, the noble, growing love of Othello declares itself to Desdemona when he says : "If it were now to die, Twere now to be most happy ; for I fear, My soul hath her content so absolute That not another comfort like to this Succeeds in unknown fate." Vanishing or Final Stress. When the force is carried over to the last part of the sound, the very act of such carrying over seems to imply determination, and so we find that this application of force, which is called iinal stress, is heard in all of those emotions where time has settled down upon the impulse and seems to exert a restraining influence on the voice for the purpose of making the outcome more positive and irrevocable. Final stress is therefore the language of hatred, which is in reality a result of the effect of time upon unsatisfied anger. Final stress is also the language of impatience, and it is heard in weeping, or crying, when despite the effort to 147 Elft Art 0f Arttttg suppress protracted and convulsive grief, the voice breaks away at the end of a wailing sound and explodes in the sob. Horror and the sensa- tions of disgust, loathing and dread are expressed in nature by the final stress. A good exemplification of this stress may be found in the soliloquy of Shylock expressing his hatred for Antonio (orotund, slow, downward inflection) : "How like a fawning publican he looks ! I hate him for he is a Christian ; But more for that, in low simplicity, He lends out money gratis, and brings down The rate of usance here with us in Venice. If I can catch him once upon the hip I will feed fat the ancient grudge I bear him. He hates our sacred nation; and he rails Even there where merchants most do congregate, On me, my bargains, and my well-won thrift. Which he calls interest. Cursed be my tribe If I forgive him !" An excellent example of final stress, express- ing impatience, may be found in the language of Juliet in the Second Act of "Romeo and Juliet," where she is awaiting the return of the Nurse (head tone, moderate time) : 148 "The clock struck nine when I did send the Nurse ; In half an hour she promised to return. Perchance she cannot meet him : — that's not so, — O, she is lame ! love's heralds should be thoughts, Which ten times faster glide than the sun's beams. Driving back shadows over lowering hills : Therefore do nimble-pinioned doves draw love And therefore hath the wind-swift Cupid wings. Now is the sun upon the highmost hill Of this day's journey ; and from nine till twelve Is three long hours, — ^yet she is not come. Had she affections and warm youthful blood, She'd be as swift in motion as a ball ; My words would bandy her to my sweet love,* And his to me :" Macduff's discovery and announcement of the murder of King Duncan in "Macbeth," affords an excellent illustration of the final stress in the expression of horror. "O horror, horror, horror ! Tongue nor heart Cannot conceive nor name thee ! Confusion now hath made his masterpiece ! Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope The Lord's anointed temple, and stole thence The life o' the building. Approach the chamber, and destroy your sight With a new Gorgon : — do not bid me speak ; See, and then speak yourselves." 149 ^ift Art 0f Arttng To one who has witnessed the effect of horror in real life, nothing can be more absurd than the usual stage presentation of the dramatic situation in which the above passage occurs. Horror shakes the body, aspirates the voice, and breaks up the movement into spasmodic ac- tion; and yet, despite the nature of the situation, and the author's description of it, the thoughtless actor rushes on like a giant in strength and, with a voice of a Stentor, shouts from the beginning to the end of the scene ; and, then, as if not satis- fied with this outrage on art, he exposes the coun- terfeit castle by beating the painted canvas till he shakes the walls from foundation to chimney top. Declamatory force and smoothness in movement of the voice might appear when Macduff had suf- ficiently recovered from the prostrating effect of the emotion, to command himself and awake the surrounding sleepers. Another very excellent example of the final stress may be found in the extreme grief of Lady Capulet over the supposed death of Juliet, Act IV, Scene V. 150 "Accurs'd, unhappy, wretched, hateful day ! Most miserable hour that e'er time saw In lasting labour of his pilgrimage! But one, poor one, one poor and loving child, But one thing to rejoice and solace in. And cruel death hath catched it from my sight !" Stress of Tremor. The Stress of Tremor is the language of weak- ness, either positive or comparative. It is there- fore heard in sickness, old age, extreme grief or extreme joy, or in any emotion where the sensa- tion is so great as to cause a trembling or shaking of the muscular system, and, per consequence, a vibratory action in the voice. This stress is not only the exponent of weak- ness, of old age and sickness, but also of all emo- tion in the rage or ecstasy of impassioned force. The stress of tremor seems to be the point of expression at which the extremes of human emo- tions meet, for we find it the dominating stress in extreme uncontrolled grief and the outburst of laughter. Tremor is the result of breaking up the force of the voice by an ungovernable impulse and 151 ®if? Art 0f Arttttg sending it out in a succession of rapid explosions. Without the Stress of Tremor the old age and weakness of Adam in "As You Like It," when he breaks down in the forest of Arden, would fall far short of truthful illustration. Adam to Orlando. Dear master, I can go no farther : O, I die for food! Here lie I down, and measure out my grave. Farewell, kind master. Aeain, the stress of tremor must be heard in the form of laughter in the speech of Jacques ("As You Like It") to the Duke, wherein he de- scribes the merriment that made him laugh sans intermission an hour by the dial. "A fool, a fool ! — I met a fool i' the forest, A motley fool ! — a miserable world ! — As I do live by food, I met a fool, Who laid him down and basked him in the sun. And rail'd on Lady Fortune in good terms, In good set terms, — and yet a motley fool." The grief of Juliet, on hearing the news of Romeo's banishment, would fall far short of im- passioned force without this stress. In laughter, the tremor rides out upon a radical or initial 152 I stress with an explosive utterance, while in weep- ing the utterance is expulsive and the stress to which the tremor attaches itself is final. "Back, foolish tears, back to your native spring ; Your tributary drops belong to woe, Which you, mistaking, offer up to joy. My husband lives, that Tybalt would have slain ; And Tybalt's dead, that would have slain my husband : All this is comfort; wherefore weep I, then? Some word there was, far worse than Tybalt's death, That murdered me : I would forget it fain ; But, O, it presses to my memory Like damned guilty deeds to sinners' minds: Tybalt is dead, and Romeo banished. That banish' d, that one word banished, Hath slain ten thousand Tybalts — to speak that word Is father, mother, Tybalt, Romeo, Juliet, All slain, all dead." Without the stress of tremor the grief and anger of Macduff in Scene III of Act IV, would fall short of impassioned force, and would un- doubtedly fail to arouse the sympathetic response that is always made by an audience, when the force and stress of this passage in the play, are truthfully presented. After the first outburst of 153 ©If? Art 0f Artttts grief on the part of Macduff, when Malcolm says: "Dispute it like a man!'' we can readily imagine the impassioned force, the expulsive ut- terance, and the vanishing or final stress with which he would express his determination in the line "I shall do so !" and then the breaking down of that fierce combativeness by the mental action that formulates the next thought in the words : "But I mugt also feel it as a man: I cannot but remember such things were, That were most precious to me. — Did heaven look on, And would not take their part ? Sinful Macduff, They were all struck for thee! Naught that I am! Not for their own demerits, but for mine Fell slaughter on their souls: heaven rest them now!" Then Malcolm, seeking by his mental delibera- tion to change the current of feeling, now ex- pressed in grief, to anger, so that he may use it against Macbeth, instead of allowing it to ex- haust itself upon the memory of the pretty chickens and their dam, says : "Be this the whetstone of your sword : let grief Convert to anger ; blunt not the heart, enrage it." 154 And, immediately, the tones of tenderness are turned to strength. Indignation grows into anger that swells and rages with such impas- sioned force that the whole frame vibrates under it and again we hear the tremor — *'0, I could play the woman with mine eye, And braggart with my tongue ! — But, gentle heavens, Cut short all intermission ; front to front Bring thou this fiend of Scotland and myself; Within my sword's length set him; if he 'scape me Heaven forgive him too !" 155 Pitrti unh 3nfUrtt0n PITCH is a term in the nomenclature of music, and is used to denote the various degrees of elevation or depression in the tones of the voice. Pitch may therefore be defined as any given point in the line of sound up or down, — a technical term belonging exclusively to music. A study of pitch in its relation to music is not at all necessary to the art of elocution in acting. A knowledge of and practice in the various qualities of voice will furnish the dramatic artist with all the varieties in elevation and depression of voice necessary to the expression of any emo- tion of which the human being is capable; but I have thought proper to define pitch the better to enable me to define Inflection, a very important factor in expression. Pitch, as I have said, is any given point in the line of sound up or down; and the movement of 156 Pttrif unh 3(ttfUrtt0tt the voice from any point along that Hne is inflec- tion. The degree of the inflection will always de- pend upon the strength of the sensation of which the emotion is an expression. It is true that the sensation may be so slight as to produce very little muscular contraction, and, as a consequence, the variations in the move- ment of the voice up and down will be scarcely noticeable. Nevertheless, the inflections are con- stant on every tonic element that we utter, and are the principal cause of the difference between speaking and singing. In singing, the tonic elements of the language are always uttered as monotones, unless there be a slide or a slur upon the tonic element, turning it to some other tonic in a higher or lower pitch ; but, in speaking, the voice is inflected from high to low, or from low to high, on every tonic ele- ment enunciated. In other words, there is no such thing as monotone in speaking ; yet a phrase or a sentence or a paragraph may be made monotonous in the delivery, by the recurrence of any given quality of voice, together with the 157 Wift Art 0f Arttttg same rate of movement and pause, and a repeti- tion of the same inflections. This condition of the voice results from a mental recognition of the grandeur, the awful- ness or solemnity of the subject. In the expres- sion of the awful, the horrible, the grand, and the amazing, a variety of inflections would counter- act the effect of the emotion, by showing that the weight of the sensation could be lifted and moved about, that is, up or down, at will. The domination of strong emotions is shown by the suppression of muscular action; while variety in inflection indicates the domination of mentality over sensation. Inflection, then, is divergence of the line of action from a given point. In the speaking voice, from the moment it strikes the ear till the sound is no longer heard, there is a continuous rising or falling above or below the point at which it is first heard; and the movement of the voice up or down from that point, is inflection of the voice. The degree of the inflection upward or down- 158 r ward from the starting point will depend upon the strength of the sensation that makes the emo- tion. There are but two directions in which the voice can diverge, viz., upward and downward; and there are, consequently, but two inflections, viz., a rising inflection and a falling inflection; but there is sometimes a divergence from a straight line of action in both the rising and the falling inflections that makes an entire change in the meaning of the word or phrase to which it is ap- plied. It is therefore necessary to name this divergence, so that it may be defined and its meaning understood. It is called a "circumflex in- flection" and the circuitous movement of the voice in this divergence from the direct line is heard in both the rising and the falling inflections. Here, then, are two variations in the inflection of the voice from its starting point. The first two inflections of the voice are a direct rising inflection and a direct falling inflec- tion ; the variations from these are an indirect or circumflex rising inflection, and an indirect or 159 ©Iji> Art 0f Artittg circumflex falling inflection. Beside these two variations from the direct rising and falling in- flections, there is heard in the voice under some mental conditions, a union of the rising and the falling circumflex inflection that may, for the sake of distinguishing it and describing its mean- ing, be called a compound circumflex inflection. To recapitulate, we have two inflections of the voice in speech with three strongly marked varia- tions, viz. : The Direct Rising Inflection. The Direct Falling Inflection. The Circumflex Rising Inflection. The Circumflex Falling Inflection. The Compound Circumflex Inflection. It is something to know that these several variations in the movement of the voice exist in nature; but, unless we know the cause of these variations, we cannot bring them in from the field of nature and apply them in the art of Read- ing and Recitation. The cause of the Direct Rising Inflection in nature, is simplicity of mental action and contin- 160 I Pttrif nnh 'SnfUttxnn uity of thought. The cause of the Direct Falling Inflection is simplicity of mental action and com- pleteness of thought. In the Circumflex Inflection the rising and fall- ing movement of the voice express continuity of thought and completeness of thought, just the same as the upward or downward movement in the Direct Inflection ; but the divergence from the direct line of action indicates mental duplicity or double action of the mind. This can readily be shown by the lines of a right angled triangle. The direct rising or the direct falling inflection will represent the hypothenuse of the triangle by a straight line, which is the shortest line that can be made from any given point on the base of the angle to any given point on the perpendicular. Any divergence from the hypothenuse in reaching a point on the perpendicular will lengthen this hypothenuse or inflection of the voice. Now, if the line of action in the voice be lengthened, it will require more time to reach from point to point in the elevation or depression of sound; and if more time is occupied by the 161 ®If? Art nf Arttng speaker in asking a question or making a state- ment than is necessary in the situation, it is be- cause while he is saying one thing he is thinking another. The increase of time necessary for this double action of the mind is shown in the in- crease of time in the movement of the voice. To make this increase of time, the circuitous diver- gence lengthening the line, yet reaching only the same elevation or depression, results, and so be- gets a rising and falling circumflection, — the lan- guage of contempt, scorn, irony, sarcasm, doubt, and all forms of vocal expression having a double meaning. The phrase "mental duplicity," as used here, is not to be construed as a disparaging term, but merely expresses double action of the mind. When the voice in its movement presents a cir- cumflex rising inflection and immediately turns downward with the same circuitous action, it is the language of mockery; for, while the rising in- flection expresses the continuity of thought, the immediate falling inflection in the same voice is an expression of a premeditated closing out of 162 I Pttclj attJi afnfUrttntt the subject; and the compound circuitous move- ment expresses contempt in both the inception and conclusion of the vocal expression. This ac- tion of the voice is mockery, because it at once ex- presses contempt and denies the right of answer to the person addressed. When a question may be answered by "yes" or "no," it is called a direct question, and when a question cannot be answered by "yes" or "no," it is called a compound question. A direct question takes a direct rising inflec- tion, because it expresses a continuity of thought on the part of the questioner. When the answer "yes" or "no" is given, it terminates the mental action of inquiry or seeking, and the answer is given with a direct downward inflection, because it makes completeness of thought, e. g., "Are you going home ?" is a direct question, and indicates continuity of mental action on the part of the questioner, which is satisfied when the answer "yes" or "no" is given. And the answer is given with a direct falling inflection because the sense of the situation is complete. 