that the pain he suffers is not real pain, but I leave it to any one
who has ever felt his own heart touched by the woes of another to say
if he can even imagine a case where the man who follows in minutest
detail the history of an emotion, from its inception onward, is the
only one who cannot be stirred by it--more especially when his own
individuality must perforce be merged in that of the archetypal
sufferer. Talma knew that it was possible for an actor to feel to the
full a simulated passion, and yet whilst being swept by it to retain
his consciousness of his surroundings and his purpose. In his own
words--"The intelligence accumulates and preserves all the creations
of sensibility." And this is what Shakespeare means when he makes
Hamlet tell the players--"for in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I
may say, whirlwind of your passion, you must beget a temperance that
may give it smoothness."

How can any one be temperate in the midst of his passion, lest it be
that his consciousness and his purpose remain to him? Let me say that
it is this very discretion which marks the ultimate boundary of an
Art, which stands within the line of demarcation between Art and
Nature. In Nature there is no such discretion. Passion rules supreme
and alone; discretion ceases, and certain consequences cease to be any
deterrent or to convey any warning. It must never be forgotten that
all Art has the aim or object of seeming and not of being; and that to
understate is as bad as to overstate the modesty or the efflorescence
of Nature. It is not possible to show within the scope of any Art the
entire complexity and the myriad combining influences of Nature.
The artist has to accept the conventional standard--the accepted
significance--of many things, and confine himself to the exposition of
that which is his immediate purpose. To produce the effect of reality
it is necessary, therefore, that the efforts of an artist should be