Rewards. And, at the outset, let me say that I want you to judge the
stage at its best. I do not intend to suggest that only the plays
of Shakespeare are tolerable in the theatre to people of taste
and intelligence. The drama has many forms--tragedy, comedy,
historical-pastoral, pastoral-comical--and all are good when their aim
is honestly artistic.




II.

THE ART OF ACTING.


Now, what is the art of acting? I speak of it in its highest sense, as
the art to which Roscius, Betterton, and Garrick owed their fame. It
is the art of embodying the poet's creations, of giving them flesh and
blood, of making the figures which appeal to your mind's eye in the
printed drama live before you on the stage. "To fathom the depths of
character, to trace its latent motives, to feel its finest quiverings
of emotion, to comprehend the thoughts that are hidden under words,
and thus possess one's-self of the actual mind of the individual
man"--such was Macready's definition of the player's art; and to this
we may add the testimony of Talma. He describes tragic acting as "the
union of grandeur without pomp and nature without triviality." It
demands, he says, the endowment of high sensibility and intelligence.

"The actor who possesses this double gift adopts a course of study
peculiar to himself. In the first place, by repeated exercises, he