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Untitled Article
them up , but the unfortunate wight who hus once essayed to act , and has failed , finds all resources shut against him . He is proscribed . If he goes to a lawyer and applies for the situation of clerk , the lawyer replies ,, * Oh ! you are the stage-struck young
man , and won ' t do for me . ' The merchant makes the same reply ; the chemist , the apothecary , the tradesman , the manufacturer ,, all are alike . There is a great hardship in this to the individual , and the public at large is a still greater sufferer . It cannot be doubted that amongst the educated classes of the community , the greatest chance exists of finding individuals suited for first-rate actors .
Amongst bankers' clerks , and the sons of thriving tradesmen , amongst lawyers and doctors , ay , and amongst churchmen , embryo actors may exist , just as probably as a Clive was found amongst the clerks of the India company ; and it is desirable that they should have the opportunity of trying their skill—if the spirit move them—without being subject to a cruel punishment in case
of failure , because their ambition had soared too high . It is like the ordeal of old , when a large reward was the price of success , and the pain of the burning ploughshares was followed by a lingering death of torture in case of failure . It would be well to get rid of the penalty . The failure , in attempting a walk of genius beyond a man ' s powers , is in itself a heavy punishment , and it ought to be considered sufficient . He has attemp ( ed no crime , and had he been successful , the public would have been greater
gainers than himself . When this ban shall be removed , the effect will be most advantageous ; for a number of inefficient actors will be removed from the sphere for which they are unfitted , the pressure of population will cease to press against the theatrical fund , and a larger supply of first-rate talent will be brought forward . Theatrical talent is more widely diffused than our present ignorance will allow us to believe . The spirit of acting is ambition and the love of excitement combined . Circumstances would
convert an excitable actor into a soldier , or sailor , or traveller , or chieftain , perchance to display as much skill and bravery , and energy , as those who were more legitimately trained . Walter Scott understood human nature , when he created Jack Bunce the pirate , out of the strolling player , who delighted in the alias of Frederic Altamont . The same spirit was stirring in both cases . The favourite amusement of the officers on board war ships while
at sea is acting plays , just as is the case with aspiring schoolboys . He who could enact—not mimic—the hero best , would of a surety find his enthusiasm stirred the strongest , while boarding an armed foe . The battle words of the play would instinctively become the battle words of the real fight , the slogan of ferocity , just as surely as John Kemble , in the feeling of acting reality , struck the pewter drinking vessel from the hands of his colleague behind the scenes , deeming that he dishonoured the Roman fame . The great Goethe was an enthusiastic lover of the drainu . J 3 ulwer makes Paul
Untitled Article
O / i Theatrical Reform . 559
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1833, page 559, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2620/page/47/
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