163 ©If? Art 0f Arttng Why does the compound question, which, from the fact of its being a question, also indicates con- tinuity of thought, take the falHng inflection — the language of completeness of thought ? "Why are you going home?" is a compound question and is asked with a falling inflection, because it is mandatory in its force and commands an answer instead of asking for one. The compound ques- tion always contains the imperative as well as the indicative mood, and the imperative mood domi- nates the indicative or supplicatory part of the question. Command always pre-supposes sub- mission, and so, the sense being complete, the fall- ing inflection prevails. A brief analysis will prove this, thus : "Are you going home ?" "Yes." "Will you tell me why?" "Yes." "Then, tell me." "Because it pleases me to go home." From the analysis of the compound question it is seen that the supplicatory part of the question takes the rising inflection and the mandatory part takes the falling inflection ; and when the in- 164 PttrJf attin 3lttfUrtt0tt dicative and the imperative moods appear to- gether, as they do in every compound question, the imperative dominates the situation, and so the falHng inflection results to express the command. Test these several inflections with the word so commonly in use in asking for a reiteration of a statement — "Indeed." With the direct rising in- inflection, as thus, "Indeed?" we find that it is simply an expression of an earnest desire for a repetition of an answer already given. The same word repeated with the direct downward inflection, as thus: "Indeed." becomes an expres- sion of an earnest acceptance of the statement as it is presented. The same word repeated with the simple rising circumflex inflection, as thus: "Indeed?" at once expresses a double action of the mind, asking for information, and at the same time implying a doubt as to the truth of the statement just made. With the simple falling circumflex inflection, as thus : "Indeed !" this same word accepts the state- ment, but expresses surprise that it should be true. 165 ®I}r Art of Arttng And now, if we apply the compound circumflex inflection to this same word, thus, "Indeed?" or again, as thus, "Indeed !" we shall find that, while the rising and falling terminations of this wave in the voice express interrogation and affirmation in accordance with the principles of the direct rising and falling inflections of the voice, the wave of this inflection expresses mockery by put- ting so much mental deliberation into the move- ment of the voice as to destroy the earnestness that always results from strong feeling. A very simple but excellent illustration of the "direct rising" and "direct falling" inflections may be found in the conversation that takes place between Hamlet, Horatio and his companions of the watch, touching the appearance of the Ghost. Upon Horatio's first statement that he and his companions have seen the King, Hamlet's de- ceased father, Hamlet is at once stricken with amazement that vents itself in a series of ques- tions which would partake of the characteristic circumflex inflection expressing doubt, and seek- ing further information as to the truth of the 166 apparition; but, at last, the truthfulness of the story being admitted, Hamlet seeks by questions, based upon comparison, to learn if the admitted apparition was his father or not, and thus pro- ceeds to interrogate : Hamlet Indeed, indeed, sirs, but this troubles me. Hold you the watch to-night? Marcellus and Bernardo, We do, my lord. Hamlet, Arm^d, say you ? Marcellus and Bernardo. Arm'd, my lord. Hamlet. From top to toe ? Marcellus and Bernardo, My lord, from head to foot. Hamlet. Then saw you not his face! Marcellus and Bernardo. O yes, my lord ; he wore his beaver up. Hamlet. What look'd he, frowningly? Horatio. A countenance more in sorrow than in anger. Hamlet. Pale, or red? Horatio. Nay, very pale. 167 t Art 0f Arttng Hamlet. And fix'd his eyes upon you ? Horatio. Most constantly. Hamlet. I would I had been there. Horatio. It would have much amazed you. Hamlet. Very like, very like. Stay'd it long ? Horatio. While one with moderate haste might tell a hun- dred. Marcellus and Bernardo. Longer, longer. Horatio. Not when I saw't. Hamlet. His beard was grizzled, — No ? Horatio. It was, as I have seen it in his life, a sable sil- vered. Hamlet. I will watch to-night ; Perchance 'twill walk again. Here we have a series of questions and an- swers taking upon them the "direct rising" and the "direct falling" inflections in accordance with the principles enunciated relative to earnest and single purpose, and completeness or incomplete- 168 Ptttif VLXth 3ttfUrti0tt ness of sense; but, in the earlier part of this in- ter viev^, where Horatio first tells Hamlet of the vision and where Hamlet asks for information while doubting the truth of what he hears, we shall find the double action of the voice, as heard in the circumflex inflection, necessary to express the double action of the mind, which, while it seeks for information, seems to doubt the source whence the information is to come, as thus : Horatio. My lord, I think I saw him yesternight. Hamlet. Saw? Who? Horatio. My lord, the King, your father. Hamlet. The King, my father! Excellent illustration of the double action of the mind may be found in the "Merchant of Venice" in a brief scene between Shylock and Salarino, wherein the language of the Jew is full of irony, scorn and contempt for his opponents against whom he contends for the legal right of his bond and the justice of his claim to a pound of Antonio's flesh, because of the Merchant's in- 169 SIIjj? Art 0f Arttng ability to pay the three thousand borrowed ducats. Meeting Shylock in the street: Salarino. . . . But tell us, do you hear whether Antonio have had any loss at sea or no ? Shylock. There I have another bad match : a bankrupt, a prodigal, who dare scarce show his head on the Rialto; — a beggar that was used to come so smug upon the mart ; — let him look to his bond ! he was wont to call me usurer ; — let him look to his bond! he was wont to lend money for a Christian courtesy ; — let him look to his bond. In this speech we have a series of direct affirmations expressed in several clauses and sen- tences, all taking the direct, downward inflection to express the earnest determination and harsh- ness of the moving emotion, hatred. But, in the penultimate sentence of his reply, Shylock chooses to indulge in irony in the phrase "a Christian courtesy," and here we find that very powerful factor of irony, scorn and contempt, the down- ward circumflex inflection coming into play on both the words "Christian" and "courtesy." And the reply that follows Salarino's next ques- 170 tion is rich in both the upward and the downward circumflex inflections. Salarino. Why, I am sure if he forfeit thou wilt not talce his flesh. What's that good for ? Shylock. To bait fish withal : if it will feed nothing else it will feed my revenge. He hath disgraced me and hindered me of half a million; laughed at my losses, mocked at my gains, scorned my na- tion, thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine enemies ! and what's his reason ? I am a Jew! Hath not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affec- tions, passions? Is he not fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same summer and winter as a Christian is ? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humil- ity? Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian ex- ample? Why, revenge. The villany you teach me I will execute; and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction. The double circumflex movement in the voice is the natural language of mockery and usually 171 ®ifp Art 0f Arttttg exhausts its power of expression on the single tonic element of an exclamation, although it sometimes spreads itself over an entire word or phrase, as "Ah ! Indeed ! Oh then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you." The degree of an inflection of whatever kind will always depend upon the strength of the sen- sation. 172 Q^im^ rr^IME in its broadest definition is a mental •^ recognition of passing events, from the turning of the earth on its axis to the briefest in- cident in life. Time is a mental condition, other- wise indefinable, because unlimited. Dramatic and Standard Time. It sometimes happens, when an actor is before the audience, and acting, that he gives a cue for the entrance of a fellow actor, who, at the time the cue is given, is standing at the side of the stage, waiting, but does not hear the cue the mo- ment it is delivered. The actor on the scene re- peats the cue, walking quickly up and down the stage, and then pauses. The actor on the side of the stage feels the eflFect of the pause, and rushes on the scene, taking up the dialogue where 173 Wbt Art 0f Arttttg it was broken by the "wait." The scene termi- nates, and immediately the two actors fall into a dispute about the time of the "wait." The actor who was on the stage claims that the time was at least a minute and a half, or two minutes long ; while the actor who causes the "wait'* claims that the time of the "wait" was not more than half a minute. No satisfactory conclusion is reached until the prompter is called, and when the ques- tion is referred to him, he says the time of the "wait" was fifteen seconds. The actor on the stage is in dramatic time. The events of days are passing in minutes, and his mental action is keeping pace with months of events that must pass in two hours and a half or three hours, the allotted time of the performance. The actor outside of the scene is in standard time, where events are recorded by the clock; hence the inability of the two disputants to agree on the time without the aid of the prompter, who is al- ways in standard time. Time as a factor in speech is made up of move- ment and pause of the voice, and the gesticula- 174 Uiimt tions and positions of the body in representing an emotion ; and, like the other factors of expres- sion, time depends upon the kind of sensation that prompts to the exterior signs, by which we recog- nize the emotion. All emotions result from mental impressions. If the sensation resulting from the impression produce muscular tension, quick movement with short pauses, that is, quick time, will follow ; but if the sensation produce re- laxation of muscle, then slow movement with long pauses or slow time will follow. We cannot divide time in acting as precisely as it is divided in music ; nor is it at all necessary to the truthful representation of an emotion that this factor of the art should be thus divided, since we are never called upon to speak or act in con- cert. Indeed, speaking and acting in concert, that is, as a unity of voice and action in groups of speakers, is destructive of the true art of acting, and as far from true representation of nature as are the evolutions of soldiers or the gymnastics of a circus rider, or the steps and poses of a dancer, from the natural actions of those who do them. 175 SIj^ Art 0f Arttns For the practical purpose of describing the movement and pause of an emotion, we may divide time into five degrees or different rates of movement and different lengths of pause which shall approximately express all thought and sen- sation — Moderate Modcraie Quick Slow Quickest Slowest Moderate time prevails in didactic and argu- mentative matter, in which the speaker aims at mental conviction purely. Moderate time will therefore be made up of that rate of movement and that length of pause that will permit the speaker to articulate properly and pronounce cor- rectly, thereby enabling the auditor to receive the matter without asking for a repetition of the phrase or sentence. If the delivery of a didactic discourse aimed at mental equilibrium be so rapid that the listener cannot apprehend the meaning of the speaker, then the mental equi- librium is destroyed and irritation and vexation take possession of the auditor, and the speaker 176 Stmr fails in his aim. If, on the other hand, the deliv- ery be so slow and the pauses so long that the au- ditor is constantly projecting his own thoughts into the speaker's pauses, again the speaker fails in his object, for the auditor's mind is giving off instead of receiving. Hamlet's advice to the players affords a very happy illustration of moderate time in speech. When the mental equilibrium is in the least dis- turbed by an exterior circumstance that produces a sensation, then there will be a change of time and that change will be in keeping with the nature of the emotion. If the sensation of the emotion be highly tensive, as is the case with the outburst of joy, the impulsiveness of anger, ter- ror, and fear, the movement will be quickest, the pauses, shortest, producing quickest time. Very excellent examples of "quickest" time may be found in the Fifth Act of Macbeth in the scene of anger and fear between Macbeth and the Messenger. The Messenger, in alarm, brings the news of the English force, as they approach, carrying boughs cut from Birnam wood. Mac- 177 SIjF Art 0f Arttng beth, turning abruptly upon the Messenger as he approaches, exclaims : Macbeth. Thou com'st to use thy tongue ; thy story quickly. Messenger. (Panting utterance.) Gracious my lord, I should report that which I say I saw, But know not how to do it. Macbeth. Well, say, sir. Messenger. As I did stand my watch upon the hill, I look'd toward Birnam, and anon, methought, The wood began to move. Macbeth. Liar and slave ! Messenger. Let me endure your wrath if't be not so. Within this three mile may you see it coming; I say, a moving grove. Macbeth. If thou speakest false, Upon the next tree shalt thou hang alive, Till famine cling thee : [slow time for the rest of the speech] if thy speech be sooth, I care not if thou dost for me as much." Quickest time also prevails in the malicious joy of Shylock, when Tubal, after his unsuccess- ful searching for Jessica, returns with news that Antonio has had an argosy wrecked coming from 178 Tripolis. In this scene Tubal speaks in moderate time and quite deliberately, which makes a fine dramatic contrast with the impulsiveness of Shy- lock. Tubal. Yes, other men have ill luck too : Antonio, as I heard in Genoa, — Shy lock. What, what, what? Ill luck, ill luck? TubaL — ^hath an argosy cast away coming from Tripolis. Shylock. I thank God, I thank God. — Is it true? Is it true ? Tubal. I spoke with some of the sailors that escaped the wreck. Shylock. I thank thee, good Tubal. — Good news, good news : ha ! ha ! — Where ! in Genoa ? Tubal. But Antonio is certainly undone. Shylock. Nay, that's true ; that's very true. Go, Tubal, fee me an officer; bespeak him a fortnight be- fore. I will have the heart of him if he forfeit ; for were he out of Venice, I can make what mer- chandise I will. Go, go, Tubal, and meet me at our synagogue; go, good Tubal; at our syna- gogue. Tubal." 179 Sllf^ Art 0f Arttng And, again, after Portia's speech to Shylock in the Court, terminating with "Down, therefore, and beg mercy of the duke," the raillery of Gratiano — "Beg that thou may'st have leave to hang thy- self: And yet, thy wealth being forfeit to the state, Thou hast not left the value of the cord. Therefore thou must be hang'd at the state's charge," would be stripped of half its pungency if it were delivered in any other but the quickest time com- patible with perfect articulation and correct pro- nunciation, for it must seem to be impulsive. Haste and alarm express themselves in quick- est time. Quick time is the language of all those phases of emotions, in which the first outburst is subdued, and intelligence controls the situation, keeping the movement within the bounds of reason, as mirth, cheerfulness, merriment, gladness, phases of joy, or impatience, vexation, irritation, phases of anger. 180 Wxmt The Queen Mab speech of Mercutio in "Romeo and Juliet," Gratiano's speech to Antonio in the first scene of "The Merchant of Venice" begin- ning with "Let me play the fool," or the scene of raillery between Benedick and Beatrice in the First Act of "Much Ado About Nothing," are good examples. Beatrice, I wonder that you will still be talking, Signior Benedick; nobody marks you. Benedick. What, my dear Lady Disdain! are you yet living ? Beatrice. Is it possible disdain should die while she hath such meet food to feed it as Signior Benedick? Courtesy itself must convert to disdain if you come in her presence. Benedick, Then is courtesy a turn-coat. — But it is certain I am loved of all ladies, only you excepted : and would I could find in my heart that I had not a hard heart: for, truly, I love none. Beatrice. A dear happiness to women; they would else have been troubled with a pernicious suitor. I thank God, and my cold blood, I am of your humor for that : I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me. 181 (5ij^ Art 0f Arttng Benedick, God keep your ladyship still in that mind ! so some gentleman or other shall 'scape a predes- tinate scratched face. Beatrice, Scratching could not make it worse an 'twere such a face as yours. Benedick, Well, you are a rare parrot-teacher. Beatrice. A bird of my tongue is better than a beast of yours. Benedick. I would my horse had the speed of your tongue, and so good a continuer. But keep your way o' God's name ; I have done. Beatrice. You always end with a jade's trick ; I know you of old. Again we hear quick time in the impatience of Hotspur in his reply to Mortimer, touching the tiresomeness of Glendower. Hotspur, O, he's as tedious As a tired horse, a railing wife ; Worse than a smoky house: — I had rather live With cheese and garlic in a windmill, far, Than feed on cates and have him talk to me, In any summer-house in Christendom. Slow time finds exemplification in the utter- 182 ance of those emotions and phases of emotions in which the mind dominates the sensation and feeHng is held in abeyance to mental action. Under the effect of horror, while the movement of the voice in uttering words and phrases may be quick, because the action will be spasmodic and the utterance explosive, the time must be rated as slow and even slowest because of the length of pause required for the muscular system to recupe after projecting a word or phrase. Fear moves quickly; but when the element dread, which may be called waiting or listening fear, enters in, the time is slow because of the mental action seeking to discover the cause of fear. In all of those discourses that tend to bring the mind to the contemplation of its final cessation as a worldly power, there is such a combined action of perception and reflection, — of going forward and backward at the same instant, as seems to put a clog on the movement of the mind and bring the action of the voice down to even less than Moderate Time, or that time in which we 183 ailj^ Art nf Arttttg speak of the extraordinary and continuing condi- tions of life. The solemnity of the Lord's Prayer would be turned into ridicule if it were repeated in the Moderate Time of an ordinary didactic discourse, while a lecture on the sciences would be tedious beyond endurance if delivered with the Slow Time, one of the most powerful factors in ex- pressing solemnity and awe. The Moderate Time that so truthfully illustrates the didactic quality in Hamlet's advice to the players, would entirely dispel the awfulness of the Ghost and convert the seriousness of the soliloquy, "To be or not to be," into a routine business question, instead of a profound contemplation of that some- thing after death that fills the mind with dread — "And makes us rather bear those ills we have, Than fly to others that we know not of !" Slowest Time is one of the factors of expres- sion that characterizes those emotions that relax or paralyze the muscular system, as horror, pro- found awe, amazement, remorse, melancholy, de- spair and dread. 