428 Mr. Henry Irving on Acting : an Art. [Feb. 1, 



delicate and endless variety which an executant alone can give to 

 pass as an artless labour? But if the term artist as applied to 

 music be not a limitation to the composer, wherein does the inter- 

 preter of written music symbols, who can convey their meaning 

 through quite another sense, differ from the actor, who is also an 

 interpreter of written symbols, but of more infinite complexity, and 

 with ever-varying hidden depth ? If the actor's words and motions 

 go forth upon the empty air artless, what becomes of the sweet vibra- 

 tions of the musician's art ? and if the interpreter of the composer's 

 scrip be an artist, whosoever may be the medium of his creating the 

 necessary vibrations by any work of man's hands, how much more 

 artist is the singer who uses that most complete and capable instru- 

 ment — the human voice. Grant the singer to be an artist, then where 

 is the point of difference from the actor, who, also with endless modula- 

 tions of voice, has to convey the myriad phases of thought and passion ? 



" The actor's effort is primarily to reproduce the ideas of the 

 author's brain, to give them form, and substance, and colour, and life, 

 so that those who behold the action of a play may, so far as can 

 be effected, be lured into the fleeting belief that they behold reality." 



Truly the actor's work embraces all the arts. He must first have 

 the gift or faculty of acting — a power which is as much a gift as 

 that of power to paint or to mould — and whose ordered or regulated 

 expression is the function of art. His sympathy must then realise 

 to himself the imago in the poet's mind, and by the exercise of his 

 art use his natural powers to the best advantage. His form and 

 emotions are, in common with the sculptor's work, graceful and pur- 

 poseful ; his appearance and expression, heightened by costume and 

 pictorial preparation, are in common with the work of the painter, 

 and wrought in a certain degree by the same means and to the same 

 ends : his speaking is in common with the efforts of the musician — 

 to arouse the intelligence by the vibrations and modulations of 

 organised sound. Was it by chance, or inspiration, or out of the 

 experience of a life amongst the arts that the poet Campbell wrote : 



" How ill can Poetry express 



Full many a tone of thought sublime ; 

 And Painting, mute and motionless, 

 Steals but a glance of time ; , 



" But by the mighty Actor wrought 

 Illusion's perfect triumph's come ; 

 Verse ceases to be airy thought, 

 And Sculpture to be dumb." 



Acting may be evanescent, it may work in the media of common 

 nature, it may be mimetic like the other arts, it may not create, 

 any more than does the astronomer or the naturalist, but it can live, 

 and can add to the sum of human knowledge, in the ever-varying 

 study of man's nature by man, and its work can, like the six out 

 of the seven wonders of the world, exist as a great memory. 



[H. I.] 



