the art of mimicry, or the representation of feigned emotions called
up by sham situations, is, in itself, an occupation an educated man
should be slow to adopt as the profession of a life.

I believe--for we should give the world as well as the devil its due--
that it is to a feeling, a settled persuasion of this sort, lying
deeper than the surface brutalities and snobbishnesses visible to all,
that we must attribute the contempt, seemingly so cruel and so
ungrateful, the world has visited upon actors.

I am no great admirer of beards, be they never so luxurious or glossy,
yet I own I cannot regard off the stage the closely shaven face of an
actor without a feeling of pity, not akin to love. Here, so I cannot
help saying to myself, is a man who has adopted a profession whose
very first demand upon him is that he should destroy his own identity.
It is not what you are, or what by study you may become, but how few
obstacles you present to the getting of yourself up as somebody else,
that settles the question of your fitness for the stage. Smoothness of
face, mobility of feature, compass of voice--these things, but the
toys of other trades, are the tools of this one.

Boswellites will remember the name of Tom Davies as one of frequent
occurrence in the great biography. Tom was an actor of some repute,
and (so it was said) read 'Paradise Lost' better than any man in
England. One evening, when Johnson was lounging behind the scenes at
Drury (it was, I hope, before his pious resolution to go there no
more), Davies made his appearance on his way to the stage in all the
majesty and millinery of his part. The situation is picturesque. The
great and dingy Reality of the eighteenth century, the Immortal, and
the bedizened little player. 'Well, Tom,' said the great man (and this