184 It is a difficult matter to fix a limit to the time required for the imitation of the abnormal relaxa- tion that must follow the abnormal tension of terror, joy and violent grief. Quickest Time may be limited by the ability of the actor to articulate perfectly and pronounce correctly; for a speed in movement that would destroy the form of the words would defeat the intention of the actor, by rendering his conception of the character unintelligible. But the slowest time that may be used in representing an emo- tion must depend upon the judgment of the actor in adapting dramatic time to the limits of the standard time in which the play is performed. The dramatic incidents of months and years are represented in a play on the stage, in a time not exceeding three or three and a half hours. In real life a shock of terror will sometimes stop the normal action of thought and speech for hours ; and when, at length, the mind resumes its functions, days may pass before the muscular system regains its normal action. It will there- fore require excellent discretion properly to adapt 185 ®lf^ Art 0f Arttttg the actual time of an emotion and its after effects to the dramatic situation. I have known an actor to devote eight minutes to the deHvery of Hamlet's soliloquy, "To be or not to be ?" and I have seen an actress represent- ing terror so great that it produced insanity and resulted in death, recover from the shock and re- sume the normal functions of voice and gesticula- tion in ten seconds. The movement of the soliloquy was too slow; and the recovery from the shock of terror too quick. The soliloquy was tedious, and the repre- sentation of terror in that special case ridiculous. Time in acting is the last factor mastered by the dramatic artist. His anxiety, a mental condition made up of hope and fear, commonly called "nervousness,'' resulting from his unprepared condition to meet the responsibility of the charac- ter that he has assumed, his fear of adverse criti- cism by the audience, or his overwhelming egotism struggling for popular approval of his personal qualities, produce a mental strain and muscular tension that hurries the movement, and 186 Exmt shortens the pauses in the serious, sublime, and grand situations of the drama; and so destroys, by cutting short the effect of all the other parts of expression. It is only by studying the movement of emo- tions in nature and by large practice in adapting emotional or dramatic time to the standard time of a performance that the actor will be able to preserve that unity of time throughout the entire play that serves as one of the strongest effects in giving to the performance a likeness to nature. Study the real time of mirth and merriment, and of awe and horror in nature. Then take the mirthful, merry "Queen Mab" speech of Mer- cutio, and the awe-inspiring and horrible inter- view between Hamlet and the Ghost, and try the interchange movements and pauses of these emo- tions, and learn how the absence of true time in the art of acting may entirely destroy the resem- blance to nature. This comparison will perhaps help the student to a just appreciation of time in his art. 187 t Art 0f Artitig Accent and Emphasis. Whatever may have been the original use of these words, it will be admitted that we now understand "accent" to mean the application of an increased loudness of voice upon a given syllable in a word, in accordance with established best usage of the language. A standard lexicon will therefore be at all times an authority on the accentuation of a word. Emphasis has come to mean the change of any factor of expression upon a word, a phrase, or a sentence for the purpose of presenting clearly and truthfully the logical and emotional cause of the word, phrase, or sentence. Emphasis there- fore implies a change in mode of utterance, qual- ity of voice, force, stress, time or inflection, as the nature of the idea or mental picture to be ex- pressed, may demand on the instant of presenta- tion. Whether emphasis be interrogatory, declama- tory, or antithetical, will depend upon the inflec- tions of the voice. 188 (&^Btntt unh IficBi^ l^Jf AN in his mundane existence is a compound '^^'^ being. He is made up of two distinct and yet inseparable parts — the physical and the mental. Through the physical, by the operation of the five senses, he receives all impressions from his environments; and the nature of those environments, from the beginning of life until that period when the mind ceases to be receptive, will give quality to his actions. Perception, comparison, and judgment consti- tute the base of the mind. As all the action of comparison and judgment go on within the secret recesses of the brain, it follows that impressions move from circumference to center, and might there be hidden, were it not that the machinery of the human body is so sensitive that the force 189 ®Ij? Art 0f Arttttg of an impression produces reaction, and expres- sion is a result that gives character and name to the emotion. Comparison and judgment may present their work through the voice only; but whenever there is a strong sensation, the entire muscular system will be engaged in presenting the effect of the im- pression, and the outward actions, called gesture and pose, will result from the surplus impres- sional force generated over and above the necessi- ties of vocalizing the thought or sensation. Gesticulation and position include all the actions and all the postures of the entire human body, whatever may be the exterior circum- stances prompting to action or repose; and they are therefore a part of expression. Because these factors of expression may be truthfully suggestive even where the vernacular of the speaker is not understood, they constitute a part of natural language. Just as one may recognize distress in the vocal- ity and utterance of a sob or a groan, or mirth and gladness in laughter, so may one recognize 190 mental intents and physical sensations in the gestures and poses of the body. All human ac- tion must be the outcome of mental impressions and physical sensations ; and as the impression is always an effect of some exterior circumstance, past or present, it will readily be seen that gesture, like any other part of expression, should not be without cause. There can be no motion without force. In gesture the force results from impression ; and action is a result of force in mo- tion. The gesticulations and poses of a dancer when gracefully made and in their place, are delight- ful; so, too, the gestures and attitude of the circus rider when executed with skill, and in the circus ring, are pleasing; but the grace of the dancer would not make her evolutions acceptable in a private drawing-room, nor would the skill and dexterity of the circus rider, make him an agreeable companion in a group of gentlemen on the road. There is a time and a place for every- thing. That time and place in gesture and posi- tion may be summed up in the word "fitness ;*' 191 JUift Art 0f Arttng hence Shakespeare's advice to the players : "Suit the action to the word and the word to the action." The gestures and positions which would illus- trate the heroic emotions of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth would be bombastic and ill suited to characterize the domestic emotions of Sir Peter and Lady Teazle. Grace is made up of beauty and strength, — strength in the position and beauty in the line of action ; but characteristic gestures are not always graceful, and the actor who is always striving to please his audience by gracefulness in pose and gesture is as far from the truth of dramatic art as the one who is always struggling for sym- pathy and approval by a constant use of pure oro- tund quality of voice, made musical by the cres- cendo and diminuendo effect of a prevailing median stress. Such people are not actors in the sense of impersonators of character and illustra- tors of emotions; they are simply "performers," and they are agreeable or disagreeable to the public according to the attractiveness or unat- 192 tractiveness of their own personal peculiarities and wardrobe. Such people generally have a butterfly existence, and are to be found in their old age like the cocoon of that once attractive in- sect, fastened in a garret. Art always repays the disrespect of thoughtless youth by its abandon- ment of age. It is asserted that actors are suc- cessful without art — that is, successful in collect- ing money. It does not follow that because a man has acquired wealth through buying and selling theatrical performances, that he is there- fore a dramatic artist. He is simply a successful financier. An open hand lying supine for receiv- ing, and a firmly closed hand retreating behind the body for retaining, would be the only gestures necessary for this kind of character. Just as too many words in a sentence will ob- scure the thought, so do false gestures destroy true expression in acting. There are some positions and gestures that are so common that all people readily understand their meaning. For example, the position of firm- ness and strength expressing the staying power 193 QIIj^ Art 0f Acting of the man is seen in the attitude of the well- trained soldier under the word of command "At- tention!" The body erect, the shoulders held back and at equal height, the hands hanging down naturally and close to the body, the head erect without restraint, the chin tending towards the neck without covering it, and the eyes held in such a position as to strike the ground at about fifteen paces forward, the heels on the same line near together and the feet so turned out as to re- present an angle of forty-five degrees. This pos- ition not only expresses strength but the body is in readiness to move in any direction. Repose of body is expressed by simply throw- ing the weight of the body on one leg, the feet remaining in the same position while the knee of the opposite leg is relaxed or bent a little. Mov- ing the released foot forward will express aggressiveness, while a step to the rear must mean retreat. Each foot may in turn retreat or advance laterally according to the governing cir- cumstance. The extension of any of these positions will 194 tBtntt unh Ij^xtBt depend upon the force of the emotional sensa- tion of which the action is an outcome. The gracefulness of these poses will depend up- on the suppleness and pliability of the muscular system. Six months' training under a competent army drill-master and an expert fencing master, with lessons in dancing, will put the pupil in the way of developing towards perfection in the movement of the feet and lower limbs. The movements and poses of the hands and arms are not only more numerous than those of the feet and lower limbs, but they are more definite in describing, limiting and emphasizing impressions and sensations, and, next to facial action, the hands and arms are the most powerful assistant to artificial language in expressing emo- tions. It is true that a steady circular movement of the hand and arm, that may be called graceful, is always more pleasing in the language of gesti- culation than is the straight or angular move- ment of the same limbs. The circle or any seg- ment of a circle suggests continuity; while 195 Sljr Art 0f Arttng straight lines and angles suggest termination. The mind does not like to contemplate limitations. It is only gratified by expansion and continuity. Hence the circular movement in gesture. But to be at all times pleasing is not the prov- ince of dramatic art. Its best results are ob- tained when it presents a truthful resemblance to nature ; and nature in human form is not always graceful. The grace or awkwardness of the gesticulations of the hand must therefore depend upon its proper application to the dramatic char- acter that the artist may be illustrating. How- ever graceful or awkward the movement by which the position is reached, the hand lying supine and open is the hand of supplication, and, whether raised toward zenith or dropped toward nadir, or sustained horizontally on a line with the horizon, it always asks for something, and this gesture may be emphasized by adding to it the same action and pose of the other hand. The climax of supplication is expressed by clasping the hands and holding them thus united in the direction of the object or power suppli- 196 cated. Humiliation and supplication are ex- pressed by this same gesture accompanied by the bowed head. Humiliation may be empha- sized by falling on the knees. The extreme of humiliation and supplication is expressed by fall- ing in a relaxed condition to the ground, the body prone and the hands clasped. Such extreme humiliation conveys the idea of great shame, or unlimited submission to the governing circum- stance. The hand held prone, the palm outward from the body, is the hand of rejection or repression. It is never mistaken for an invitation to advance toward the speaker ; and whether the gesture ex- tend upward toward the sky or downward toward the earth, or the arm lie horizontally with the hand raised perpendicularly from the wrist, so that the tips of the fingers point upwards, this position of the hand always rejects or represses* The hand of rejection, like the hand of suppli- cation, whatever pose it may hold, will be em- phasized or strengthened in its expression by a like action and position of the other hand. 197 Slff Art 0f Arttng When the second, third and fourth fingers are partly closed, but not shut upon the palm, the forefinger stretched out, the thumb inclining to- wards but not touching the tip of the second fin- ger, the forefinger pointing in any direction, it may be called the index or noting hand ; because it seems to individualize or separate the objects under visual or mental contemplation. This ges- ture from its very nature cannot be emphasized by doubling the number of hands or marking fingers, but its force in expression may be in- creased by a repetition of its action through the very small arc of a circle perpendicular to the horizon, the elevating and depressing action ex- tending only from the wrist to the tip of the fore- finger. By turning the hand to prone or supine, we may reject or ask for the thing pointed at. The index or noting hand and all of its actions belong to that class of emotions in which mentality dom- inates the situation. Impatience and even indignation may be ex- pressed by shaking the index finger at the cause of the emotion ; but anger doubles up and clenches 198 the fist and shakes it at the cause as if threatening punishment. Folding the arms upon the chest with the head erect, the feet and lower limbs in repose, will ex- press dignity and firmness, while the head bent forward, the arms remaining folded, and the feet and lower limbs in repose, will express self-com- munion upon worldly affairs. The head thrown back, the face looking upward, indicates specu- lation and reflection upon imaginary and ideal subjects. Th^ direct raising and lowering of the head backward and forward, as described by the familiar term "nodding the head," expresses affirmation and always gives emphasis to the word "yes." The pivotal movement of the head from side to side, direct, commonly called the "shaking of the head," expresses negation and gives emphasis to the word "no." The impatience of the speak- er is sometimes combined with the affirmation or negation by a final short jerky movement of the head in either the "nod" or the "shake;" but the oblique movement of the head, either nodding or 199 ®I;^ Art 0f Artittg shaking, is the language of defiance or threaten- ing anger. We cannot imagine a hero or a heroine, Ham- let or Beatrice, for instance, without a graceful mind; and we always look to find bodily grace harmonizing with the mental conditions. There- fore, all heroic gestures should be sweeping, graceful movements of the hand and arm in cir- cular form from the shoulder and the final blow of the gesture should be delivered with a quick- ened action from the wrist. This final action expresses the positive knowledge — the strength of the speaker — and is one of the most truthful signs that distinguish the artist from the novice. Graceful gesture and pose can only be achieved by actual practice. The infantryman may learn to march by sitting on a horse's back as readily as the student of dramatic art may learn gesture and pose by theorizing on the beauties of dra- matic art. Among all of the outward exponents of in- ward thought and sensation, the face is at once the most clear and positive in its expressions, the 200 most commonly observed as an indicator of char- acter, the most easily understood, but it is also the most difficult to train into subjection to dramatic art. If it be true that the face becomes the map of the mind, on which the skillful observer may read from the permanently fixed lines and every vary- ing muscular changes, then is it not clear that the directed effort to make such contractions and movements of the facial muscles will, at first, present the conscious mentality of the directing force, and so express an adulterated or compound emotion instead of simple love, joy, anger, or grief, as the case might be? Just as when an actor, in saying "Good morning. Miss B. I am delighted to see you V turns his face full front to the audience, while he pulls up his shirt collar, or pulls down his shirt cuffs, he is really saying to the public, while seemingly addressing his fellow artist — "How do I look? Observe my style!" This compound expression on the part of the actor always divides the mental force of the pub- lic and reduces the effect, if it does not entirely destroy the truth of the author's situation, or ob- 201 ®I|? Art nf Arttttg scure it by the egotistical pride of the actor. If it be true that all impressions that come into the mind must look out of the face through either permanent or transient lines, then it will follow that if the thoughts of an author's dramatic crea- tures can be taken in by the actor, they will be conducted through the nerve sensation to every part of the face just as would be his own thoughts and they will give to his acting all the facial expression of which he is capable. The truth of the actor's facial expression will depend upon the sensitiveness of his nerves, the pliability of his muscles, and the intensity of his applica- tion. These conditions can be developed and controlled by practice — a very subtle effect to train facial muscles by psychological force, and where the conditions are not inherent, it requires many years of actual practice to achieve any de- gree of perfection. It will require but little thought on the part of the student to know that the perfection of this branch of his art will demand great power of mental abstraction and self-abnegation; but