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 inferiors in his art—­nay, it was by this that he set aside the old false method, and soared to the heights in which, as an artist, he reigned supreme.  Garrick personated and Kean personated.  The one had all the grace and mastery of the powers of man for the conveyance of ideas, the other had a mighty spirit which could leap out in flame to awe and sweep the souls of those who saw and heard him.  And the secret of both was that they best understood the poet—­best impersonated the characters which he drew, and the passions which he set forth.

In order to promote and preserve the idea of reality in the minds of the public, it is necessary that the action of the play be set in what the painters call the proper milieu, or atmosphere.  To this belongs costume, scenery, and all that tends to set forth time and place other than our own.  If this idea be not kept in view there must be, or at all events there may be, some disturbing cause to the mind of the onlooker.  This is all—­literally all—­that dramatic Art imperatively demands from the paint room, the wardrobe, and the property shop; and it is because the public taste and knowledge in such matters have grown that the actor has to play his part with the surroundings and accessories which are sometimes pronounced to be a weight or drag on action.  Suitability is demanded in all things; and it must, for instance, be apparent to all that the things suitable to a palace are different to those usual in a hovel.  There is nothing unsuitable in Lear in kingly raiment in the hovel in the storm, because such is here demanded by the exigencies of the play:  but if Lear were to be first shown in such guise in such a place with no explanation given of the cause, either the character or the stage-manager would be simply taken for a madman.  This idea of suitability should always be borne in mind, for it is in itself a sufficient answer to any thoughtless allegation as to overloading a play with scenery.