Page:Shakespeare in the Class-Room, Weld, Shakespeariana, October 1886.djvu/5

Rh the personality of another, and so regarding myself as himself, I am to judge the case accordingly, and thus determine what is his due from me. "Love thy neighbor as thyself." "As ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so unto them." These are the dramatics of Christianity.

The universality of the dramatic instinct, and the strong tendency to act it out are seen in earliest childhood. Children almost as soon as they can totter, begin to go out of themselves. The boy turns into a dog and bow-wows—a cock, he flaps his wings and crows—a cow, he fetches a long drawn moo—a horse broke loose, he curvets, prances and kicks fearfully among his nursery blocks—a big bull, he waxes dangerous as he bellows and paws the carpet—a locomotive, he blows his steam whistle and dashes round the nursery with puffs and yells spasmodic, or taming down, sticks a feather in his cap and struts a soldier. The girl chirps and sings, a birdie, a dove, she coos—a lamb, she bleats—or a loving mother, she lullabies her sick baby doll as she rocks it to sleep. What mother upon answering tiny raps at her nursery door, has not seen entering there distinguished guests?—the teacher, the doctor, the squire, the minister, or their wives—next come world-wide travelers, and authors known to fame, gravely sifted in with peddlers, beggars, and gypsies, and with pomp and circumstance, Generals, Governors, Presidents, Kings and Queens, the Sultan, the Pope, the Grand Lama and the Great Mogul.

How much both of the happiness and development of childhood, thus wells up in spontaneous out-flow from the dramatic element. In this the child is but the father of the man. True, far less of it is seen in adults, the hard facts of the real strike down the ideal, while fashion, conventionality, fictitious standards, the general artificiality of society, tend to stifle that with every other spontaneity. In proportion as we identify ourselves with others we are all dramatic. Thus, entering into sympathy with their situations and states, we reproduce them in ourselves. In our tones, attitudes, gestures, and expressions of countenance, we unconsciously look, act, and seem like them.

Though the term dramatic faculty means the power by which one personates others, yet when analyzed, we find it identical with that by which we express our own thoughts and emotions. We are all when natural, and thoroughly in earnest, dramatic. One can personate others only so far, as he by his conception, passes into their life, making their sentiments and emotions, as well as their words his own, and, as such, expressing them. Thus, whether expressing in natural action one's own thoughts and feelings, or those excited by his conception of others, the relation of thought and feeling to action, is, in both the same. Consequently, every outacting of one's own mental states, becomes when natural and in earnest, dramatic. But besides this, the development of the dramatic faculty is invaluable, as an intellectual discipline. The process is itself an educator. It trains to