... I should advise you to get to work; all ideal study of acting,
without the trial or opportunity of trying our efforts and conceivings
upon others, is, in my mind, lost time. Study while you act. Your
conception of character can be formed while you read your part, and
only practice can tell you whether you are right. You would, after a
year of study in your own room, come out unbenefited, save in as far
as self-communion ever must make us better and stronger; but this is
not what you want just now. Action is needed. Your vitality must in
some measure work itself off. You must suffer, labour, and wait,
before you will be able to grasp the true and the beautiful. You
dream of it now; the intensity of life that is in you, the spirit of
poetry which makes itself heard by you in indistinct language, needs
work to relieve itself and be made clear. I feel diffident about
giving advice to you, for you know your own nature better than any one
else can, but I should say to you, get to work in the best way you
can.
All your country work will be wretched; you will faint by the way; but
you must rouse your great strength and struggle on, bearing patiently
your cross on the way to your crown! God bless you and prosper your
undertakings. I know the country theatres well enough to know how
utterly alone you will be in such companies; but keep up a good heart;
we have only to do well what is given us to do, to find heaven.
I think if you have to wait for a while it will do you no harm. You
seem to me quite frantic for immediate work; but teach yourself quiet
and repose in the time you are waiting. With half your strength I
could bear to wait and labour with myself to conquer fretting. The
greatest power in the world is shown in conquest over self. More life
will be worked out of you by fretting than all the stage-playing in
the world. God bless you, my poor child. You have indeed troubles
enough; but you have a strong and earnest spirit, and you have the
true religion of labour in your heart. Therefore I have no fears for
you, let what will come. Let me hear from you at your leisure, and be
sure you have no warmer friend than I am and wish to be,...
I was exceedingly pleased to hear such an account of your first
appearance. You were quite right in all that was done, and I am
rejoiced at your success. Go on; persevere. You will be sure to do
what is right, for your heart is in the right place, your head is
sound, your reading has been good. Your mind is so much better and
stronger than any other person's whom I have known enter the
profession, that your career is plain before you.
But I will advise you to remain in your own native town for a season,
or at least the winter. You say you are afraid of remaining among
people who know you. Don't have this feeling at all. You will have
to be more particular in what you do, and the very feeling that you
cannot be indifferent to your audience will make you take more pains.
Beside this, you will be at home, which is much better for a time; for
then at first you do not have to contend with a strange home as well
as with a strange profession. I could talk to you a volume upon this
matter, but it is difficult to write. At all events I hope you will
take my counsel and remain at home this winter. It is the most
wretched thing imaginable to go from home a novice into such a theatre
as any of those in the principal towns.
Only go on and work hard, and you will be sure to make a good
position. With regard to your faults, what shall I say? Why, that
you will try hard to overcome them. I don't think they would be
perceived save by those who perhaps imagine that your attachment for
me has induced you to join the profession. I have no mannerisms, I
hope; therefore any imitation of me can only be in the earnest desire
to do what you can do, as well as you can. Write to me often; ask of
me what you will; my counsel is worth little, but you shall command it
if you need it.