it is 202 worth the study. Truthful facial expression is the last achievement of the art, and the most per- fect distinguishing sign between the novice and the artist. To acquire a positive knowledge of all the ex- pressive gesticulations of the muscles of the face through process of observation, memory and comparison, is beyond the possibility of any one man's time and capacity. Think of the unlim- ited changes of between fifty and sixty muscles of the face under nerve force generated by im- pressions from ever-changing circumstances? One might as well attempt to count the stars, knowing the while that untold numbers exist whose light has not yet reached the earth. It is true that some of the gesticulations and poses of the face, like the gesticulations and poses of the body, legs, arms and hands, have been ob- served and sufficiently well described to make the study of great service to actors; but there is, as yet, no perfect "art to find the mind's construc- tion in the face." Even Lavater, after a life-time of study, was 203 ®ln^ Art 0f Arttttg unable to leave it as an accepted science and Dar- win, after world-wide observations made upon men and every species of animal that bear resem- blance to man, has made but few descriptions of facial expression. The gesticulations of the face may be divided into three parts — the movements of the muscles of the forehead — the movements of the eyes — the movements of the lips, mouth and lower jaw. Al- though these several parts of the face, under the influence of sensations from extreme impressions, act conjunctively in expression, yet, under the in- fluence of purely mental force, they may and do act entirely independently of each other. A man may contract the frontal sinus horizontally and lift the eyebrows in an affectation of surprise, without moving the eyes or opening the mouth, because mentality dominates ; but in genuine sur- prise the eyes expand and the mouth is opened. The difference between an agreeable and dis- agreeable surprise is most clearly denoted in the action of the lips and lower jaw. The agreeable surprise pulls up the corners of the mouth in the 204 form of laughter, while the disagreeable is ex- pressed by the drooping of the corners of the mouth, and the extreme falling of the jaw. Close attention is expressed by wrinkling the forehead, horizontally, opening the eyes to the fullest extent without straining, and holding the face directly toward the speaker; but if the face be turned a little to the right, or to the left, the symptoms of deafness or difficulty of hearing at once become visible, and the wrinkles at once change to vertical lines between the eyebrows. The drawing down of the eyebrows, the con- traction of the frontal sinus in oblique wrinkles, and the contraction of the corrugator supercilii, making the vertical wrinkle between the eye- brows, expresses strong mental action. The eyes are sometimes partly and sometimes quite closed, as if to make the abstraction greater or more per- fect, by shutting out the surrounding objects. Where the mental action is very intense, the head is generally pulled down and forward by the muscles of the neck, in sympathy with the muscles of the face. 205 ®lli> Art 0f Arttns The frequent contracting of the frontal sinus and the movement of the eyebrows up and down (a habit common among novices and indifferent actors) mean nothing but an affectation on the part of the actor. This action of the forehead and eyebrows is destructive to expression rather than assistant thereto, because the mechanism is so apparent that it looks like the deliberativeness of mentality in the field of impulsive emotion. If the eye be regarded as the show window of the individual mentality, we shall be able to un- derstand the origin of such expressions as "a sharp eye," "a dull eye," "a pleasant eye," "a bad eye," and many other descriptive expressions used to name the character of the man or woman whose whole individuality seems to be on exhi- bition in this window of the mind. The condition of the eye and its action are first in attracting attention to facial expression, and yet the movements of the eyes are very few. The eyes can look directly in front, they can look up, they can look down, and they can look oblique- 206 ly ; but all of their movements must be conjointly ; in the same direction. Any opposition in the movement of the eyes simply expresses physical deformity and not emotion or mental action. All of the movements above mentioned are subject to volition ; but one of the most powerful factors in the expression of the eyes is the expansion and contraction of its pupil, showing the degree rather than the kind of action, and always result- ing from sensations not immediately under men- tal control. Hence we hear the expression, "How bright your eyes are to-night !" or "How dull you look. What's the matter?'' In earnest attention, simply for the purpose of receiving, the eye is fixed directly on the speaker, and the steadiness with which it is held there becomes an indicator, to the speaker, of the amount of interest that he is awakening in the mind of his auditor. If the auditor be called upon for mental labor in digesting the speaker's words, and preparing a reply, then the eyes are sometimes closed and the head thrown backward ; 207 ®lf^ Art 0f Arting or it may be thrown forward and the eyes partly .closed, either position showing abstraction from surrounding objects, while the entire body as- sumes a listening attitude. To be a good listener is one of the difficult parts of the art of acting. Sometimes the ignorance on the part of the actor touching the dramatic situation, in which he is engaged, or personal vanity because of his su- perior professional position, makes him move about the stage, or find something to do quite irrelevant to the time and place, merely for the purpose of taking the attention from the lesser artist, who is, by reason of his position in the play, a central figure in the scene. This bringing outside superiority into dramatic situations is bad art. No true artist will ever be- tray such a weakness, and no good dramatic di- rector will give place to it in his work. Continual moving of the eyes is the language of a mental perturbation that will not permit the auditor to be merely receptive in listening. When the mind looks out into the field of im- agination for the contemplation, subjectively, of 208 the beautiful, the grand, and the sublime in na- ture, the eye looks upward, as if the physical vision, striving to keep pace with the mental vis- ion, would reach into space beyond the limits of its natural surroundings. The ecstasy of all those emotions that come from impressions which produce exhilarating sensations, elevating the mind and lifting it above the plane of work-a-day life, as love, joy, hope, adoration, and other benev- olent emotions, turn the eyes upward with a look of supplication that seems to say "Help me, all you powers above," to realize this seeming good. In anger and jealousy, the eye is constantly in motion, looking out on all sides as if on guard against an attack. In hatred, which is settled, determined anger, the eyes have a fixed and sul- len look, as if fully prepared for revenge, and only awaiting the opportunity for executing their plot. The plane of action is the horizontal, and they are opened as widely as the contraction of the cor- rugator supercilii and the lowering of the brows will permit. In shame, humiliation, mortification, despair, 209 afif^ Art of Arttttg remorse, despondency, melancholy, and, indeed, in all sensations that relax the muscles and de- press self-love, the eyes look downward, and the lids droop, as if to shut out from vision the in- jured as well as the injurious cause. The movements of the eyes from side to side, stealing impressions, sometimes called "side-long glances," are simply secretive in their nature, and express a desire to see without being ob- served. While the head remains motionless, whatever may be the mental condition of the ob- server, the expression is merely secretive; but when the head turns slightly toward the object and the eye-lids droop, while the eyes look askance, the expression is contempt for the ob- ject of vision. There is very little action in the nose. There is merely the expansion and contraction of the muscles, opening and closing the nostrils, which denote intensity and strength of feeling rather than mark or express any special sensation. A prominent, well-formed nose is a valuable feature in an actor's face. A too large or irregu- 210 larly formed nose will always prevent the actor from concealing his personality, while a small nose, though it may make the face flat and weak in expression, may be built up for the stage. There is nothing that so quickly destroys personal identity as a change in the form and size of the nose. Characteristic forms of the nose will be more fully considered in a chapter on ''make-up." The mouth, the lips, and the lower jaw are full of gesticulation and their poses are wonder- fully expressive. The upper lip curls in scorn, irony and sar- casm. Raillery adds laughter to the scornful curl. In grief both lips tremble, and the corners of the mouth droop. In surprise, which is always an expression of ignorance, the face takes upon itself a look of in- quiry, the lips part, the eyes open, the eyebrows are lifted up, and the forehead is wrinkled hori- zontally. In wonder and amazement, which are greater degrees of this same emotion, the jaw drops and 211 ®If? Art 0f Arttng the mouth opens still wider. And if the mystery which converts surprise into amazement and wonder remain unsolved, until the thinking facul- ties recover from the first blow of surprise, then fear enters into amazement and wonder, and forces the individual to thoughts of personal safe- ty, and at once there comes a contraction between the eyebrows perpendicular to the lines made by surprise. Terror increases the action of all of the gestic- ulations above described, and makes the whole muscular system of the face and throat more ten- sive, so that control of the voice is lost; and if there be any vocal effort it will result in a shriek. Horror, while it distends the eyes, inflates the nostrils and drops the lower jaw, paralyzes and relaxes the entire muscular system, shaking it as with an ague. The voice may be a spasmodic whisper, or it may be a bellow; and the tongue, lips, and lower jaw refuse to perform the office of articulation. The effort to speak in extreme horror, produces only an aspiration, or an as- sumed howl that would be entirely undistinguish- 212 (&tBttxxt anil l^taat able even among one's most intimate acquaint- ances. Hatred, which is chronic anger, or anger that has been carried long enough to have in it a men- tal determination to seek revenge, sets the jaws firmly, compresses the lips and draws down the corners of the mouth and, through the thin lips, and wide rather than round opening of the mouth, the voice resembles the snarling of the dog or the low growl of the lion. A very fine illustration of hatred, pure and simple, may be found in the concluding lines of Shylock's last speech to Solanio and Salarino, a conclusion which is a most natural result of the indignation and anger that he had nursed for years against the man who had called him "cut- throat, dog,'' and had spit upon his "Jewish gabardine"-T--the man who had loaned out mon- eys gratis, and had brought down the rates of interest in Venice. He says : "If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility ? revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian ex- ample? why, revenge." 213 ©If? Art nf Arttng It is not claimed that this analysis of the fac- tors of expression is perfect; but if it be clear enough and sufficiently amplified to assist the stu- dent of dramatic art in his search for truth, then it will have done a positive good. And even if there should be in the obscurity of these examples and illustrations, only enough light to make him desire more, the work will not be a failure. 214 Hun^liUt TF the object of language is to express our "*■ thoughts and sensations, then we may call laughter a part of our language; and as it pos- sesses the advantage of being intelligible to all peoples, we may call laughter a part of the nat- ural language of expression. Of all expressions, laughter, generally the out- come of pleasing sensations, is the most impulsive and the most exhausting. Laughter is so entire- ly impulsive that it breaks forth at times when our reason tells us to suppress it; and, on the other hand, when reason would call in its aid, either for the purpose of concealing the true state of our own feelings, or for the purpose of arous- ing cheerfulness in others, it positively .refuses to 215 ffilj^ Art 0f Artitts obey the deliberating power. And yet, like every emotion of the human mind, laughter is suscep- tible to analysis, that is, resolution into its sev- eral factors ; and, per consequence, to study ; and through study it is subjected to and directed by the will power. The first impression from this subject as a study is that the variety of laughs must be in- numerable, and the forms so fleeting as to be inapprehensible. But when we reflect that every laugh, whether pleasant or disagreeable, must be made up of the radical or vanish of one or more of the tonic elements of the language, we shall have a basis for study which may lead to the con- clusion that even a laugh with its quick move- ments and volatile sounds is not beyond the reach of observation and comparison. Let us consider the laugh analytically and then synthetically. If we can discover what a laugh is made up of, with practice we ought to be able to put it together. Every laugh must have utterance to be pre- sented; it must have vocality or sound of some 216 kind to be heard ; it must have force, time, inflec- tions, and a base in the stress of tremor whose dramatic language is weakness, the inabihty of the muscular power to resist, without vibration, the power of mental impression that causes the laugh. There are sixteen tonic elementary sounds in our language, and the laugh is always made on one or more of these sounds. Some of the sounds are compound, but the impulse of a laugh deals only with simple sounds, and so, when it comes to a compound, it takes either the first or the last part of it. Here we have a chart showing the tonic elements of our language. 1. a as in ale (compound) 2. a as in art 3. a as in all 4. a as in an 1. e as in eve 2. e as in end 1. I as in ice (compound) 2. i as in m I. as in old 217 t Art 0f Artttts 2. as in /o^^ 3. as in c?n I. w as in tube 2. u as in full 3- u as in up !• ou as in ow^ (compound) I. oi as in oi7 (compound) Synthesis of the Laugh If we enunciate the tonic element a, as is com- monly heard in the word art, with an "expulsive" utterance, an orotund quality of voice and a mod- erate force, we shall have for our base a tone that generally presents a hearty laugh, while it indi- cates cultivation or mental discipline. This base may be represented by the form ah — prolonged to the extent of a full breath. Now change the mode of utterance to the "explosive," which is the true utterance of laughter, and prefix the as- pirate h, and the alphabetical characters which represent the above sound are reversed and be- come ha. Add to this form the stress of tremor and we shall obtain a form of sound that may be 218 illustrated thus, Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, and may be carried on as long as the reservoir of breath will sustain it. But the laugh has other factors besides "mode of utterance," "quality of voice," and "stress of tremor." The laugh has force, time in rate of movement and pause, and also inflections. Though the laugh may assume any of the degrees of force already described, from the "whispering force," heard in what is usually defined as a "chuckle," up to the "impassioned force of an outburst of joy," or the eccentric laugh denominated "hysterical," it will be suffi- cient for our illustration to continue the analysis with the aid of moderate force. We shall, there- fore, for the purpose of more clearly presenting the factors "time" and "inflection," take three of the simple tonic elements 242 a, a, e, on which, by reason of the above synthesis, we may have passed through "utterance," "quality of voice," "force," and "stress of tremor," which would present our example thus : 219 t Art 0f Arttttg 2 4 2 -f/a, /la, /la, ha, Ha, ha, ha, ha. He, he, he, he. We have now three simple tonic elements, with the same utterance, the same quality of voice, the same stress, the same force, the same time, and the same inflections. This sameness will neces- sarily indicate mental deliberation or at least mental control; but as the laugh is the language of impulse, we must destroy the studied effect presented by the sameness of time upon these three successive sounds. We may do this by 2 lengthening the first sound thus : Ha, ha, ha, ha, 4 ha, ha, shortening the second sound thus ha, ha, and lengthening the third sound still more than the first, thus, He, he, he, he, he, he, he, he. Our example at this point of the synthesis might be presented thus : 2 42 Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Ha, ha, ha. He, he, he, he, he, he. Now, although we have broken the time, there 220 being no inflections of the voice, the laugh is monotonous; and, therefore, not an imitation of the natural laugh, as it must be, or be worse than useless. There is nothing that is more destruct- ive to the best efforts of the dramatic novice than the awkwardness of his wooden laugh — Hay, hay, hay, hay; for it is a most thorough exposure of his inability properly to control and direct the mechanism of expression in dramatic art. This monotony may be broken by applying the rising 2 inflection to the first sound, as thus, Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, by sustaining the voice on the second 4 sound, as thus. Ha, ha, and then applying the falling inflection to the third sound, as thus : 2 He, he, he, he, he, he, he, he. The example would then stand thus : 2 42 Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Ha-ha, He, he, he, he, he, he, he, he. The force must be graded downward to char- 221 JSlt^ Art of Artiitg acterize the exhaustion of breath. Now, while the time in the movement is broken up, there remains a sameness in the length of the two pauses that separate these three elementary- sounds. The mechanism of time in these two pauses must be destroyed by taking one of the pauses out, and letting the three sounds succeed each other as they would under the impulsive- ness