It will be readily seen that this power once gained, no actor would find it necessary to skip every other night, in consequence of the severe fatigue which follows the acting of an emotional role.  Not only is the physical fatigue saved, but the power of expression, the power for intense acting, so far as it impresses the audience, is steadily increased.

The inability of young persons to express an emotion which they feel and appreciate heartily, can be always overcome in this way.  Relaxing frees the channels, and the channels being open the real poetic or dramatic feeling cannot be held back.  The relief is as if one were let out of prison.  Personal faults that come from self-consciousness and nervous tension may be often cured entirely without the necessity of drawing attention to them, simply by relaxing.

Dramatic instinct is a delicate perception of, quick and keen sympathies for, and ability to express the various phases of human nature.  Deep study and care are necessary for the best development of these faculties; but the nerves must be left free to be guided to the true expression,—­neither allowed to vibrate to the ecstatic delight of the impressions, or in mistaken sympathy with them, but kept clear as conductors of all the heart can feel and the mind understand in the character or poem to be interpreted.

This may sound cold.  It is not; it is merely a process of relieving superfluous nervous tension in acting, by which obstructions are removed so that real sympathetic emotions can be stronger and fuller, and perceptions keener.  Those who get no farther than emotional vibrations of the nerves in acting, know nothing whatever of the greatness or power of true dramatic instinct.

There are three distinct schools of dramatic art,—­one may be called dramatic hysteria, the second dramatic hypocrisy.  The first means emotional excitement and nervous exhaustion; the second artificial simulation of a feeling.  Dramatic sincerity is the third school, and the school that seems most truly artistic.  What a wonderful training is that which might,—­which ought to be given an actor to help him rise to the highest possibility of his art!

A free body, exquisitely responsive to every command of the mind, is absolutely necessary; therefore there should be a perfect physical training.  A quick and keen perception to appreciate noble thoughts, holding each idea distinctly, and knowing the relations of each idea to the others, must certainly be cultivated; for in acting, every idea, every word, should come clearly, each taking its own place in the thought expressed.

Broad human sympathies, the imaginative power of identifying himself with all phases of human nature, if he has an ideal in his profession above the average, an actor cannot lack.  This last is quite impossible without broad human charity; for “to observe truly you must sympathize with those you observe, and to sympathize with them you must love them, and to love them you must forget yourself.”  And all these requisites—­the physical state, the understanding, and the large heart—­seem to centre in the expression of a well-trained voice,—­a voice in which there is the minimum of body and the maximum of soul.