his body bent, his expression one in which anger and
revenge mingled; in effect, he was for the moment Amonasro.

"I have only made you see my mental concept of Amonasro. If I have once
thoroughly worked out a conception, made it my own, then it is mine. I
can create it at any moment. If I feel well and strong I can sing the
part now in the same way as I have always sung it, because my thought is
the same and thought produces. Whether I have a little more voice, or
less voice, what does it matter? I can never lose my conception of a
character, for it is in my mind, and mind projects it. So there is no
reason to lose the voice, for that also is in mind and can be thought
out at will.

"Suppose I have an opposite character to portray,--the elegant Don
Giovanni, for example"; and drawing himself up and wrapping an imaginary
cloak about him, with the old well-remembered courtly gesture, his face
and manner were instantly transformed at the thought of his favorite
character. He turned and smiled on us, his strong features lighted, and
his whole appearance expressed the embodiment of Mozart's hero.

"You see I must have lived, so to say, in these characters and made them
my own, or I could not recall them at a moment's notice. All
impersonation, to be artistic, to be vital, must be a part of one's
self; one must get into the character. When I sing Iago I am no longer
myself--I am another person altogether; self is quite forgotten; I am
Iago, for the time being.

"In Paris, at the Sorbonne, I gave a series of lectures; the first was
on this very subject, the identification of one's self with the
character to be portrayed. The large audience of about fifteen hundred,
contained some of the most famous among artists and men of letters"; and
Maurel, with hands clasped about his knee, gazed before him into space,
and we knew he was picturing in mental vision, the scene at the
Sorbonne, which he had just recalled.

After a moment, he resumed. "The singer, though trying to act out the
character he assumes, must not forget to _sing_. The combination of fine
singing and fine acting is rare. Nowadays people think if they can act,
that atones for inartistic singing; then they yield to the temptation
to shout, to make harsh tones, simply for effect." And the famous
baritone caricatured some of the sounds he had recently heard at an
operatic performance with such gusto, that a member of the household
came running in from an adjoining