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The actor has to be observant of his playing, to regulate its 

 effects, his gestures, and his exclamations, to see that they are 

 correct, to keep his mind on the scene, to recollect his part. All 

 this critical work is incompatible with sincere emotion. When a 

 person is really moved, when he feels some great woe, while he 

 may indeed sink upon a chair as the actor does in the scene, he 

 does not keep watch of his attitude while falling or think how to 

 make it expressive and harmonious, but gives himself wholly up 

 to his trouble. 



The nine comedians whom I interrogated were unanimous in 

 declaring that Diderot's thesis can not be sustained, and that the 

 actor on the stage always feels, in some degree at least, the emo- 

 tions of his character. I have been told that other comedians are 

 of a contrary opinion the elder Coquelin professes not to feel 

 anything of the kind ; but I have not conversed with M. Coque- 

 lin, and can not verify this assertion. Madame Bartet, of the 

 Com^die Frangaise, says, in writing : " Certainly I feel the emo- 

 tions of the characters I represent, but by sympathy, not on my 

 own account. I am not, indeed, moved before my audience is, but 

 my emotion is of the same kind as theirs, and is only preceded by 

 it. The extent of the emotion varies on different days, and very 

 much according to my moral and physical condition ; and to feel 

 nothing, as happens sometimes, but rarely, is very depressing." 



Replies from other actors are to a like effect. M. Worms, of 

 the Com^die Frangaise, says that at certain periods when he is 

 playing scenes of passion or tenderness, the eyes of his comrade 

 are moistened, and that those who do not enter into sympathy 

 with their parts are generally themselves without feeling. M. 

 Mounet Sully and his brother Paul Mounet hold that the art of 

 the comedian consists in this very capability of realizing the emo- 

 tions of his part with the intensity of actual life; and that on 

 those days when he is without emotions he fails to attain the de- 

 sired power. The power of realization diminishes, however, if the 

 piece is repeated too many times in too rapid succession, as in M. 

 Paul Mounet's case after the fiftieth representation. 



It must be admitted that some actors, as, for instance, Sarah 

 Bernhardt, may become such virtuosos in their parts as to be- 

 come complete masters of their organisms, and produce the emo- 

 tions at will. 



The emotion of a part does not constitute all of it. A charac- 

 ter lives in a piece, mingles in its action, and has his interests, 

 ideas, and characteristics a personality, in short, the development 

 of which depends on the talent of the author. The actor who plays 

 a part, especially one who creates it, should undergo a metamor- 

 I)hosis, and forget his own personality for a few hours, to put on 

 a borrowed personality. Madame Bartet enters so thoroughly 



