measure, sounds a trumpet, or hits a target; or skirmishes around
his subject; or lays it bare with a dissecting knife; or embalms a
thought; or crucifies an enemy. What is he really doing all the
time?


Besides the artist two things are to be considered in every art,--
the instrument and the audience; or, to deal in less figured
phrase, the medium and the public. From both of these the artist,
if he would find freedom for the exercise of all his powers, must
sit decently aloof. It is the misfortune of the actor, the singer,
and the dancer, that their bodies are their sole instruments. On
to the stage of their activities they carry the heart that
nourishes them and the lungs wherewith they breathe, so that the
soul, to escape degradation, must seek a more remote and difficult
privacy. That immemorial right of the soul to make the body its
home, a welcome escape from publicity and a refuge for sincerity,
must be largely foregone by the actor, who has scant liberty to
decorate and administer for his private behoof an apartment that is
also a place of business. His ownership is limited by the
necessities of his trade; when the customers are gone, he eats and
sleeps in the bar-parlour. Nor is the instrument of his
performances a thing of his choice; the poorest skill of the
violinist may exercise itself upon a Stradivarius, but the actor is
reduced to fiddle for the term of his natural life upon the face
and fingers that he got from his mother. The serene detachment
that may be achieved by disciples of greater arts can hardly be
his, applause touches his personal pride too nearly, the mocking
echoes of derision infest the solitude of his retired imagination.
In none of the world's great polities has the practice of this art