of laughing moods ; so that the perfect syn- thesis of a laugh on these three simple elementary sounds would be presented thus : 2 42 Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, Ha, ha. He, he, he, he, he, he, he, he. Thus it is shown that the laugh may be ob- served, studied and put together at will; but the study in itself becomes very interesting from the fact that each one of the elementary sounds, un- der the impulse of laughter, seems to mark some characteristic quality in the nature of the indi- vidual. If we take the position of the mouth in the performance of the first sound a, we shall find it 222 Hauglittr so nearly closed that the laugh resulting may be called a "close mouthed laugh." When involun- tary, it indicates awkwardness, meanness, or lack of muscular control; when voluntary, it expresses mockery or contempt. We hear it sometimes in the novice or young actor. When the author has inserted several signs of laughter. Ha! ha! ha! ha! the aspirant for public honors says hay! hay! hay! hay! The second sound a makes a good hearty laugh and generally indicates a cultivated mind; while the third sound a is a broad and open-mouthed sound that generally indicates an uncultured condition, or a disregard of Mrs. Grundy's opinion, called the "guffaw" laugh. The fourth sound of a is very flat, and the laugh made by the use of this sound indi- cates a very eccentric disposition, even to cranki- ness. Long e makes the little laugh that is sometimes called the schoolgirl's laugh, ''Te, he, he, he, he, he" The short e is heard in the laugh of raillery or sarcastic laugh that we hear from the critics in a party when one of a group thinks he has said a good thing; as "Heh, 223 Qilft Art 0f Artitig heh, heh; yes, quite clever." The long i is com- pound and its parts are heard in the laughs made of a and e. The short i is heard in old age in the uncultivated voice, when the abdominal, inter- costal and pectoral muscles have lost their power ; and the voice is the result of a very limited action of the muscles of the throat, and the resonance of the voice is almost entirely in the head, thus. Hi, hi, hi, hi, hi, hi. The sound of o is heard in the strong laugh of people who live outdoors, and feel pleasure in taking large draughts of pure air. The second sound of o represented by that soft sound in the word "lose" makes a kind of diplo- matic or non-committal laugh; while the third sound of 0, which is commonly called short o, hav- ing its principal resonance in the back part of the mouth, seems to express the feeling of the man who likes good living with an occasional drink, as Oh, oh, oh. The first sound of u, as in tube, seems to be the laugh of the female diplomat, the lady who, when a disagreeable or an unexpected visitor comes, receives them with a "hew, hew, hew, so pleased to see you." The second sound of u as in 224 full, makes that kind of laugh that we hear among the undecided, characterless sort of peo- ple, hUj hu, hu. The third sound of u, that is, short u as in up, makes a good hearty laugh, and seems nearly related to the second sound of a, as in ah, for they run very naturally into each other in the hearty candid laugh, as hu, hu, hu, ha, ha, ha, hu, hu. Ou and oi, so different in their ap- pearance to the eye, are nevertheless so transpos- able that either one of them may end a laugh of any kind, though there are no laughs beginning with either of these sounds. A very good exercise in vocal gymnastics may be made by running all of these sounds into one continuous laugh, thus: (The figures over the letters indicate the sounds as they stand in the chart.) I 2 3 Ha ha ha, ha ha ha ha ha, ha ha ha ha ha ha, 41 2 ha ha ha ha ha, he he he he he he he, he he he he 2 I 2 he he, hi hi hi hi hi hi, ho ho ho ho ho ho, ho ho 225 Eift Art 0f Arting 3 I ho ho ho ho ho, ho ho ho ho ho, hu hu hu hu hu 2 3 I hu, hu hu hu hu hu, hu hu hu hu hu, hou, hou hou I hou hou, hoi. The benevolent emotions, joy, gladness, merri- ment and mirth, give off laughter by an explosive utterance, while the malevolent emotions, scorn, irony, sarcasm and contempt, are expressed by an expulsive utterance, representing a sustained mental condition. 226 (Q^rging attln W^tpxn^ A LTHOUGH these terms are frequently used '^ ^ synonymously, yet there is undoubtedly a very great difference in the values of these words when we attempt to define human actions or to describe the drama of emotions. Crying seems to be the outcome of the animal nature in man expressing, without the limiting force of cultivated intelligence, his anger, his grief or his fear. Crying is a noisy, boisterous expression of emotion, and is always disagree- able, if not painful, to the hearer. Children often cry out in anger, and men and women will sometimes vent their rage of anger in crying. In the first outburst of great grief, both men and women cry aloud; and, on every hand, friends 227 Sifi? Art nf Artttig seek to suppress the crying, not only because it is painful to the auditor, but because it shows a lack of self-control on the part of him who cries. In many cases crying produces quite the oppo- site effect from that sought by the crier. When a person, child or man, cries, the act is performed to arouse sympathy and beget pity, but it not un- frequently begets laughter and contempt. Crying is an expression of weakness. If a man cry for help, it is the sign of weakness. If he cry in anger, it is because he is not mentally strong enough to suppress the emotion. If he cry aloud in grief, again it shows his inability to suppress the impulse of the emotion, and so cry- ing aloud in any case expresses the selfish animal nature of the man, and may create a feeling of opposition instead of sympathy. And yet the cry, as an outburst of pain, or as an escapement of fear, is a powerful factor in expressing the physi- cal or mental condition of the subject; but if pro- tracted crying seems to engage attention and win sympathy, it will be found generally that the sym- pathy is awakened more by the attending circum- 228 Olrgtttg attin Wttpinq stances than by the voice, which in crying is al- ways disagreeable. It suggests a lack of strength to suppress the emotion or control the situation. Weeping is a much more powerful factor in act- ing than the noisy outburst of the cry. The sup- pression in weeping indicates a mental force which is trying to respect the feelings of others by concealing the woes or wants of him who weeps; and the silent overflow of tears or the escape of a sob, or a loW wail, or moan, will not only awaken sympathy, but will hold it longer, and with more intensity, than the boisterous outbursts of a cry. We admire strength whether physical or mental, and we sympathize with its breaking ; and as the sigh, the sob, the moan, and the silent tear, are the signs of strength giving way to sen- sations which it cannot control, we recognize the signs of the failing power and sympathize with the sufferer. It is sometimes the case that expressions of grief in dramatic composition grow from silent tears to spasmodic outbursts of violent crying, and when this is the case, the artist will, in sup- 229 t Art 0f Arttttg pressing the outburst, take into consideration the great force under which muscular restraint has given way and graduate the return to physical quiet or repose with respect to time and force, so as to make his effort bear the strongest resem- blance to nature. In the character of Romeo, in *'Romeo and Juliet," there are some very fine passages, which will serve to show the difference between the effect of the boisterous cry or outburst of a pas- sion, and its suppression to silent, tearful weep- ing. Consider the outburst of Romeo, on learning from the Friar the Prince's doom or sentence upon him for having killed Tybalt, He cries out through fear of crushed love and hope : "Ha, banishment! be merciful, say death;" and when the Friar, his old friend and tutor, begs him to let him speak but a word in explanation of the situation to show that the Prince is really kind to him, Romeo bursts out again with : "Thou canst not speak of what thou dost not feel: 230 (Jlrgtttg nnh WttpittQ Wert thou as young as I, Juliet thy love. An hour but married, Tybalt murdered, Doting like me, and like me banished, Then mightest thou speak, then mightest thou tear thy hair, And fall upon the ground, as I do now. Taking the measure of an unmade grave." This violent outburst, instead of awakening sympathy, arouses opposition and a disposition to chide his folly. The Friar exclaims: "God's will! What simpleness is this!" And when, after learning from the Nurse the state of lamentation into which Juliet has fallen by reason of his killing Tybalt, her cousin, he draws his sword as if to take his own life, crying out: "O, tell me. Friar, tell me, In what vile part of this anatomy Doth my name lodge? tell me, that I may sack The hateful mansion." The Friar says: "Hold thy desperate hand: Art thou a man ? Thy form cries out thou art ; 231 Sljf^ Art 0f Arttng Thy tears are womanish ; thy wild acts denote The unreasonable fury of a beast : Unseemly woman in a seeming man !" Here we find the severest censure for the ab- sence of mental control. The Friar likens him to a beast and for his weakness calls him even an unseeming woman. And this is Shakespeare himself who thus discourses upon the unworthi- ness of crying aloud, and thus shows its impo- tence in awakening true sympathy or pity. How much more powerful is the silent manner with which in the Fifth Act he receives from Bal- thasar the news of the death of Juliet. Although in the scene from which the above lines and situa- tion are quoted Romeo declares that banishment is worse than death, yet, when he is fully im- pressed with the death of Juliet, how silently his grief presents itself to the messenger. We see him passing from joy to extreme grief with the most simple and quiet question. When first we see him at Mantua, whither he is banished, he says : "If I may trust the flattery of sleep, My dreams presage some joyful news at hand :" 232 Urging anb Wttpin^ And when Balthasar enters, Romeo exclaims : "News from Verona! How now, Balthasar! Dost thou not bring me letters from the Friar? How doth my lady ? Is my father well ? How fares my Juliet ? that I ask again ; For nothing can be ill if she be well." Balthasar replies: "Then she is well, and nothing can be ill : Her body sleeps in Capels' monument, And her immortal part with angels lives." Then comes that simple, quiet question : "Is it even so?" and that intensely dramatic exclamation, speak- ing the positive and final determination of desper- ate despair : "Then I defy you, stars!" What a suppression of sensation in those two sentences ! The concentrated anguish of his dy- ing self-love, which could no longer struggle against an adverse fate. There is no outburst of grief, no cry of despair, yet there is more power in this one line, to awaken sympathy and beget pity for his suffering, than in the half hundred 233 Eift Art 0f Artttts lines of lamentation uttered in the Friar's cell about his banishment and consequent loss of Juliet. In neither situation is Juliet dead; and yet in this latter instance we fully and keenly sympathize with his great and overwhelming sor- row, because of the intellectual strength shown in the suppression of the sensation. This sensa- tion in its silent course, fills the messenger with fear as he beholds the pallor and the wildness of his looks — the physical conditions — the facial ex- pression of a profound grief that he could not conceal. The subtle and delicate working of an emotion that will not vent its force in speech, but overflows the heart and bids it break. There is always something powerfully impressive in silent grief. And for its interior working, the poet has very truthfully described it in the line, "The heart feels most when the lips move not." The suppression of the cry or outburst of grief, when not positively called for by the concurrent text, has this advantage as a factor of expression in dramatic art — that its silence leaves something 234 to the imagination of the auditor, who will gener- ally allow his imaginings to keep within the bounds of the author's situation. The cry or outburst of grief or sorrow is not only generally overdone, but the conclusion of the cry or outburst is generally false in its action for the re-establishment of the normal condi- tion of the physique. When the excessive sensation produced by some remarkable impression so agitates the mus- cular system that normal action is destroyed, and spasmodic, abrupt and irregular movement takes the place of the regular steady and controlled movement of the voice and gesticulation of the body, then the power that causes this abnormal action is ''impassioned force," and ''time*' becomes a very important factor for the artist to consider in giving the true imitation of the rise and sub- sidence of such a sensation. Crying and weeping are both the outcome of extreme sensations, and, not unf requently, on the stage, the abruptness of their beginning and ter- mination convert them into ridicule. 235 Uiift Art 0f Arttng In Scene II, Act III, of "Romeo and Juliet," where the Nurse brings to Juliet the news of Tybalt's death and so mixes and mangles the story as first to convey the impression that Romeo is dead, we have a fine illustration of the paralyz- ing effect of the first impression of a great grief. When the Nurse in reply to Juliet's question, "What news ? why dost thou wring thy hands ?" says: "Alack the day! — he's gone, he's killed, he's dead!" Juliet's reply is, as though she believes the Nurse's reply refers to her lover: "Can heaven be so envious?" Could anything be more seemingly quiet? Does it not seem almost like indifference to the situa- tion? But if we follow the lines, we shall be able to appreciate the terrible intensity of this quiet reply. For when in the Nurse's next speech, "Romeo can. Though heaven cannot." 236 Juliet discovers that Romeo is not dead, her ter- ror and her indignation both find vent in that most impassioned outburst: "What devil art thou that dost torment me thus ? This torture should be roar'd in dismal hell." There certainly must have been a tremendous sensation to produce such an outburst; and as the Nurse manages by her much entangled story to hold Juliet for some time in doubt as to Romeo's death, and finally informs her that Romeo has killed her cousin Tybalt and is ban- ished therefor, her grief is constantly accumula- tive throughout the scene. When Juliet finally understands and fully appreciates the word "ban- ished," that "banished," that one word "ban- ished," seems to choke her utterance, and make the very climax of her grief ; for she says : " . . . To speak that word Is father, mother, Tybalt, Romeo, Juliet, All slain, all dead : Romeo is banished, — There is no end, no limit, measure, bound, In that word's death; no words can that woe sound." Now if any cause can relax and shatter the 237 ®If^ Art 0f Artittg muscular system so as to produce a broken cur- rent of voice, certainly here seems to be a cause, and, undoubtedly, the rest of this scene should be played with sobs and gasps, and such spasmodic moans as would realize to the auditor the fact that words alone could not express her woe. Yet I have heard an actress, who had the reputa- tion of being an artiste, speak the next line : "Where is my father and my mother, nurse ?" with a voice as sweet and concurrent in its action as if she had just returned from a pleasure party, and would simply like to know if her parents had returned before her. Let the artiste study her own griefs, and she will find that the sob and the sigh will sometimes last for hours after the cause of the outburst has passed away, and that the outburst of strong or great grief subsides through a succession of sobs and moans. The sob is made by one, two or three quick movements of inhalation followed by a long ex- pulsion of the breath bearing out a slow and high 238 ''head tone'' with suppressed force and a median stress, terminating with a vanishing stress, and the explosion. The cry at first alarms us, then appeals to our patience and endurance. Silent grief makes us fear for the subject. The low wailing note of woe arouses our sympathy and pity, and we always seek to succor the distressed. 