has begun to be so abundantly rendered to it. If it is metaphorically
the destiny of humanity, it is literally the experience of an actor,
that one man in his time plays many parts. A player of any standing
must at various times have sounded the gamut of human sensibility
from the lowest note to the top of its compass. He must have banqueted
often on curious food for thought as he meditated on the subtle
relations created between himself and his audiences, as they have
watched in his impersonations the shifting tariff--the ever gliding,
delicately graduated sliding-scale of dramatic right and wrong. He may
have gloated, if he be a cynic, over the depths of ghastly horror, or
the vagaries of moral puddle through which it may have been his
duty to plash. But if he be an honest man, he will acknowledge that
scarcely ever has either dramatist or management wilfully biassed the
effect of stage representation in favor of evil, and of his audiences
he will boast that never has their mind been doubtful--never has their
true perception of the generous and just been known to fail, or even
to be slow. How noble the privilege to work upon these finer--these
finest--feelings of universal humanity! How engrossing the fascination
of those thousands of steady eyes, and sound sympathies, and beating
hearts which an actor confronts, with the confidence of friendship
and co-operation, as he steps upon the stage to work out in action
his long-pent comprehension of a noble master-piece! How rapturous the
satisfaction of abandoning himself, in such a presence and with such
sympathizers, to his author's grandest flights of thought and noblest
bursts of emotional inspiration! And how perpetually sustaining
the knowledge that whatever may be the vicissitudes and even the
degradations of the stage, it must and will depend for its constant
hold on the affection and attention of mankind upon its loftier work;
upon its more penetrating passion; upon its themes which most deeply
search out the strong affections and high hopes of men and women;