“When you come to tell old Surefoot about his daughter’s love,” the letter goes on, “you should fall into a positive imitation of his manner:  crest, motionless, and hands in front, and deliver your preambles with a nasal twang.  But at the second invitation to speak out, you should cast this to the winds, and go into the other extreme of bluntness and rapidity. [Quite right!] When you meet him after the exposure, you should speak as you are coming to him and stop him in mid-career, and then attack him.  You should also (in Act II.) get the pearls back into the tree before you say:  ’Oh, I hope he did not see me!’”

Yes, I remember that in both these places I used to muddle and blur the effect by doing the business and speaking at the same time.  By acting on Reade’s suggestion I gained confidence in making a pause.

“After the beating, wait at least ten seconds longer than you do—­to rouse expectation—­and when you do come on, make a little more of it.  You ought to be very pale indeed—­even to enter with a slight totter, done moderately, of course; and before you say a single word, you ought to stand shaking and with your brows knitting, looking almost terrible.  Of course, I do not expect or desire to make a melodramatic actress of you, but still I think you capable of any effect, provided it is not sustained too long.”

A truer word was never spoken.  It has never been in my power to sustain.  In private life, I cannot sustain a hatred or a resentment.  On the stage, I can pass swiftly from one effect to another, but I cannot fix one, and dwell on it, with that superb concentration which seems to me the special attribute of the tragic actress.  To sustain, with me, is to lose the impression that I have created, not to increase its intensity.

     “The last passage of the third act is just a little too hurried. 
     Break the line.  ‘Now, James—­for England and liberty!’”

I remember that I never could see that he was right about that, and if I can’t see a thing I can’t do it.  The author’s idea must become mine before I can carry it out—­at least, with any sincerity, and obedience without sincerity would be of small service to an author.  It must be despairing to him, if he wants me to say a line in a certain way, to find that I always say it in another; but I can’t help it.  I have tried to act passages as I have been told, just because I was told and without conviction, and I have failed miserably and have had to go back to my own way.

“Climax is reached not only by rush but by increasing pace.  Your exit speech is a failure at present, because you do not vary the pace of its delivery.  Get by yourself for one half-hour—­if you can!  Get by the seaside, if you can, since there it was Demosthenes studied eloquence and overcame mountains—­not mole-hills like this.  Being by the seaside, study those lines by themselves:  ’And then let them find their young gentleman, and find him quickly, for London shall not hold me long—­no, nor England either.’

     “Study to speak these lines with great volubility and fire, and
     settle the exact syllable to run at.”