239 P^rB0ttal Mui^tittiBm TN describing the individualism and the person- -*^ ality of clever men and women, there seems to be a general disposition or tendency on the part of writers and speakers to endow them with some mysterious and undefinable quality or attribute, as if to place them in an unknown region between the natural and the supernatural, where they reach toward but fall just a little short of infinite power. Sometimes a man or a woman of great ability in any direction of work is called a "genius/' This word seems to be a generic term covering a mul- titude of human attributes, all of which are mys- terious, for the reason that no two persons define genius with the same meaning. A genius is generally credited with inspiration, another word 240 the meaning of which is lost in unlimited space, because it implies an immediate and direct con- nection with Divine Power. But the most mys- terious of all the qualities with which the mys- tery-loving hero-worshippers invest their idols is that — to them — indefinable something called "personal magnetism." Magnetism in its original meaning is a result that grows out of the influence of a magnet, de- scribed as a metallic substance consisting of two oxides of iron, a small portion of quartz and alumina. The influence of the magnet is ap- parent in its action on metallic substances only; and the effect of this influence of the magnet is locomotion, actual change of place, by the metal- lic substances influenced. It is not asserted that the force called "personal magnetism" ever affects its subject in that way. It is never stated as a fact that the "personal magnetism" of any orator, actor or singer drew an audience from any distance to the forum, the theatre or the opera ; but it is often said that the orator held his hearers spell-bound, that the audi- 241 JSift Art 0f Arttttg ence was enchained by the actor and charmed by the singer. These forms of description may be exaggerated, but they mean something; and, in each and every case, these forms mean that the orator, the actor and the singer had engaged the earnest undivided attention of his auditors, and, by impressment through his psychic force, had begotten in the minds of his hearers a sense of pleasure that they were unwilHng to reHnquish for the attraction of any other environment. Here it is asserted that there is an impression made on the minds of the hearers. It is not claimed that they are moved physically from place to place like the subjects of the loadstone; but, on the contrary, instead of becoming active, they are made passive yet receptive, and their mental pow- ers limited and bounded by the artist. This state does not answer to the state of magf- netism, which supposes an exterior force only, drawing material substance towards itself and holding it there quiescent. The force exerted by the artist, though it does not move the physical conditions, yet holds fast its subject and begets 242 a sensation within the subject that moves out with the expression of a desire for more of the influ- encing force. The only Hkeness, then, between magnetism and the force exerted by the artist is the power to hold, at a given point; and the greater effect of the orator, the actor and the singer is the ex- pression of pleasure, on the part of the subject — the desire for more, begotten by the exerted pow- er of the artist. It seems, therefore, that mag- netism in this case is a misnomer, and the word ^'hypnotic" would better describe the power of the artist. But, again, the hypnotic influence carried to its ultimate puts the subject in a somnolent condition, or makes the subject entirely responsive to the power of the hypnotizer, appar- ently destroying the will power of the subject and substituting the alter for the ego. Not so with the influence of the artist. There the ego remains and admires the alter, because the alter gives pleasure to the ego. This "personal magnetism," then, so called, is not magnetism; because, unlike the magnet, it 243 ailj^ Art nf Arttns does not disturb nor move the physical condi- tions. It is not hypnotism, because it does not, like hypnotism, put the ego to sleep and allow the alter to take possession of its physical machinery. What, then, is this force commonly called per- sonal magnetism? In those men and women, in whatever depart- ment of art, who exert this influence, may be found these characteristics: A nervous, active nature, whose activities are concealed by a strong will power; the ability to concentrate, and hold the mind down to the single point under consid- eration; perfect simplicity in mental action; the perfect adaptability of the entire impressional and physical force to the doing of the thing in hand; and a vehement suppression of the ego for the perfect presentation of the subject. We may therefore conclude that the so-called "personal magnetism" is mental simplicity with unlimited energy of nerve and muscle, focalizing the psychic force of the orator, actor or singer on the subject under immediate consideration. 244 This power may be acquired through study, by giving art the preference over a display of personahty, an outcome of the ignorance of art, or an indiscreet egotism. In the business affairs of life, the ego may successfully dominate the sit- uation; but in fine art personality must be sub- ordinated, if there is to be a perfect re-presenta- tion of anything outside of the ego. The sublimity of egotism occurs when a man surveys his own personality and thinks he has measured the universe. 245 Brama 'T^HE word "drama" is a pure Greek word, •^ and signifies action — action unlimited by time or place. Drama is action, whether it be in a church or a. theatre. The motives of all drama seem to have been, and are derived from, three sources, gods and demi-gods, heroes, and domestic life. The first of these spring from the imagination dwelling on super-human acts resulting from the power of the gods directly, or the power of the gods expressed through human beings. This deified drama arose and obtained with the Greeks. The heroic in dramatic presentation results from the unlimited force in man, untrammeled by the governing force of reason, — a full out-pouring of 246 Srama the force of the ego unlimited or uninfluenced by the rights of the other. This force prevails throughout the plays of Shakespeare. The do- mestic emotions in modern plays show always a mixed condition of feeling and reason, governed by social law. In the ancient Greek drama, the governing force was respect for religious rites, and an un- adulterated faith in the power of the gods. The heroic drama illustrates the belief and con- fidence of man in himself. The modern drama is full of questioning and agnosticism, a lack of confidence in humanity, a continual expression of disbelief in social insti- tutes. The theatre is a place of exhibition or show. It is stated in history that the first theatres were built in Athens under the rule of Themis- tocles, who was elected Archon about the year 480 B. C. Theatres were not, at first, built entirely for the exhibition of dramatic compositions, but were used by the Sophists of that time for the 247 ^Ift Art 0f Artittg display of declamatory arguments — the show of philosophy by oratory and the worship of myth- ology. All literary composition, whether in prose or in poetry, may be divided into at least four kinds, viz., descriptive, didactic^ lyric and dramatic. The Iliad and the Aeneid are dramatic literature. The full intention of descriptive and didactic composition may be presented to the auditor through the medium of the speaking voice alone. No action of any kind, except the action of the vocal apparatus and the articulating organs, is called for. Through the means of nice articula- tion, proper quality of voice and true emphasis, the full value of descriptive and didactic compo- sition may be presented. Though lyric composition may be read with the speaking voice, yet, to present its full strength, the lyric must be sung. This was its first inten- tion, it having been originally composed as a voice accompaniment to the lyre, one of the earli- est stringed instruments. The lyric was written for music, and although the speaking voice, by 248 Srama the process of reading, may tell its story and present its logic, the singing voice alone can im- press its sensations upon the listener. The full meaning of dramatic composition, whether poetry or prose, can only be presented when, to all the factors that constitute vocal ex- pression, is added action. It is because of the inhering attribute of action that literary composi- tion IS called "dramatic." Dramatic composition must be acted. It is the acting of dramatic com- positions that largely enhances their value, and makes a permanent place for them in the litera- ture of the world. As the lyrical in John Howard Payne's song, "Sweet Home," has impressed it to a place of rest in the hearts of millions who never would have felt the words without the music, so the act- ing of Hamlet, Othello, Lear, Macbeth and the popular heroes and heroines of Shakespeare, make them living, breathing beings, who, while they are before us, command our attention as much as any of the realities of life. Nearly fifty per cent of Shakespeare's dramas 249 ®I|? Art 0f Arttttg still hold their place on the stage; and the quo- tations from these dramas in current literature, owe their value largely to the fact that Shake- speare's creatures are actively before the world, and by action are still impressing their mental force on the pulpit, the bar and the best literature of our time. Of Shakespeare's contemporaries not one re- mains in the field of action. Beaumont and Fletcher, Ben Johnson and Webster have passed from the stage, and have been relegated to the top shelves of the library. They are no longer acted, and seldom quoted. Inactivity is death to dramatic literature, and the library shelf its mausoleum. The sustaining attributes of dra- matic composition, whether prose or poetry, is action. Where the composition is divided into acts, and the incidents of the composition repre- sented by one or more persons, it is called a drama — a described or defined action. Drama is the generic term. Dramas are di- vided into several classes or kinds, viz.: Tra- gedy, Comedy, Melodrama, Opera, Farce, Vau- 250 irama deville, Burlesque, Operetta, Comedietta. Any one of these several species of drama may be called a play, because the impersonators of the characters are players. They play that they are the people they represent. There is no arbitrary limit to the number of acts into which a drama may be divided. There may be one, two, three, four, five or more. The divisions called acts are made to suit the taste and convenience of the author in telling his story. The specific names, "Tragedy" and "Comedy/* are derived, upon authority of the historian of the most ancient theatre of the Greeks, from the opening and closing ceremonies of the feast of Bacchus, even prior to the time of Thespis, who is said to have been the inventor of Greek dramatic performances. The opening of the festivities, held annually in honor of Bacchus, was made with song and dance, and such exhilarating exercises by the vil- lagers (the Comes) as might illustrate the mental elation of the god of wine ; and the closing exer- cise was the sacrificing of a goat {tragos), deco- 251 Slf? Art 0f Arttng rated with flowers and constituting a part of the spectacular in the festivities of the day. From the death of the goat (tragos) is derived our word "tragedy," which to us signifies a drama of important incidents, illustrating strong male- volent emotions and terminating in death. Thespis, who lived more than five hundred years before Christ, is called the father of the Tragedy, or tragic dramas. From the action of the villagers (the Comes) in the opening of their festival, when all is glad- ness — when the benevolent emotions prevail — is derived our word "comedy/' Epicharmus, a Greek poet and philosopher, who flourished contempo- raneously with Thespis, is called the inventor of comedy or comic drama. Nothing scarcely now remains of the dramas of either of these authors but a number of titles, and even these are in dis- pute among the commentators. A tragedy is a dramatic composition in which the story or plot is told by the characters, who constitute the dramatis personae. The story and all the incidents must bear so strong a resem- 252 irama blance to truth as to carry conviction to the audi- tor and spectator, that the emotions expressed by the impersonator have their sensations in real- ities. There may be, and in many tragedies there are, comedy incidents and situations for contrast, lest the auditor may tire from a too constant mental strain in one direction ; but the prevailing emotions in tragedy are malevolent in their na- ture, leading through action to the death of the hero or heroine — the central person or persons from which the action radiates. The time, the manners and the customs of the people are sub- ordinate considerations. The death scene of Queen Katherine in Shakespeare's "Henry VIII" is grandly different and more picturesque than the death scene of Camille in Dumas's modern drama, but the final effect on the mind of the auditor is not more melancholy nor more lasting. The action, terminating in death, is the point of application, and this is tragedy. In tragedy all merely descriptive passages, no matter how beautiful the phrasing, check and dis- 253 aitj? Art 0f Artttte . tribute the accumulating mental force of the auditor, and thus prevent the climaxing and out- ward expression of the sensation the author is seeking to arouse. For this reason some of the most beautiful phrases in Shakespeare are elim- inated from the acting edition. In drama, words must express past, present or future action, and connect it with the central fig- ure of the story, or they destroy interest just in proportion to their divergence from the unity of action. A Comedy is a dramatic composition divided into two, three, four, five or more acts, as the case may be, presenting in its story and incidents a likeness to the probabilities of life, where the benevolent emotions prevail with a happy termi- nation. The Farce is a play in one, two or three acts — seldom tolerated in a greater number of acts — in which are presented such plot and incidents, with characteristic dialogue, as may make the impres- sion of possibilities upon the mind of the auditor, while the action is progressing, but which, when 254 irama reviewed through comparison with a standard of reality, produce such contrasts as to beget laugh- ter. The strength of the farce-play is most fully developed when it is presented directly after the serious realities of tragedy. The contrasts are made stronger. The Burlesque is a play that seldom exceeds two acts in length, and is based upon the force of contrast to produce laughter. The contrast, however, does not lie between the situation pre- sented and the truth or reality in nature, but be- tween the situation and the manner of acting it. When the situation is serious it may be bur- lesqued, that is, converted to laughter, by light, trifling, artificial acting; and when the situation is comic, the ridiculous in it is heightened by a serious and earnest manner in acting it. From the burlesque the grotesque is developed. Farce and burlesque situations depend entirely upon the wit and cleverness of an author in con- structing his play, and there is always an under- lying principle that conforms to the truths of nature in general; but grotesqueries depend for 255 ®Ijr Art 0f Arttttg their success entirely upon the personality and individuality of the actor. The Romance or Romantic drama, which is generally called "melodrama," is a species of play that bears about the same relation to tragedy and comedy that farce bears to comedy. The roman- tic drama is always based on conditions that re- quire great mental elation on the part of the auditor for their acceptance. The heroes and heroines, together with the in- cidents of the romantic drama, are the inventions and contrivances of the author, for the purpose of lifting the mind out of the equilibrium in which a continuous observation of the realities of life is likely to hold it. The cleverest author of the ro- mantic drama, recognizing the tendency of the mind to fall back to comparing art and nature, injects music throughout his play, thereby appeal- ing to feeling, through which he keeps alive the desire for the imaginary — the unreal — the ideal- istic. The romantic drama may be either tragedy or comedy. Its success will depend upon its power 256 Srama to lift the mind out of the rut of every-day life and entertain it with the picturesque in the realms of imagination. In the world of amusement everything is legit- imate that entertains and does not demoralize. Opera is acting set to music ; and as the merit of the play depends more upon the music and acting than upon the words or literature of the work, — opera is, therefore, the highest form of melo- drama. Operas are divided like other plays into acts, the number varying in accordance with the im- portance of the story and incidents all the way from one to five acts, and seldom exceeding this last number. Opera is also divided into classes, as grand and comic opera. Grand opera, whether tragedy or comedy, always presents a story of dig- nity and importance, with as near a resemblance to the realities of life as the necessities of the music will allow; but, undoubtedly, through the prevailing force of the music of the opera, whether the story be of tragedy or comedy, the tendency is toward hyperbole through the liter- 257 Sltf^ Art 0f Arttng ature of the play. Consequently, at its highest in art, opera leads towards romance instead of reality. Heroes and heroines in tragic dramas die with an expression of exhausted vital force, a sub- sidence of nerve and muscle action; but the hero or heroine in opera dies issuing a volume of voice that always indicates a control of nerve and muscle and vital force that might live on for years if the end of the play had not come just at that moment. The comic opera may be one, two or three acts, or more, but its outcome is always farcical. The object is entertainment through ridicule and satire, tickling and stinging the senses through the opening and persuasive effect of music. The operetta is a little opera. It may be seri- ous or comic, but the burletta, which may be one scene or more, always presents the farcical pic- tures of life, with music. All dramas, of whatever kind or species, are written to be acted, and the men and women who act dramas are actors, and because their acting 258 IS but the simulation of the thought or emotion to be re-presented, the actors are called "players/' and the dramas they play in are called "plays," hence "plays" and "players." The Latin word designating actors is histrio, and from this name is derived that word so com- monly in use in describing dramatic art, "histri- onic/' a word more popular among amateurs and novices than among professional actors. A word that has come very much into use within the past ten years to describe or name the results of the dramatic artists is "work;" e.g., in speaking of an actor's performance in a play, the speaker says "I like" or "I dislike" "his work." We need not necessarily attribute this expression to affectation or to ignorance, but we may say that it is a bad form of speech, not in good taste ; for dramatic art is a special result — the outcome of the direct application of the mental force to the machinery of the human body in re-present- ing the creatures of dramatic authors, who are in themselves a special class among the littera- teurs of the world, and although acting is work, 259 2FIj^ Art 0f Arttng yet because it is a special kind of work, it should be described by the specific term which through long and best usage has obtained, viz., "art." "Work" is a general term and, as a descriptive term, in- cludes acting. But why have specific terms if we do not use them to describe special things? An actor may do very earnest work in his prepara- tion and still do very bad art in his acting. Any sound, able-bodied man may work, but every sound, able-bodied" man cannot therefore do dra- matic art. 260 ®I|0 iramattr iir^rtor TJAINTING, music, poetry and sculpture, as fine arts, may be executed in perfection by the artist single-handed and alone; but dramatic art in its greatest perfection requires a group of artists, working together, and the correct result depends entirely on their harmonious action. In order to develop the intentions of the author, the group of artists seeking to represent the author's dramatis personae must rehearse the memorized words for the purpose of discovering the individual action of the several characters of the play, and so to conjoin those actions as to preserve the unity of purpose that a dramatic au- thor must have, if he would present