Hostess, clap to the doors; watch to-night, pray to-morrow, Gallants, lads, boys, hearts of gold, all the titles of good fellowship come to you! What, shall we be merry? Shall we have a play extempore? 21 Shakespeare: King Henry IV. Pt. i. Act ii. Sc. 4. Shakespeare: Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 2. William Winter: Response to the toast, The Visitors at the Green Room Club Dinner, London, Eng., June, 1888. The finest achievements in the art of acting, if they live at all as subjects of popular knowledge, must live as pictures in the memory. 24 William Winter: The Stage Life of Mary Anderson. ACTION Preface. see Purpose, Speech, Training, Truth. Given the love and the wisdom, life's code of action follows. 25 A. Bronson Alcott: Table Talk. 11. Enterprise. Action is but coarsened thought, thought become concrete, obscure, and unconscious. 26 Amiel Journal, Dec. 30, 1850. (Mrs. A perfect feeling eventuates in some form of action. Action is the right outlet of emotion. 27 Henry Ward Beecher: Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit. Poverty is a spur to action. 28 29 Bulwer-Lytton: Caxtoniana. Essay xxii. Actions of the last age are like almanacs of the last year. Sir John Denham: The Sophy. A Tragedy. Self-love is a principle of action; but among no class of human beings has Nature so profusely distributed this principle of life and action as through the whole sensitive family of genius. 30 Isaac Disraeli: Literary Character of Men of Activity Is contagious. 31 Emerson: Representative Men. Uses of Great Men. Every man feels instinctively that all the beautiful sentiments in the world weigh less than a single lovely action. Lowell: Rousseau and the Sentimentalists. No act, however long, is safe that does not match a thought that is still longer. 32 33 Parkhurst: Sermons. I. The Pattern in the Mount. Every human action gains in honor, in grace, in all true magnificence, by its regard to things that are to come. 34 Ruskin: The Seven Lamps of Architecture. Ch. 6. Strong reasons make strong actions. 35 Shakespeare: King John. Act iii. Sc. 4. Suit the action to the word, the word to the action. 36 Shakespeare: Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 2. Facility of action comes by habit. 37 Timothy Titcomb (J. G. Holland): Gold-Foil. In every scheme involving human action there are three elements always to be taken in account, -time, place, and Lew Wallace: Ben-Hur. Bk. v. Ch. i. (Letter). see Acting, Stage, The. Dramatic genius, annihilating the limitation of time and space, frames the seasons of its own harvest, hangs its Nemesis on the necks of events, and freights the very flash of its auguries with the rattling thunder-peals of their execution. 39 Parke Godwin: Address at the Reception of Henry Irving by the New York Goethe In the midst of the just enthusiasm which a great actor or actress excites, so long as they exist to minister to our delight; -in the midst of that atmosphere of light and life they shed around them, it is a common subject of repining that such glory should be so transient; that an art requiring in its perfection such a rare combination of mental and external qualities, can leave behind no permanent monument of its own excellence, but must depend on the other fine arts for all it can claini of immortality. 40 Mrs. Jameson: Sketches of Art, Literature, and Character. Pt. ii. Sec. iii. Dresden. Sketch of Fanny Kemble. Oh, there be players that I have seen play, and heard others praise, and that highly, not to speak it profanely, that neither having the accent of Christians, nor the gait of Christian, pagan, nor man, have so strutted and bellowed, that I have thought some of Nature's journeymen had made men, and not made them well, they imitated humanity so abominably. 41 Shakespeare: Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 2. The very age and body of the time, his form and pressure. 42 Shakespeare: Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 2. Though it make the unskilful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve. 43 Shakespeare: Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 2. Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue; but if you mouth it, as many of your players do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hands, thus, but use all gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say, the whirlwind of passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness. 44 Shakespeare: Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 2. Criticism... should be written for the public and not for the artist; and when I say the artist is wise to leave it unread, I do so because I conceive for him, in the conduct of his life, an ideal that far transcends all consideration of the press, - an ideal that makes his own conscience to be his tribunal, his love of art to be his inspiring impulse and sustaining cheer, and his sense of well-doing to be his sufficient reward. Humble and gentle, certainly, the true servant of art will ever be. But let him also be self-reliant when the emergency comes, proud in his conscious power, and satisfied in the knowledge that he has done his best. 45 William Winter: The Press and the Stage. Sec. 2. The ordinary actor can obtain no effect without labor for it, and even then it excites no ardor of responsive feeling. Genius, on the other hand, conquers instantly by its intrinsic charm. 