of the man whom he impersonates, and then act as that man
would act in a like situation.

Mackaye's devotion to Delsarte was manifest in the many practical
ways he aided his teacher; he was rewarded by being left most of his
master's manuscripts. This passionate interest in the technique of
acting not only enriched his own work, but, in 1872, prompted him to
open a Delsarte house (the St. James Theatre), and later interested
him in a school of acting. Mackaye studied at the École des Beaux Arts
and the Conservatoire, in Paris, having as an instructor at the
latter institution M. Regnier. On his way back to America, Tom Taylor
persuaded him to attempt _Hamlet_ in London, at the Crystal
Palace. This essayal met with success. It also opened the way for
collaboration with Tom Taylor in the writing of "Arkwright's Wife" and
"Clancarty," and with Charles Reade of "Jealousy." At this time also
he commenced a dramatization of George Eliot's "Silas Marner."

There were no half-way measures about Mackaye; things of the theatre
and principles of the theatre caught and held his interest. At the
very last of his life, while he was at work on his "Spectatorus,"
which foreran the American idea of a Hippodrome, and which might have,
in years to come, happily housed his son Percy's "Caliban," he was
at the same time attempting to combine with it an educational aspect
which would lift it above the mere spectacular. The symbolical notes
which he handed his son--who was then a mere boy--for the writing of
a Chorus, show the profound approach he took to all his work. Such
seriousness is one of the consuming traits of Percy, whose sense of
humour is probably better developed than that of his father, and whose
sway of literary expression is fuller.