his audience too often for
his art to fail him then. The leveled guns fell. The
audience was his. Another crown had fallen! By what? A trick
of the stage!

Was he willing to die then, to be shot by his old guard? Not
he! Did he doubt for one moment his ability as an actor? Not
he! If he had, he would have been lost. And that power to
control, that power to command, once it is possessed by a
man, means that that man can play his part anywhere, and
under all circumstances and conditions.

Unconsciously or consciously, every great man, every man who
has played a great part, has been an actor. Each man, every
man, who has made his mark has chosen his character, the
character best adapted to himself, and has played it, and
clung to it, and made his impress with it.

I have but to conjure up the figure of Daniel Webster, who
never lost an opportunity to act; or General Grant, who
chose for his model William of Orange, surnamed the Silent.
You will find every one of your most admired heroes choosing
early in life some admired hero of his own to copy. Who can
doubt that Napoleon had selected Julius Caesar?

Mr. Mansfield goes on to say that inspiration is a kind of hypnotism: a
good actor, playing the part of _Hamlet_, is for the time being Hamlet.
An old argument is reopened by this assertion. But where some of the great
actors have lost themselves in their characters, others have studied their
roles as apart from themselves, and have given, with complete control, the
results of their study. Doubtless the question which method is the better
art will never be settled to the entire satisfaction of every one.

ARE WE WORSHIPERS OF THE BIG DICTIONARY?

Professor Calvin Thomas Says We Revere
Usage Too Greatly--Old Dog Story
Bears Out the Facts of Charge.

The movement for simplified spelling has been attracting many men of mark
in literature and the professions. Notions of the strict sanctity of fixed
forms of spelling disappear in the light of the historical evidence which
the reformers are presenting.

Thus, it is pointed out that from the beginning our spelling has been
subject to changes so great that the young schoolboy of to-day cannot read
Chaucer without a vocabulary, even with the obsolete words eliminated.
Obsolete spellings are too much for him.

The Simplified Spelling Board has reprinted an address delivered before
the