46 William Winter: The Stage Life of Mary Anderson. Pauline. There is no richer or more abiding glory to be gained on earth than is secured in the exercise of ennobling influence upon humanity, and especially upon the development of the young; and this privilege is particularly within the reach of the actor. 47 William Winter: The Stage Life of Mary Anderson. Preface. ADAPTABILITY. The power of the laborer must be equal to the power required by his task, or his labor will conquer nothing. Set an ass to carry an elephant's burden, and his back will be broken. The man of few brains cannot do the work of the man of many brains. 48 J. G. Holland: Plain Talks on Familiar Subjects. 1. Self-Help. Every tree and shrub is a distaff for holding, and every twig a spindle for spinning, the material with which God invests it. 49 Timothy Titcomb (J. G. Holland): Gold-Foil. I. An Exordial Essay. ADEQUACY. It is by presence of mind in untried emergencies that the native metal of a man is tested. 50 Lowell: My Study Windows. Abraham Lincoln. ADMIRATION -see Reaction. Great men are still admirable; I say there is, at bottom, nothing else admirable. 51 Carlyle: Heroes and Hero Worship. Divinity. The Hero as No nobler feeling than this, of admiration for one higher than himself, dwells in the breast of man. It is to this hour, and at all hours, the vivifying influence in man's life. 52 Carlyle: Heroes and Hero Worship. The Hero as Divinity. There are charms made only for distant admiration. No spectacle is nobler than a blaze. 53 Johnson: Works. VII. 182. (Oxford edition, 1825.) We always like those who admire us: we do not always like those whom we admire. 54 La Rochefoucauld: Reflections. No. 294. Admiration is an art which we must learn. 55 George P. Upton: Memories. (Translated from the ADVANTAGE. Advantage is a better soldier than rashness. 56 ADVERSITY. Shakespeare: King Henry V. Act iii. Sc. 6. Adversity is sometimes hard upon a man; but for one man who can stand prosperity there are a hundred that will stand adversity. 57 Carlyle: Heroes and Hero Worship. Man of Letters. The Hero as The firmest friendships have been formed in mutual adversity, as iron is most strongly united by the fiercest flame. Colton: Lacon. 58 There is no education like adversity. 59 Disraeli (Earl of Beaconsfield): Endymion. Ch. 61. Prosperity is a great teacher; adversity is a greater. 60 Hazlitt: Sketches and Essays. On the Conversation of Lords. In the adversity of our best friends we always find something which is not wholly displeasing to us. 61 La Rochefoucauld: Reflections. No. 15. Great men often rejoice at crosses of fortune, just as brave soldiers do at wars. 62 Seneca: Of Providence. Bk. i. Ch. 4. (Stewart, Trans.) ADVERTISEMENTS. The great art in writing advertisements is the finding out a proper method to catch the reader's eye; without, a good thing may pass over unobserved, or be lost among commissions of bankrupt. 63 Addison: The Tatler. No. 224. ADVERTISEMENTS — ADVICE. 7 The advertisements in a newspaper are more full of knowledge in respect to what is going on in a State or community than the editorial columns are. 64 ADVICE Henry Ward Beecher: Proverbs from Plymouth Before giving advice we must have secured its acceptance, or, rather, have made it desired. 65 Amiel Journal, Dec. 29, 1871. (Mrs. Humphrey Ward, Translator.) The greatest trust between man and man is the trust of giving counsel; for in other confidences men commit the parts of life, their lands, their goods, their children, their credit, some particular affair; but to such as they make their counsellors they commit the whole; by how much the more they are obliged to all faith and integrity. 66 Bacon: Essays. Of Counsel. Good advice is one of those injuries which a good man ought, if possible, to forgive, but at all events to forget at once. 67 Paul Chatfield, M.D. (Horace Smith): The Tin We ask advice, but we mean approbation. 68 Colton: Lacon. Nobody can give you wiser advice than yourself; you will never err if you listen to your own suggestions. 69 Cicero: Ep. ii. 7. I do not like giving advice, because it is an unnecessary responsibility under any circumstances. 70 Disraeli (Earl of Beaconsfield): Speech, They that will not be counselled cannot be helped. 71 We may give advice, but we cannot give conduct. 72 Benjamin Franklin: Poor Richard's Almanac. Our friends are generally ready to do everything for us except the very thing we wish them to do. There is one thing in particular they are always disposed to give us, and which we are as unwilling to take, namely, advice. Hazlitt: Characteristics. No. 88. 73 The advice that is wanted is generally unwelcome, and that which is not wanted is evidently impertinent. 74 Johnson: Letters to and from the Late Samuel |