1893.] on the Imaginative Faculty. 123 



necessary condition under which he works ; he cannot, like the poet 

 or the painter, choose his mood — he is the slave of the moment. 

 Under what disadvantages would a painter work if his patron were 

 standing at his elbow watching each stroke of his brush. 



It is only when the mind of the actor is emancipated from the 

 trammels of his surroundings that his imagination is allowed full 

 play. The nervousness which afflicts him in his first performance of 

 a new role will often paralyse his imagination ; though it is true that 

 the dependence on this imaginative faculty varies in individuals. . . . 



I have endeavoured to show how the imaginative faculty in acting 

 may be cramped by self-consciousness, and how susceptible it is to 

 social and other influences which surround the life of the artist. In 

 the same way it is also susceptible of infinite cultivation if left to its 

 own devices. I am willing to admit that every artist works according 

 to his own method ; but I maintain that that art is likely to produce 

 the greatest effect which is least reliant on what are called the canons 

 of art, that is to say, that art which springs spontaneously from the 

 yielding up of the artist to his imagination. I have known actors 

 who frequently arrive at many of their best effects through patient 

 study ; indeed, I believe, great actors have been known to study each 

 gesture before a looking-glass. This seems to me, nevertheless, a 

 mistaken system, and one certainly which would be destructive to the 

 effects of those who prefer to rely on the mood of the moment. 

 Another aspect of our art which has of late been much debated is, 

 whether it is desirable that the actor should or should not sink his 

 individuality in the part he is playing ; whether, in fact, the actor 

 should be absorbed in his work, or the work be absorbed in the actor. 

 It seems to me, in spite of all that certain writers are never tired of 

 dinning into our ears, that the higher aim of the artist is to so project 

 his imagination into the character he is playing that his own indi- 

 viduality becomes merged in his assumption. This indeed seems to 

 me the Yery essence of the art of acting. I remember that when I 

 first went upon the stage, I was told that to obtain any popular 

 success, an actor must be always himself, that the public even like to 

 recognise the familiar voice before he appears on the scene, that he 

 should, if possible, confine himself to what was called " one line of 

 business," and that he should seek to cultivate a certain mannerism 

 whKh should be the badge of his individuality. It seems to me that 

 this is an entirely erroneous and mischievous doctrine Indeed, I 

 will go so far as to maintain that the highest expression in every 

 branch of art has always been the impersonal. The greatest artist 

 that ever lived was the most impersonal, he was the most impersonal 

 because the most imaginative. I mean our own Shakespeare. Where 

 do we find him in his work? The spirit, the style everywhere — but 

 the man ? nowhere — except in the sense le style cest Vhomme. Take 

 ' Othello,' for instance, the finest perhaps of all his stage-plays. If 

 we think we have found him in the noble outbursts of the Moor, in 

 the over-mastering passion of the simple-minded warrior, we lose him 



