I'

F Mrs. Fiske were ever to take herself

so seriously as to write a book on the art to which she has somewhat begrudgingly given the greater part of her life, I am sure she would call it "The Science of Acting." Let every one else from George Henry Lewes to Henry Irving make utterance on "The Art of Acting"; hers would be on the science.

It was one glittering Sunday afternoon last autumn that I attempted to explore the psychology of that preference. We had been strolling through Greenwich Village in quest, for some mysterious and unconfided reasons of her own, of beautiful fanlights, and quite naturally we wound up at a small, inconspicuous Italian restaurant in Bleecker Street where certain wonderful dishes, from the antepasto to the zabaglione, may be had by the wise for little. Mrs. Fiske had stressed the word "science" with positive relish.

"I like it," she confessed. "I like to remind myself that there can be, that there is, a complete technic of acting. Great acting, of course, is a thing of the spirit; in its best estate a conveyance of certain abstract spiritual qualities, with the person of the actor as medium. It is with this medium our science deals, with its slow, patient perfection as an instrument. The eternal and immeasurable accident of the theater which you call genius, that is a matter of the soul. But with every genius I have seen-Janauschek, Duse, Irving, Terry-there was always the last word in technical proficiency. The inborn, mysterious something in these players can only inspire. It cannot be imitated. No school can make a Duse. But with such genius as hers has always gone a supreme mastery of the science of acting, a precision of performance so satisfying that it continually renews our hope and belief that acting can be taught.

"The science of acting," she went on, "is no term of mine. I first heard it used by the last person in the world you would ever associate with such a thought-Ellen Terry. It may be difficult to think of her indescribable iridescence in terms of exact technic, yet the first would have gone undiscovered without the second."

Undiscovered? Who shall say, then, how many mute and inglorious Duses have passed us in the theater unobserved for want of this very science? Mrs. Fiske would not say. For her own part, she

had detected none.

"As soon as I suspect a fine effect is being achieved by accident I lose interest," she confessed. "I am not interested, you see, in unskilled labor. An accident-that is it. The scientific actor is an even worker. Any one may achieve on some rare occasion an outburst of genuine feeling, a gesture of imperishable beauty, a ringing accent of truth; but your scientific actor knows how he did it. He can repeat it again and again and again. He can be depended on. Once he has thought out his rôle and found the means to express his thought, he can always remember the means. And just as Paderewski may play with a different fire on different nights, but always strikes the same keys, so the skilled actor can use himself as a finely keyed instrument and thereon strike what notes he will. With due allowance for the varying mood and interest, the hundredth performance is as good as the first; or, for obvious reasons, far better. Genius is the great unknown quantity. Technic supplies a constant for the problem."

And really that is all Mrs. Fiske cares about in the performances of others.

"Fluency, flexibility, technic, precision, virtuosity, science-call it what you will. Why call it anything? Watch Pavlowa

dance, and there you have it. She knows her business. She has carried this mastery to such perfection that there is really no need of watching her at all. You know it will be all right. One glance at her,

and you are sure. On most of our players one keeps an apprehensive eye, filled with dark suspicions and forebodingsforebodings based on sad experience. But I told Réjane once that a performance of hers would no sooner begin than I would feel perfectly free to go out of the theater and take a walk. I knew she could be trusted. It would be all right. There was no need to stay and watch."

"And how did she

bear up under that?" I asked.

"She laughed," said Mrs. Fiske, "and was proud, as of course she should have been. What greater compliment could have been paid her?"

And it is because of just this enthusiasm for the fine precision of performance that Mrs. Fiske la

my own acting, I have always been successful in teaching others to act.

"And how can I give him any assurance that he will encounter one of the half-dozen scattered directors likely to do

ments the utter lack in this country of anything approaching a national conservatory. To the youngster who comes to her hat in hand for advice she may talk airily and optimistically of "some good dramatic school."

