gesticulation, lest they become our masters instead of our servants.
These necessary but dangerous ingredients must be administered and
taken in homeopathic doses, or the patient may die by being
over-stimulated. But, even at the risk of being artificial, it is
better to have studied these arbitrary rules than to enter a
profession with no knowledge whatever of its mechanism. Dramatic
instinct is so implanted in humanity that it sometimes misleads us,
fostering the idea that because we have the natural talent within we
are equally endowed with the power of bringing it out. This is the
common error, the rock on which the histrionic aspirant is oftenest
wrecked. Very few actors succeed who crawl into the service through
the "cabin windows"; and if they do it is a lifelong regret with them
that they did not exert their courage and sail at first "before the
mast."

Many of the shining lights who now occupy the highest positions on the
stage, and whom the public voice delights to praise, have often
appeared in the dreaded character of omnes, marched in processions,
sung out of tune in choruses, and shouted themselves hoarse for Brutus
and Mark Antony.

If necessity is the mother of invention, she is the foster-mother of
art, for the greatest actors that ever lived have drawn their early
nourishment from her breast. We learn our profession by the
mortifications we are compelled to go through in order to get a
living.

The sons and daughters of wealthy parents who have money at their
command, and can settle their weekly expenses without the assistance
of the box office, indignantly refuse to lower themselves by assuming