all its expressive power to the audience; and not only do I fall far short in my artistic interpretation, but because of that very failure, come off the stage with just so much nervous force wasted.  Certain as this law is, and infallible as are its effects, it is not only generally disbelieved, but it is seldom thought of at all.  I must feet Juliet in my heart, understand her with my mind, and let her vibrate clearly across my nerves, to the audience.  The moment I let my nerves be shaken as Juliet’s nerves were in reality, I am absorbing her myself, misusing nervous force, preparing to come off the stage thoroughly exhausted, and keeping her away from the audience.  The present low state of the drama is largely due to this failure to recognize and practise a natural use of the nervous force.  To work up an emotion, a most pernicious practice followed by young aspirants, means to work your nerves up to a state of mild or even severe hysteria.  This morbid, inartistic, nervous excitement actually trains men and women to the loss of all emotional control, and no wonder that their nerves play the mischief with them, and that the atmosphere of the stage is kept in its present murkiness.  The power to work the nerves up in the beginning finally carries them to the state where they must be more artificially urged by stimulants; and when the actor is off the stage he has no self-control at all.  This all means misused and over-used force.  In no schools is the general influence so absolutely morbid and unwholesome, as in most of the schools of elocution and acting.

The methods by which the necessity for artificial stimulants can be overcome are so simple and so pleasant and so immediately effective, that it is worth taking the time and space to describe them briefly.  Of course, to begin with, the body must be trained to perfect freedom in repose, and then to freedom in its use.  A very simple way of practising is to take the most relaxed attitude possible, and then, without changing it, to recite with all the expression that belongs to it some poem or selection from a play full of emotional power.  You will become sensitive at once to any new tension, and must stop and drop it.  At first, an hour’s daily practice will be merely a beginning over and over,—­the nervous tension will be. so evident,—­but the final reward is well worth working and waiting for.

It is well to begin by simply inhaling through the nose, and exhaling quietly through the mouth several times; then inhale and exhale an exclamation in every form of feeling you can think of Let the exclamation come as easily and freely as the breath alone, without superfluous tension in any part of the body.  So much freedom gained, inhale as before, and exhale brief expressive sentences,—­beginning with very simple expressions, and taking sentences that express more and more feeling as your freedom is better established.  This practice can be continued until you are able to recite the potion scene in Juliet, or any of Lady Macbeth’s most powerful speeches, with an case and freedom which is surprising.  This refers only to the voice; the practice which has been spoken of in a previous chapter brings the same effect in gesture.