TALMA ON THE ACTORS ART 89 



think that here Talma has confused or blended two very different 

 faculties under one name. To feel and to express were one to 

 the great actor, but the vast majority of mankind is, we think, 

 denied the gift of expressing emotion. And here it seems to us 

 that Talma misses the very point which distinguishes the actor 

 from other artists. All artists must have this sensibility he 

 demands, but the form which each naturally employs to express 

 his emotion determines whether he shall be author, painter, 

 musician, or actor. Under the influence of this i exaltation ' the 

 actor finds the tone, the look, the gesture required to express 

 the feeling with which he is inspired, and this gift is, to some 

 extent, possessed by all actors who can earn their bread. This 

 is the faculty which is trained by stage practice. And here we 

 may again refer for support to ' Notes on some of Shakespeare's 

 Plays,' by F. A. Kemble. Speaking with the authority of 

 tradition in a great family, she says, ' There is a specific compre- 

 hension of effect and the means of producing it, which in some 

 persons is a distinct capacity, and this forms what actors call 

 the study of their profession.' And although Talma mixed up 

 expression and feeling when endeavouring in a brief way to write 

 an analytical account of his own art, he takes precisely this view 

 of study. Here is his method. ' The actor who possesses this 

 double gift ' (sensibility and intelligence) ' adopts a course of 

 study peculiar to himself. In the first place, by repeated exer- 

 cises he enters deeply into the emotions, and his speech acquires 

 the accent proper to the situation of the personage he has to 

 represent. This done, he goes to the theatre not only to give 

 theatrical effect to his studies, but also to yield himself to the 

 spontaneous flashes of his sensibility and all the emotions which 

 it voluntarily produces in him. What does he then do ? In 

 order that his inspirations may not be lost, his memory, in the 

 silence of repose, recalls the accent of his voice, the expression 

 of his features, his action in a word, the spontaneous workings 

 of his mind which he had supposed to have free course, and, in 

 effect, everything which in the moments of his exaltation con- 

 tributed to the effect he had produced. His intelligence thus 

 passes all these means in review, connecting them and fixing 

 them in his memory, to re-employ them at pleasure in succeeding 

 representations.' This passage expresses better than anything 



