slightly different from the actions of real life. The perspective
of the stage is not that of real life, and the result of seeming
is achieved by means which, judged by themselves, would seem to be
indirect. It is only the raw recruit who tries to hit the bull's-eye
by point-blank firing, and who does not allow for elevation and
windage. Are we to take it for a moment, that in the Art of Acting,
of which elocution is an important part, nothing is to be left to the
individual idea of the actor? That he is simply to declaim the words
set down for him, without reference to the expression of his face,
his bearing, or his action? It is in the union of all the powers--the
harmony of gait and utterance and emotion--that conviction lies.
Garrick, who was the most natural actor of his time, could not declaim
so well as many of his own manifest inferiors in his art--nay, it
was by this that he set aside the old false method, and soared to the
heights in which, as an artist, he reigned supreme. Garrick personated
and Kean personated. The one had all the grace and mastery of the
powers of man for the conveyance of ideas, the other had a mighty
spirit which could leap out in flame to awe and sweep the souls of
those who saw and heard him. And the secret of both was that they best
understood the poet--best impersonated the characters which he drew,
and the passions which he set forth.

In order to promote and preserve the idea of reality in the minds of
the public, it is necessary that the action of the play be set in what
the painters call the proper _milieu_, or atmosphere. To this belongs
costume, scenery, and all that tends to set forth time and place other
than our own. If this idea be not kept in view there must be, or at
all events there may be, some disturbing cause to the mind of the
onlooker. This is all--literally all--that dramatic Art imperatively
demands from the paint room, the wardrobe, and the property shop;