"And when he reminds me that there is none," she said, "what can I tell him? How can I deny it? I have half a mind to start one myself. Seriously, I may some day. It is an old dream of mine, for while I have never particularly admired

him more good than harm? The young actors are pitched into the sea, poor children, and told to sink or swim. Many of them swim amazingly well. But how many potential Edwin Booths go to the bottom, unchronicled and unsung? Though I suppose," she added thoughtfully, "that a real Booth would somehow make his way. Of course he would."

and

But surely something could be done. In default of a real conservatory much chance of a helpful director, what then? In order to find out, I brought from his place at a near-by table an ingratiating, but entirely hypothetical, youth, made a place for him at ours, and presented him as one who was about to go on the stage.

"Here he is," I said, "young, promising, eager to learn this science of yours. What have you to tell him? What is the first thing to be considered?"

Mrs. Fiske eyed the imaginary newcomer critically, affected, with a start, to recognize him, and then quite beamed upon him.

"Dear child," she said, "consider your voice; first, last, and always your voice. It is the beginning and the end of acting. Train that till it responds to your thought

and purpose with absolute precision. Go at once, this very evening, my child, to some master of the voice, and, if need be, spend a whole year with him studying the art of speech. Learn it now, and practise it all your days in the theater."

"Pantomime," I suggested, "fencing, riding-"

"All these things, to be sure," she agreed with less ardor of conviction; "everything that makes for health, everything that makes for the fine person. Fresh air, for instance-fresh air though you madden to murderous fury all the stuffy people in the coach or room with you. But above all, the voice."

"Mr. Lewes hazards the theory that Shakspere could not have had a good voice," I reminded her. "Everything else that makes the great actor we know he had, and yet we never heard of him as such."

"And we would have," Mrs. Fiske approved. "It must have been the voice; it must have been. One would be tempted to say that with the voice good and perfectly trained, our young friend here might forget all the rest. It would take care of itself," she assured him. "And such a nicely calculated science it is! Just let me give you an illustration. You are to utter a cry of despair. You could do that? Are you sure it would sound perceptibly different from the cry of anguish? Do they seem alike? They are utterly different. See, this cry of despair must drop at the end, the inescapable suggestion of finality. The cry of anguish need not. They are entirely different sounds. And so it goes. Does it seem mechanical? Do these careful calculations seem belittling? They are of the science of acting. Only so can you master the instrument. And next your imagination."

"What," I asked, "must he do with his imagination?"

"Use it," said Mrs. Fiske, with mild surprise, while the postulant for dramatic honors eyed me scornfully. "With his voice perfectly trained, he can then go as far as his imagination. After all, an actor is exactly as big as his imagination.

"Most of us would put the imagination first in the actor's equipment. Miss Terry did, and I suppose I should. Knowledge of life, understanding, vision-these, of course, are his strength. By these is his stature to be measured-by these and his imagination. If I put the voice first, it is a little because that is something he can easily develop; because it is, after all, concerned with the science of acting; and because also," she added in a conspirator's stage-whisper obviously not intended for the imaginary ears of our young friend, "he is likely to forget its importance, and if we put it first, he will remember it longer. The all-important thing, then," she concluded, "is the voice."

I began to chuckle.

"What," she asked, "are you laughing

at?"

And I confessed to a vision of Mrs. Fiske discovering Diderot at his old trick of slipping quietly into a rear seat at the theater, covering his ears with his hands, and so, for his own greater enjoyment, transforming any performance into pantomime.

"What would you have done," I asked, "if you had come upon Diderot stopping up his ears?"

And

"Boxed them," said Mrs. Fiske. "The voice, then, and the imagination. be reflective. Think. Does this seem so obvious as to be scarcely worth saying? Let me tell you, dear child, that an appalling proportion of the young players who pass our way cannot have spent one really reflective hour since the stagedoor first closed behind them. I am sure they have n't. It would have left some trace. Why, the whole world may be the range of the actor's thoughts. I remember how delighted I was when I saw Duse quoted somewhere as saying that in her own art she had found most helpful and suggestive her studies in Greek architecture. That was so discerning and charming a thing to say that I'm afraid she did n't say it at all. But she should have.

