I remember that Reade, with characteristic generosity, gave me ten pounds and sent me to the seaside in earnest, as he suggests my doing, half in fun, in the letter.  “I know you won’t go otherwise,” he said, “because you want to insure your life or do something of that sort.  Here! go to Brighton—­go anywhere by the sea for Sunday!  Don’t thank me!  It’s all for Philippa.”

As I read these notes of his on anti-climax, monotony of pace, and all the other offenses against scientific principles of acting which I committed in this one part, I feel more strongly than ever how important it is to master these principles.  Until you have learned them and practiced them you cannot afford to discard them.  There is all the difference in the world between departure from recognized rules by one who has learned to obey them, and neglect of them through want of training or want of skill or want of understanding.  Before you can be eccentric you must know where the circle is.

This is accepted, I am told, even in shorthand, where the pupil acquires the knowledge of a number of signs, only for the purpose of discarding them when he is proficient enough to make an individual system.  It is also accepted in music, where only the advanced pianist or singer can afford to play tricks with tempo.  And I am sure it should be accepted in acting.

Nowadays acting is less scientific (except in the matter of voice-production) than it was when I was receiving hints, cautions, and advice from my two dramatist friends, Charles Reade and Tom Taylor; and the leading principles to which they attached importance have come to be regarded as old-fashioned and superfluous.  This attitude is comparatively harmless in the interpretation of those modern plays in which parts are made to fit the actors and personality is everything.  But those who have been led to believe that they can make their own rules find their mistake when they come to tackle Shakespeare or any of the standard dramatists in which the actors have to fit themselves to the parts.  Then, if ever, technique is avenged!

All my life the thing which has struck me as wanting on the stage is variety.  Some people are “tone-deaf,” and they find it physically impossible to observe the law of contrasts.  But even a physical deficiency can be overcome by that faculty for taking infinite pains which may not be genius but is certainly a good substitute for it.

When it comes to pointing out an example, Henry Irving is the monument, the great mark set up to show the genius of will.  For years he worked to overcome the dragging leg, which seemed to attract more attention from some small-minded critics (sharp of eye, yet how dull of vision!) than all the mental splendor of his impersonations.  He toiled, and he overcame this defect, just as he overcame his disregard of the vowels and the self-consciousness which in the early stages of his career used to hamper and