a successful play. A director is an indispensable necessity to a proper rehearsal of a play; for the reason that everv earnest and ambitious actor will always 261 SIj^ Art 0f Arttttg strive to win the approbation of the audience ; and the desire to win approval, unless properly direct- ed, may and often does destroy the intention of the author. Good plays are sometimes destroyed and frequently marred through the presentation of the actor's own individuality, instead of the in- dividuality of the author's character. The fail- ure may result from the actor's inability to con- ceive the author's motive, or through lack of skill in his art, or again the failure may be made through the egotism that constantly presents the actor's own personality, instead of the author's creature. The actor or actress playing the hero or hero- ine may be a good director, but it does not follow that either of them is so necessarily, because act- ing the principal characters in the play. Certainly the actor playing the principal character should know the play very thoroughly, but even this knowledge does not in itself constitute him a good director ; for, to direct properly, he must not only possess the knowledge, but he must be able to im- part it clearly to his fellow artists. Then, too, the 262 strain on his patience is frequently greater than he can successfully bear, while engaged in re- hearsing his own part in the play, and a mani- festation of impatience is quite out of place in rehearsing. The aim of a director should be to keep the mind of the actor open to receive sug- gestions, and impatience, with severe and sar- castic words, closes up the mind of the actor to whom they are addressed and, for the time being, quite destroys his receptivity. This is a bad state of affairs for the director and the di- rected. Great acting requires singleness of purpose. No actor can be great if he act and direct at the same time. A good director must be a good actor. He should be a man of good scholarship in the language of his author, of good general in- formation, an authority on correct pronunciation and good reading. He should have an artistic desire and a good knowledge of form and the harmonies of color, with a quick eye to see and ability to arrange picturesque groups. His per- ception should be quick, his knowledge apt and 263 ®Ij^ Art 0f Arttttg his patience everlasting. A want of courtesy on the part of a director is not only a manifestation of gross ignorance, but it is destructive of the very intention of his office. Ignorant people gen- erally assume a dogmatic and domineering man- ner, to conceal their inability to answer questions. The office of Dramatic Director in a good the- atre is a very honorable office, and worthy of better men than are sometimes selected for it. It is not improbable that at least seven in every ten of the failures that are made in producing plays, result from improper direction, inability to dis- cover the author's intention. A good director should be able to eliminate redundant lines that check action, to make the verbal connections that may preserve the harmony of action and to make such transposition of words, lines, or even whole scenes, as may tend to perfect the situa- tions of the author and develop his climaxes in their full value. He must be able to suggest the proper scenery to the scenic artist, to describe the necessary properties to the property man, and to 264 OIIi? iramattr 'Bxrtttttv describe the correct style and color of the cos- tumes for each artist in the play. He must direct the proper lighting and darkening of the play through its various phases of day and night to be re-presented. It is a duty that the director owes to himself and those whom he is to direct, to know the play thoroughly, before he calls the company together. If a director would have and retain the respect of his artists, he must be punctual to the appoint- ed hour of rehearsal. A director should be a dis- ciplinarian ; but for best discipline extreme sever- ity is not necessary, and the effort to control the conduct of an artist outside of his business rela- tions, except by friendly advice, is an imperti- nence that no manly artist will submit to. The director who attempts it may be justly termed "a martinet." The man who would be a disciplinarian must first discipline himself. A want of ability and lack of punctuality on the part of the director are disturbing elements that destroy discipline and demoralize the company. 265 Slf^ Art 0f Artittg A director should not call his company to re- hearsal until he is ready to begin; and having named the hour, he should begin exactly at the appointed time. After the dramatic work begins, nothing should engage his attention until the re- hearsal is terminated for the day. To avoid the distracting interruptions that fatigue the actor and demoralize the rehearsals, the director should arrive at the theatre in time to have an interview with the machinist, scenic artist, property man and other mechanical and spectacular assistants before his appointed hour for rehearsal. A good director can always spend an hour with these subordinate departments be- fore the rehearsal, and, by this course, avoid much mental annoyance and bodily fatigue for both himself and company. The first call of the company is for the purpose of assembling all who are engaged and thereby to know if they are ready to begin the labors of the season. This call should be made at least one day before rehearsals begin. At this meeting, the director should take the occasion to make the sev- 266 ®Ij^ Sramaltr IBxrtttttr eral members acquainted by personal introduc- tions among those who are strange to each other. At the meeting of the company, the play, if new, should be read by the author or by the di- rector, and the "parts" distributed for study. At a first rehearsal of each act in a new play, the members of the company should read their parts. The parts should be read to save the time that may be lost when the actor tries to recite a half-memorized character; but the sooner the actor memorizes his part the better it will be for him and his associates; for, when the part is thoroughly memorized, the actor will be able to express in action the individuality of the character he is to assume. The actor cannot do the action of a character while he is hunting through memory for the medium of conveyance. A dramatic company should be made up of men and women who are actors, only when they are on the stage. Off the stage, the members of a dramatic company should be ladies and gentle- men. The tendency of the dramatic art is toward refinement. The study of the best dramatic au- 267 ®Ijr Art nf Arttttg thors is a powerful developer in the philosophy of life. A thorough knowledge of Shakespeare, alone, is a liberal education. Everything in the art and science of acting strengthens the body and beautifies the mind. Dramatic artists are, therefore, by their association with the best dra- matic authors, prepared to present a high stand- ard of intelligence in their daily lives and to beautify by intelligent development the works of dramatic authors in their evening labors. If the dramatic director owe to the dramatic company courtesy, as a scholar and a gentleman, and the earnest fulness of his knowledge, with patience to meet the necessities of the inquiring minds around him, so does the company, individu- ally and collectively, owe to him the courteous conduct of ladies and gentlemen, and their earnest attention, together with their best effort at all times, to do his direction ; for upon the success of the director depends the preservation of the uni- ties of the play. When the unities of a play are destroyed, the author's work is left in the condi- tion of several "variety" acts, into which ignor- 268 ©Ij^ iramattr Sir^rtnr ance of the original intention, or the over-ween- ing and selfish ambition of the several actors, has thrown it, by their individual efforts for per- sonal aggrandizement. A rehearsal of a play means a time of study for the actors, — not a study of their words and lines (those may be studied outside of rehearsal), but a study of the situations of the play, so that each actor may know the true value of the words he is to speak and, by the practice of doing them in connection with his fellow artists, be enabled to present them in their full dramatic value. A full and clear reading or recitation of the words of a part should be given by the actor at all rehearsals, first because all actors need such prac- tice, and to read and recite in a slovenly or care- less way at rehearsal is demoralizing to one's self; and, secondly, because those who are to re- spond should know the full intention of the speaker, and this cannot be unless a full illustra- tion is given at rehearsals. True artists and those who are striving to be artists, always rehearse in full as soon as they have memorized the lines in a 269 Sij^ Art ttf Arltttg new play. In an old play it is a duty that the actor owes to the author and to the public, as well as to his fellow artist, so to speak and rehearse, even his most familiar character, that the new- comer or novice in the play may be able to com- prehend and perform the "part" or "business" assigned to him. By a proper fulfillment of these conditions, both the director and the actors may save themselves much time and force, and avoid a great deal of unnecessary ill feeling. Good actors are sensitive people, and therefore liable to suffer more from unpleasant environments than is the so-called business man, a part of whose business is to bear the rebuffs and scorns of oppo- sition, that arise in the competitive work of strug- gling to get from his fellow man everything that he possesses, except his diseases. Sensitiveness in a business man is an index to failure, but sensi- tiveness in the dramatic artist is a positive merit. Actors who are successful grow more sensitive as they grow older, and feel so keenly the loss of applause or the want of recognition from an audi- ence, that it sometimes begets jealousy. This 270 Sllf^ iramattr Bxttttnv diseased condition is generally made apparent by an effort to suppress or destroy the applause due to a fellow artist, either by entering on the scene and speaking too quickly, or by actually cutting out the lines and situation that would bring the expression of approbation to his assumed rival. This is pitiful. Jealousy is always the sign of a limit. Great minds accept rivalry as an incentive to greater development. Fair rivalry urges one to higher achievements. The distribution of the characters in a play is a matter for very serious consideration with the director, for he must not only know the inten- tion of the author, but he must also know the capacity of the several actors in his company, so as to assign to each artist the "part*' in the play for which he is best adapted. This adaptation of the actor to the "part" alludes only to his mental fitness, which mental fitness is the result of an in- herent quality in the actor or a cultivated mental condition enabling him quickly to perceive and readily to present by tone, pose and gesture an author's embodiment of sensations. Because the 271 SII?^ Art 0f Artiug dramatic author's story is told by several char- acters, male and female, each doing a part, while preserving the unities and the entirety of the play, several men and women are necessary to the proper interpretation of the work. Every play must have a hero or a heroine, the person in the story in whom all the interest centres and around whom all the principal incidents of the play cluster. Some plays have a hero and a heroine, seemingly of equal importance. These two characters, in a well constructed drama, contain the interest and, in the progress of the plot or story, occupy all the great dramatic situations, climaxes in action that surprise, startle, increase interest or arouse enthusiasm in the spectator. All subordinate characters must serve to develop the hero or heroine, for although the actors in a play may be artists, all cannot be central figures, nor possess equal attractive- ness. It sometimes happens that a young and inexperienced actor will endeavor to make Hora- tio superior to Hamlet, or prince Malcolm super- ior to Macduff ; but such a ranting effort is an 272 absurdity, and only begets ridicule for the ill- advised aspirant. The sooner an aspirant for dramatic honors learns to co-ordinate his muscle with the author's thoughts, and to subordinate his personal ambition to the author's situations, masking his egotism behind the author's crea- ture, the sooner will the discipline fit him to fill the "leading character," a worthy and a desir- able achievement for every aspiring artist; and though it may be impossible for all to reach the "leading position," the effort will enhance their value to the public in the subordinate positions. The distribution of the characters in a play, among the members of an organized stock com- pany, has long been classified, according to the in- tellectual fitness of the actors, and for the con- venience of the manager, in engaging and work- ing the company, into "Lines of Business," as — Leading man and leading woman ; juvenile man and juvenile woman; heavy, first and second; first and second comedian ; first and second come- dienne; old man, first and second; old woman; eccentric characters; first and second walking 273 ^\}t Art 0f Arttng gentleman; responsible utility; general utility; and supernumeraries. To fill these several lines of business, a com- pany of at least twenty actors is required, and in some of Shakespeare's plays a larger number is called for. The "doubling" is scarcely commen- surate with the dignity of a first class theatre, and its obligations to a cultivated public. A dramatic artist who is an acknowledged leader, whether male or female, has earned the right to have a choice of characters when the dramatis personae are to be distributed in a new play. The leading man and the leading woman are bound to accept the precedent established in any first- class stock theatre; but the fitness and ability of the artist to assume the great variety of dramatic characters that must necessarily fall to the lot of the "leading" artists may justly be a question for rational discussion and amicable adjustment between the director and the "leading man" or "leading woman," as the case may be. The "leading man" and the "leading woman," by reason of the favorable dramatic situations 274 SU}^ iramattr Wxxtttsxt .that they are nightly assuming in the plays, gen- erally achieve popularity and become favorites with the audiences or patrons of the theatre, making it desirable on the part of the manager to keep them before the public in every play pro- duced. Every artist in the theatre may and does have a following advantageous to the manager and complimentary to themselves according to the artistic merit displayed by them in their sev- eral positions. The approbation accorded to a man or woman for his club life, or for her social position, does not necessarily entitle her to ap- proval as a dramatic artist. A little reflection will convince any thinking artist that a very large proportion of his popular- ity is due to the author. Shakespeare has lifted hundreds of actors into fame and a position in the world of arts and letters that could never have been achieved by them if thrown on their own resources for a medium of conveyance. In the distribution of heroic characters, a director would undoubtedly be impressed with the idea of size; but, upon reference to his historical knowledge, 275 JBift Art nf Arttttg he learns that a fair proportion of the world's heroes and heroines have been only an average height and size. Some of the most famous dra- matic artists have been men and women of small stature. It will be a sad day for dramatic art when mere physical conditions shall take the place of mental force, when muscle and adipose matter shall outweigh brains, and elegant costumes shall mask false conceptions and bad execution. A perfect knowledge of the play, and a thor- ough acquaintance with the individual ability of each member of the company, are absolute neces- sities on the part of the director, to enable him to cast a play with justice to the author, credit to the actors, and satisfaction to the public. The following cast will show how the charac- ters in a play were distributed to accord with the positions of the several members of a stock com- pany, up to the time when the present system of combinations obtained a place in the theatre : 276 Ifrnttl^t, Prints ttf Benmark Claudius, King of Denmark, 1st Heavy Man. Hamlet, Son to the late, and nephew to the pres- ent, king. 1st Leading Man. Polonius, Lord Chamberlain, 1st Old Man. Laertes, Son to Polonius, 1st Juvenile Man. Horatio, Friend to Hamlet, 2d Juvenile Man. Guildenstern, Rosencrantz, Courtiers, 1st and 2d Walking Gentlemen. Bernardo, Marcellus, Officers, Responsible Utility. Priest, 2nd Old Man. 1st and 2d Players 1st and 2nd "Character Parts." Osric Eccentric Comedy. 1st Grave Digger, , 1st Comedy. 