"Be reflective, then, and stay away from the theater as much as you can. Stay out of the theatrical world, out of its petty

the infinitesimal struggles of the greenroom, all the worthless gossip of thedreadful word!-of the Rialto. Imagine a poet occupying his mind with, the manners and customs of other poets, their plans, their methods, their prospects, their personal or professional affairs, their successes, their failures! Dwell in this artificial world, and you will know only the externals of acting. Never once will you have a renewal of inspiration.

"The actor who lets the dust accumu

ionable quarters. Go into the day courts and the night courts. Become acquainted with sorrow, with many kinds of sorrow. Learn of the wonderful heroism of the poor, of the incredible generosity of the very poor-a generosity of which the rich and the well to do have, for the most part, not the faintest conception. Go into the modest homes, into the out-of-theway corners, into the open country. Go where you can find something fresh to bring back to the stage. It is as valuable

as youth unspoiled, as much better than the other thing as a lovely complexion is better than anything the rouge-pot can achieve.

"There should be, there must be, a window open somewhere, a current of new air ever blowing through the theater. I remember how earnestly I wanted to play Hedda Gabler, as though she had just driven up to the stage-door and had swept in not from the dressing-room, but out of the frosty night on to the stage. This you cannot do if you are forever jostling in the theatrical crowd. There you lose the blush of youth, the bloom of character. If as author, producer, director, or actor you become theatricalized, you are lost. The chance to do the fine thing may pass your way, but it is not for you. You cannot do it. You have been spoiled. You have spoiled yourself.

"It is in the irony of things that the theater should be the most dangerous place for the actor. But, then, after all, the world is the worst possible place, the most corrupting place, for the human soul. And just as there is no escape from the world, which follows us into the very heart of the desert, so the actor cannot escape the theater. And the actor who is a dreamer need not. All of us can only strive to remain uncontaminated. In the world we must be unworldly; in the theater the actor must be untheatrical.

"Stay by yourself, dear child. When a part comes to you, establish your own ideal for it, and, striving for that, let no man born of woman, let nothing under the heavens, come between it and you. Pay no attention to the other actors unless they be real actors. Like Jenny Wren, we know their tricks and their manners. Unless it is a bitter matter of bread and butter, pay no attention, or as little attention as possible, to the director, unless he is a real director. The chances are that he is wrong. The overwhelming chances are that he is 'theatricalized,' doing more harm than good. Do not let yourself be disturbed by his funny little ideas. Do not be corrupted, then, by the director. And above all"-and here Mrs. Fiske

summoned all her powers of gesture"above all, you must ignore the audience's very existence. Above all, ignore the audience."

I tried to interpret the baffled look in the no-longer scornful eyes of our hypothetical visitor.

"But can't he learn from them?" I protested in his behalf. "Can he not perfect. his work just by studying their pleasure and their response?"

"If you do that," said Mrs. Fiske, “you are lost forever. Then are you doomed indeed. Audiences, my friend, are variable, now quick, now slow, now cold, now warm. Sometimes they are like lovely violins, a beneficent privilege. Then you may be happy, but you must not count on it. An actor who is guided by the caprices of those across the footlights is soon in chaos. A great artist, a great pianist, say, must command the audience; no actor can afford to let the audience command him. He must be able to give as true a performance before three frigid persons as before a house packed to the brim with good-will. That is his business. Otherwise he is a helpless cork tossing on the

waves.

"I distrust from long and bitter experience the person in the theater who does all his work with one eye on the orchestra-circle. I could slay with pleasure the low type of stage-director who counts his curtain-calls like a gloating miser, and who is in the seventh heaven if a comic scene 'gets more laughs' to-night than it did last night. 'Getting laughs,' forsooth! How appropriately vulgar! See what an unspeakable vernacular that point of view employs! How demoralizing to the youth who comes to the theater bringing with him the priceless gift of his ideals!

"After all, a piece of acting is not only a thing of science, but a work of art, something to be perfected by the actor according to the ideal that is within him-within him. The painter does not work with his public at his side, the author does not write with his reader peering over his shoulder. The great actor must have as