en his own
individuality must perforce be merged in that of the archetypal
sufferer. Talma knew that it was possible for an actor to feel to the
full a simulated passion, and yet whilst being swept by it to retain
his consciousness of his surroundings and his purpose. In his own
words--"The intelligence accumulates and preserves all the creations
of sensibility." And this is what Shakespeare means when he makes
Hamlet tell the players--"for in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I
may say, whirlwind of your passion, you must beget a temperance that
may give it smoothness."

How can any one be temperate in the midst of his passion, lest it be
that his consciousness and his purpose remain to him? Let me say that
it is this very discretion which marks the ultimate boundary of an
Art, which stands within the line of demarcation between Art and
Nature. In Nature there is no such discretion. Passion rules supreme
and alone; discretion ceases, and certain consequences cease to be any
deterrent or to convey any warning. It must never be forgotten that
all Art has the aim or object of seeming and not of being; and that to
understate is as bad as to overstate the modesty or the efflorescence
of Nature. It is not possible to show within the scope of any Art the
entire complexity and the myriad combining influences of Nature.
The artist has to accept the conventional standard--the accepted
significance--of many things, and confine himself to the exposition of
that which is his immediate purpose. To produce the effect of reality
it is necessary, therefore, that the efforts of an artist should be
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 inferi