Page:ONCE A WEEK JUL TO DEC 1860.pdf/380

 372 among the arts: and, in order to this, he should set his life by the laws of Nature, as his dial is set by the sun. Either may be clouded over: but neither can go wrong.

There remain Music and the Drama, scarcely separable as to their effect on the artist.

An actor may have no concern with music; but a great singer or instrumental performer exercises the faculties appropriate to the drama in the musical form of expression. The modes and conditions of life are nearly the same in the two branches of the profession. There are the same trying conditions of health, the same moral dangers, the same peculiar social circumstances: and therefore we may here consider them together.

To those who know the profession of public performer only from the outside, it seems that the singer or actor is always in circumstances dangerous to health, and yet lives on into old age, at least as often as other people. We hear of desperate fatigues, of constant dread of cold, of perilous excitements of mind and tension of nerves, so that we expect nothing short of fever, apoplexy, paralysis, or something as bad; and then, years after, we see the ancient favourite of the public driving about at leisure in a fine old age, and read the notice of his death at last, at long past the threescore years and ten. This is surely very remarkable. How can it be?

We hear of the life of the singer or actor as it is when the eyes of the public are upon it,—in the thick of the business of the year. We are apt to overlook the weeks (I fear I must not say months) during which the artist takes rest and makes holiday. The singer must exercise his voice for hours of every day;—the female artist, at least, says that she must: whereas the theatrical artist may, I suppose, dismiss work altogether during the holiday time. This annual interval given to repose, travel, rural quiet or seaside amusement, to family and friendly intercourse, reading, and as much sleep as comes naturally, does certainly recruit the forces of body and mind considerably. During the working months, the wear and tear must be prodigious. Unlike the painter, whose executive labour stops necessarily at sunset, and to whom the morning hours are therefore precious, the stage artist is in as heavy a sleep till near noon as the editor of a London daily newspaper. Till past midnight he is in a state of vivid excitement, on the nights of performance; and then he has to undergo the state of collapse before he can sleep. He has to put off his trappings, his paint, and his stage associations, and get into a new train before he is fit for sleep. One member of the profession I have known who had his own method of fitting himself for true repose. If he came home after midnight too much exhausted even to speak to wife or sister while having his tea, he was never unable to spend half an hour over his systematic Bible reading and habitual prayer before going to bed. He said it was the first part of his night’s rest. If people of all orders find it desirable to clear scores with the world and themselves in this way before they sleep, casting out passion, soothing down irritability, forgiving offences in others, and reconciling all within themselves, it is easy to imagine how eminently salutary the practice may be found in a profession which is supposed to abound beyond all others in irritations, collisions, and excitements.—After this, the sleep should be complete,—regulated by the need and not by the hour; for the hours after breakfast are wanted for study. It is not always so; but, unless the actor is playing the same character for a course of nights, he needs more or less study; and when he is preparing for a new or revived part, the study is very intense, and requires wide-awake faculties. When the great actor goes into his study, and shuts the double door, it is understood that he must not be interrupted. A glance at his own desk-copy of the play, with its broad margins, bearing an infinity of minute notes and marks, will show what intellectual exercise goes on upon that theme. As to the other preparation than that which goes on at the desk, I know nothing. The nearest approach to it which has come under my own observation was when I was staying in the same house with an American politician and much-applauded orator, who was to deliver as oration in a day or two. Others knew his habits better than I did, and were therefore less astonished, though perhaps not less amused, than I was, when, in the deepest stillness of the night, strains of oratory rang through the house, from the great man’s chamber. The rehearsal was of certain particular passages, the turns of which were repeated over and over again, till the effect of so planning such an amount of spontaneous emotion was ridiculous beyond measure. As the tones expressive of surprise, inquiry, or passion were practised patiently till the right gradation was obtained, the household lay laughing in their beds. There was no appearance of shame or misgiving the next morning; and, as the need of a big looking-glass in this gentleman’s room, whenever he was on u oratorical expedition, was known to his hostesses, it is probable that he was unconscious of anything absurd in his proceedings. But it was rather extravagant to expect us, on the grand occasion, to be thrilled, as he declared himself to be, with horror, amazement, grief, &c. Tones which had been heard so often over, under different circumstances, failed to thrill, and tears would not come at passages which had been laughed at for their cadence when the words could not be distinguished. My own impression certainly was that, if he felt enough on the particular occasion to be justified in speaking, he would have gained all desirable ends better by sleeping in the night, and trusting to his natural thoughts and feelings for his speech,—all the technical practice having been familiar to him from his youth.—In the actor’s case, the same kind of practice is a grave and respectable affair, free from all taint of ridicule. He has to deliver, not his own pretended thoughts and feelings of the moment, but the recognised art production of the tragic or comic poet; and what is hypocrisy in the orator, is his professional business. I must leave him at it, for how he transacts it I do not know.

Then there is the business at the theatre; among draughts and discomfort, and the mixed disgust and amusement caused by seeing the inside of the puppet-show,—the devices by which moving or