2d Grave Digger, 2nd Comedy. Gertrude, Queen of Denmark, Heavy Leading Woman Ophelia, daughter to Polonius, Leading Juvenile Woman. Player Queen, 2nd Old Woman. Courtiers, male and female. General Utility. Ghost of Hamlet's father, 2nd Leading Man 277 Mnkt-TSip rx^ HIS term is used to define the appearance of •^ the actor in whatever character he assumes, and not only alludes to his costume for the part, but to the painting of the face, the color and cut or fashion of the hair and beard. The success or failure in the presentation of the mental and emotional phases of a dramatic character may, and often does, depend upon the knowledge and skill of the actor in the department of make-up. It is difficult to rid one's self of first impres- sions in nature, and first impressions from the dramatis personae of the stage are quite lasting. The every-day record of the theatre is full of the proofs of first impressions. The subject may easily be opened by comparing the original cast of a play to the cast of a reproduction. All who have 278 seen the "originals," except those who are acting in the reproduction, are ready to tell how much better the play was done when they first saw it. While undoubtedly some of the superlative praise must be credited to the vanity of the historian, who ofttimes expects to enhance his own great- ness in the estimation of his listeners by claiming to have seen a more meritorious performance than the course of events has permitted them to witness, still some of the enthusiasm of the re- lator may be justly attributed to the effect of first impression. It therefore behooves the artist to look to the correctness of his make-up if he would secure the lasting approval of his audience. So far as the costuming is concerned, the artist of to-day may obtain at any of the public libraries the best archaeological authorities for reference; and if he desire to be entirely successful in his make-up, he must be able to refer to authorities that will enable him to present the special effects of the costume of any century or decade of a century. In modern dress, a first-class tailor for gentle- 279 Slj? Arl 0f Arttttg men, and a first-class milliner and dressmaker for ladies, should be consulted in order that the costume of the period may be truthfully pre- sented. Having selected a costumer, whether ancient or modern, do not let your taste or fancy interfere with his facts of history. I remember an actor who, having to dress a character in the long-tailed embroidered coat of the latter part of the eighteenth century, had the tails cut off to the same length as the skirts of his evening dress coat of i860, because the latter was more in harmony with his taste. This certainly was very ridiculous, but not more ridiculous than the wearing of a blue necktie with an evening dress. I saw this done by an excellent actor in a first-class theatre in 1876. Had the artist in either case taken the trouble to consult a proper costumer, these mistakes could have been avoided. In presenting a play, the manager has the right to arrange the fashion and the color of the cos- tumes that the characters shall be represented in ; but the exercise of that right requires that he shall furnish the costumes at his own expense. 280 There is neither honesty nor the semblance of respectable management in requiring individual artists to buy colors to suit the director's group- ings on the stage; and the form and color of dramatic grouping, whether in ancient or modern costume, are productive of some of the most pleas- ing effects in a play. This is a matter worthy of much consideration by directors and managers. Great attention should be given to the hair, not alone to the style of wearing it, but to the characteristic color. It may safely be set down as a principle with which to govern action in this matter, that dark hair is more in keeping with the expression of serious emotions, while light hair seems to convey with first impressions the idea of a bright and cheerful disposition. There is no reason in nature why a person with light colored hair may not feel just as seri- ous as a person with black hair ; but we know that, on all serious occasions, custom in this country has made dark colors in costumes the medium for expressing serious and sad situations. The col- ors of dress for mourning differ according to 281 ®If? Art 0f Arttttg persons and countries. In Italy the women once mourned in white and the men in brown. In China they wear white ; in Turkey, Syria, Cappa- docia and Armenia, celestial blue; in Egypt yel- low, or the color of a dead leaf. The Ethiopians wear gray, and in Europe the mourning color is black. Each of these colors had originally its significance. White is the emblem of purity; celestial blue denotes the place we wish to go to after death ; yellow or the dead leaf indicates that death is the end of hope, and that man falls as the leaf; gray signifies the earth to which the dead return ; and black indicates the absence of life, or want of life. Previously to the reign of Charles VIII, the queens of France wore white upon the death of their husbands, and were called reines blanches. On the death of that mon- arch the color was changed to black. Light and bright colors are used to express mirth and glad- ness ; so that it may be assumed that the first im- pression made by the character as to the serious or comic nature of its situations will depend largely upon the color of the costume. Of course, 282 the fashion of the dress and the style of the hair must be governed by the prevailing mode of the period represented, unless the part be what is denominated a ''character part," which means a character in the play eccentric to the accepted rules of etiquette and the prevailing forms of fashion. The eccentric vanity of a foolish man is sometimes shown when, as an actor, he appears on the stage in the court costume and bag wig of the latter part of the eighteenth century, wear- ing the moustache and side whiskers of the pres- ent day. It is an intolerable absurdity. The gas light in the theatre neutralizes the warm colors of the face and leaves a pallid and unnatural hue. Artificial coloring must therefore be used to give the appearance of health and nat- uralness to this most expressive part of the body; but, with many actors and actresses, excellent art- ists in other respects, there seems to be an effort to produce, not a semblance to nature in this re- spect, but something, the likeness of which does not exist in nature. As a matter of fact, there are no pure white 283 ®Ij0 Art 0f Arttns masses in the human face in its healthful condi- tion ; and there are no black lines in the shadows or wrinkles of the face. And, yet, the would-be artist in make-up first lays on a heavy wash of pure white, and then rubs on an unlim- ited quantity of red, carrying it up the sides of the face to the very roots of the hair, and cover- ing the eyelids until the face presents the swollen and inflamed appearance of dissipation. Then he puts a heavy, black line under the eyes which means nothing but dirt. It is difficult to attrib- ute such false painting to anything but ignorance, through lack of observation of nature's coloring, which can be seen on every hand, and at all times ; but if there be any difficulty or inconvenience in studying the lines and colors of the face from nature, there are in all of the large cities, and even in many of the smaller towns of our coun- try, galleries of paintings where the actor may study characteristic expressions of the face, either in youth or in age, made solely by lines and color, the work of painters whose study is to copy nature correctly. 284 One can scarcely appreciate the expression of intelligence that the nose gives to the face until he has seen a face from which the nose has been removed by disease or accident, as it sometimes is. A small nose is generally the sign of a weak character, but it does not follow that a large nose is always the sign of a strong character. The noses of the dumb animals lie flat and even with the surface, as in the face of the horse, the ox and the dog; but when one examines the head of the chimpanzee and the higher order of the simian race, the gorilla, one sees the nose gradu- ally rising out of the face until it reaches an im- portant elevation in the Hottentot, the lowest in- tellect in the negro race found in the interior of Africa. Between the flat, broad nose of the negro and the elevated oriental nose, which seems a dis- tinguishing feature of the brightest intellects of the world, there is a great variety of forms and each variety apparently marks some characteris- tic of the individual. The nose of middle elevation with large bul- 285 ®Ij? Art 0f Arttng bous termination quite red in complexion, with large open nostril, indicates the high liver much given to dissipation. The straight Greek nose bespeaks clear intellect and love of art ; while the Roman nose tells of courage and strength. The Oriental nose, with its extreme elevation, thin nostrils and hooked point, tells of acquisition and love of money for the sake of domination. Any of these forms crooked or twisted from direct lines indicates individual eccentricities. A little attention to the coloring of the face through the instructions to be obtained from any good portrait painter, will greatly enhance the value of an actor's performance. A lack of proper height in the physique of the artist is a defect not easily overcome. It is true that shoes may be so constructed as to raise the figure, but great care should be exercised in building up, lest on trying to improve the appearance in this re- gard, awkwardness of movement and a stilted walk neutralize the effect gained by the elevation. There can be no grace without strength in the position, and beauty in the line of action ; and the 286 high heels, to which the artist is unaccustomed, are sure to beget clumsiness in movement, and a lack of firmness in pose. While in dramatic art, or indeed in any of the fine arts, superior intelligence should not be hand- icapped by the absence or presence of adipose matter and muscle, still it behooves the dramatic artist to present as perfect a picture of the char- acter, as the art of making-up will permit; and for this purpose symmetries for the lower limbs, padding for developing the shoulders, and such appliances as may give proper form to his nat- ural physique, are entirely legitimate. Young actors who aspire to do the "juveniles" or lovers in dramatic art, will find it greatly to their advantage, in personal appearance, to keep up their gymnastic exercises, such as sword play- ing and dancing, and to avoid feasting at late suppers. The actor must be willing to make some sacrifices if, as an artist, he would gain and hold the approbation of the public ; for while the actor is feasting with "jolly good fellows," his art is fasting. He is bartering vital force and public 287 ®If? Art 0f Arttttg approbation for the ephemeral admiration of those whose friendship, in many instances, is be- gotten of the exhilaration of wine, and dies with its effervescing. Such friendship lives only in the sunshine of the actor's prosperity, and, with the first chilling breath of adversity, this good-fel- low-friendship floats off on its butterfly wings, and leaves the actor to that depression which must necessarily follow a false stimulation. If one desires to be a true artist, he must avoid those methods which earn for the actor the name of ''good fellow." On the stage let your make-up and your eti- quette present the appearance of the dramatic character assumed. Off the stage let your cos- tume and your deportment harmonize with the best forms of the society in which you live. Affected eccentricity in dress and manners is a vulgarity that must place even a good artist at some disadvantage in polite society. On the stage, affectations and assumptions are art; but, off the stage, let the simplicity of your manner be the charm of your individuality. 288 Ol0mpo0tti0it TTT^HEN the pupil has learned to analyze the ^ * physical effects of the various emotions, and, consequently, the natural language through which they express themselves, let him then take up some dramatic author, read a passage, and, having decided what emotion it is intended to ex- press, let him interpret the author's artificial lan- guage by the aid of the factors of natural lan- guage which he may have acquired through his observations of nature, and which he has ren- dered subservient to his will by his analytical method of study and daily physical practice. The artist should make himself as familiar with the natural language of all emotions of the human mind as he is with the alphabet of his na- tive tongue. 289 QH}t Art 0f Arttttg In order to apply the factors of expression cor- rectly, it follows that one must be able to analyze for the true meaning of the dramatic author's words, phrases, and sentences. Every sentence in a purely dramatic composition not only has its grammatical construction, through the study of which one arrives at the author's logical conclu- sions, but there must always be a recognition of a sensation underlying the very words or signs of sensation. The outcome of this sensation consti- tutes the emotional part of the word or sentence. It is the presentation of this emotional part, through a harmonious blending of the artificial with the natural language that the actor must strive for. How shall he obtain a knowledge of the emo- tional part of the dramatic character ? Here be- gins the severe work of the artist; for the emo- tional nature of the dramatic character cannot be fully known until the artist has a clear conception of the psychology or mentality of character, which conception can only be received by the ar- tist, through a logical deduction made by an 290 analytical study of the grammatical construction of the author's sentence. It is sometimes as- serted by those who believe that actors "are born, not made" that some of the clever actors and actresses have been quite ignorant of the curriculum of even a grammar school. Suppose the statement be admitted as entirely true, it would not militate against the statement that these undisciplined actors might have been greater artists if they had been better scholars. The history of the dramatic art in all ages, and in all countries, shows that the greatest dramatic artists have been scholarly men and women. I might, in proof of this position, cite names from the histories of the Greek, Roman, French, Eng- lish and American theatres ; but this work is not a eulogy on dramatic artists; it is a method for studying dramatic art. I will therefore dismiss the matter by saying that, other things being equal, the better scholar will always be the better artist. The actor must comprehend the logic of the author's sentences. He must know the mentality 291 ®If^ Art nf Arttng of the character ; for, if he do not know the men- taHty of the character, he cannot know what emo- tions are to be portrayed. The true study of a dramatic character lies en- tirely within the dramatic author's text. For ex- ample, in order to study the character of Richard III in Shakespeare's play of that name, it is not at all incumbent upon the artist to hunt through English history to learn what kind of a man the Duke of Gloster, afterward King Richard III, was ; for it is admitted on all hands that no writer has ever more clearly and forcibly expressed, in language, the emotions of human beings, than has this universally acknowledged linguist of the emotions — Shakespeare. And it is also admitted by students of English history that Shakespeare's Richard III is not the Richard III of English his- tory. So, when an actor leaves Shakespeare's text to hunt through history for the historical personage there described, he becomes an author instead of an actor, whose true art is not to con- struct characters, but to illustrate characters al- ready constructed by the dramatist. 292 It is rather a pusillanimous intelligence that can achieve celebrity only by stealing the frame- work of great or even popular authors, to invest it with its own personal peculiarities for repre- sentation. This much for dramatic pirates, whether they be managers or actors. As independence is one of the attributes claimed for the American character, I trust American actors will ever, in their true manli- ness, treat with contempt the author or actor who lives upon the stolen capital of plagiarized plays or conceptions of characters. Let the actor study and think for himself. If he cannot think for him- self, he has no right to be in an art whose aim is to illustrate the works of the brightest thinkers and litterateurs of the world. In a subsequent volume, now in preparation, — "The Emotional Analysis of Shakespeare's Dra- matic Characters" — I have given analytical studies of a few of Shakespeare's dramatic char- acters, in order to show the student how we may get at the mentality of the dramatis personae, and 293 ®tji? Art 0f Arttttg so become acquainted with them just as we are acquainted with our most intimate friends, whose personal pecuHarities we can and do frequently imitate for the amusement and instruction it affords to the listeners. This imitation of facts may be most harmoniously blended with fancy in what is termed idealizing a character which is really nothing more than presenting the character as the actor thinks it should be, instead of present- ing it as a positive matter of fact, deduced from the text and situation. This is a very dangerous field of experiment ; for, to be successful, the actor must possess not only great refinement of taste, but delicate skill, to diverge from the author's verbal descriptions. And here is where imagination may, nay must, come to the actor's assistance. Imagination is that part of our mental action which, while it grows out of the truthful observation of realities, refuses to be limited by logical conclusions, and reaches into infinite space for expansion. Wonder, not always an agreeable sensation, may be the outcome of great eccentricity in this factor in 294 mental picture making; but true pleasure, satis- faction, repose for mentality, will result only when the works of imagination bear so strong a resemblance to nature that the mind immediately recognizes a standard for comparison in its parts, or as a whole. As theory is the forerunner of practice, so is imagination the originator of theory. The dra- matic art may be idealized by this power ; but the imagination of the actor must be so versatile and supple as to be always a truthful elaboration of the author's work in any given direction. If versatility or suppleness of imagination be wanting, the actor will not only pervert the author, but he will fall into the habit of re-pre- senting his own individuality, and so produce that quality in his art called "sameness." Because the artist sometimes gives scope to his imagination and thereby seems to enhance the value of the author's work, some people are in- clined to think that actors create characters ; but the art of acting is not creative. The author ar- ranges emotions and the actor illustrates them. 295 ®if^ Art 0f Arttttg The actor, through his science, studies the emo- tions that the author has described, and by his art he represents them. Perfection is not claimed for the present work, in any department ; but, if the author's effort shall set actors to thinking that they really have an art, then there will be a chance for a more perfect de- velopment of the science of emotions, because study will follow. Finis. This book was set up. printed and BOUND BY The Nyvall Print, of NO. 1876 Broadway. New York. CALlFPr..^^^ r,< '''R^ IVE'^'^'^TY THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW AN INITIAL FINE OF 25 CENTS WILL BE ASSESSED FOR FAILURE TO RETURN THIS BOOK ON THE DATE DUE. THE PENALTY WILL INCREASE TO SO CENTS ON THE FOURTH DAY AND TO $1.00 ON THE SEVENTH DAY OVERDUE. I»0V my 9 mz 10 im ^Ocf'4pyy, 2kn.'55lti DEC 9 1932 A^'TO. DISC. DEC 8 1936 NOV 18 1988 ClPCllt Ann M JUN 29 1940 OCT 7 194011 OCT 28 mA\ k LD 'Jl-50m-8,-33 U.C. BfBKELEYL/BBABJES coot ?4g 575 "'* 331044 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA UBRARY