inclined to the mistaken way of working, asked her to lie on the
floor where she could give up entirely to the force of
gravity,--then after helping her to a certain amount of passivity,
so that at least she looked quiet, have asked her to give me a list
of her lessons. Before opening her mouth to answer, she moved in
little nervous twitches, apparently every muscle in her body, from
head to foot. I stopped her, took time to bring her again to a quiet
state, and then repeated the question. Again the nervous movement
began, but this time the child exclaimed, "Why, isn't it funny? I
cannot think without moving all over!" Here was the Rubicon crossed.
She had become alive to her own superfluous tension; and after that
to train her not only to think without moving all over, but to
answer questions easily and quietly and so with more expression, and
then to study with greatly decreased effort, was a very pleasant
process.
Every boy and girl should have this training to a greater or less
degree. It is a steady, regular process, and should be so taken. We
have come through too many generations of misused force to get back
into a natural use of our powers in any rapid way; it must come step
by step, as a man is trained to use a complicated machine. It seems
hardly fair to compare such training to the use of a machine,--it
opens to us such extensive and unlimited power. We can only make the
comparison with regard to the first process of development.
A training for concentration of mind should begin with the muscles.
First, learn to withdraw the will from the muscles entirely. Learn,
next, to direct the will over the muscles of one arm while the rest
of the body is perfectly free and relaxed,--first, by stretching the
arm slowly and steadily, and then allowing it to relax; next, by
clinching the fist and drawing the arm up with all the force
possible until the elbow is entirely bent. There is not one person
in ten, hardly one in a hundred, who can command his muscles to that
slight extent. At first some one must lift the arm that should be
free, and drop it several times while the muscles of the other arm
are contracting; that will make the unnecessary tension evident.
There are also ways by which the free arm can be tested without the
help of a second person.
The power of directing the will over various muscles that should be
independent, without the so-called sympathetic contraction of other
muscles, should be gained all over the body. This is the beginning
of concentration in a true sense of the word. The necessity for
returning to an absolute freedom of body before directing the will
to any new part cannot be too often impressed upon the mind. Having
once "sensed" a free body--so to speak--we are not masters until we
gain the power to return to it at a moment's notice. In a second we
can "erase previous impressions" for the time; and that is the
foundation, the rock, upon which our house is built.
Then follows the process of learning to think and to speak in
freedom. First, as to useless muscular contractions. Watch children
work their hands when reciting in class. Tell them to stop, and the
poor things will, with great effort, hold their hands rigidly still,
and suffer from the discomfort and strain of doing so. Help them to
freedom of body, then to the sense that the working of their hands
is not really needed, and they will learn to recite with a feeling
of freedom which is better than they can understand. Sometimes a
child must be put on the floor to learn to think quietly and
directly, and to follow the same directions in this manner of
answering. It would be better if this could always be done with
thoughtful care and watching; but as this would be inappropriate
with large classes, there are quieting and relaxing exercises to be
practised sitting and standing, which will bring children to a
normal freedom, and help them to drop muscular contractions which
interfere with ease and control of thought and expression. Pictures
can be described,--scenes from Shakespeare, for instance,--in the
child's own words, while making quiet motions. Such exercise
increases the sensitiveness to muscular contraction, and unnecessary
muscular contraction, beside something to avoid in itself, obviously
makes thought _indirect._ A child must think quietly, to express his
thought quietly and directly. This exercise, of course, also
cultivates the imagination.
In all this work, as clear channels are opened for impression and
expression, the faculties themselves naturally have a freer growth.
The process of quiet thought and expression must be trained in all
phases,--from the slow description of something seen or imagined or
remembered, to the quick and correct answer required to an example
in mental arithmetic, or any other rapid thinking. This, of course,
means a growth in power of attention,--attention which is real
concentration, not the strained attention habitual to most of us,
and which being abnormal in itself causes abnormal reaction. And
this natural attention is learned in the use of each separate
sense,--to see, to hear, to taste, to smell, to touch with quick and
exact impression and immediate expression, if required, and a in
obedience to the natural law of the conservation of human energy.
With the power of studying freely, comes that of dropping a lesson
when it is once well learned, and finding it ready when needed for
recitation or for any other use. The temptation to take our work
into our play is very great, and often cannot be overcome until we
have learned how to "erase all previous impressions." The
concentration which enables us all through life to be intent upon
the one thing we are doing, whether it is tennis or trigonometry,
and drop what we have in hand at once and entirely at the right
time, free to give out attention fully to the next duty or pleasure,
is our saving health in mind and body. The trouble is we are afraid.
We have no trust. A child is afraid to stop thinking of a lesson
after it is learned,--afraid he will forget it. When he has once
been persuaded to drop it, the surprise when he takes it up again,
to find it more clearly impressed upon his mind, is delightful. One
must trust to the digestion of a lesson, as to that of a good
wholesome dinner. Worry and anxiety interfere with the one as much
as with the other. If you can drop a muscle when you have ceased
using it, that leads to the power of dropping a subject in mind; as
the muscle is fresher for use when you need it, so the subject seems
to have grown in you, and your grasp seems to be stronger when you
recur to it.
The law of rhythm must be carefully followed in this training for
the use of the mind. Do not study too long at a time. It makes a
natural reaction impossible. Arrange the work so that lessons as far
unlike as possible may be studied in immediate succession. We help
to the healthy reaction of one faculty, by exercising another that
is quite different.
This principle should be inculcated in classes, and for that purpose
a regular programme of class work should be followed, calculated to
bring about the best results in all branches of study.
The first care should be to gain quiet, as through repose of mind
and body we cultivate the power to "erase all previous impressions."
In class, quiet, rhythmic breathing, with closed eyes, is most
helpful for a beginning. The eyes must be closed and opened slowly
and gently, not snapped together or apart; and fifty breaths, a
little longer than they would naturally be, are enough to quiet a
class. The breaths must be counted, to keep the mind from wandering,
and the faces must be watched very carefully, for the expression
often shows anything but quiet. For this reason it is necessary, in
initiating a class, to begin with simple relaxing motions; later
these motions will follow the breathing. Then follow exercises for
directing the muscles. The force is directed into one arm with the
rest of the body free, and so in various simple exercises the power
of directing the will only to the muscles needed is cultivated.
After the muscle-work, the pupils are asked to centre their minds
for a minute on one subject,--the subject to be chosen by some
member, with slight help to lead the choice to something that will
be suggestive for a minute's thinking. At first it seems impossible
to hold one subject in mind for a minute; but the power grows
rapidly as we learn the natural way of concentrating, and instead of
trying to hold on to our subject, allow the subject to hold us by
refusing entrance to every other thought. In the latter case one
suggestion follows another with an ease and pleasantness which
reminds one of walking through new paths and seeing on every side
something fresh and unexpected. Then the class is asked to think of
a list of flowers, trees, countries, authors, painters, or whatever
may be suggested, and see who can think of the greatest number in
one minute. At first, the mind will trip and creak and hesitate over
the work, but with practice the list comes steadily and easily. Then
follow exercises for quickness and exactness of sight, then for
hearing, and finally for the memory. All through this process, by
constant help and suggestion, the pupils are brought to the natural
concentration. With regard to the memory, especial care should be
taken, for the harm done by a mechanical training of the memory can
hardly be computed. Repose and the consequent freedom of body and
mind lead to an opening of all the faculties for better use; if that
is so, a teacher must be more than ever alive to lead pupils to the
spirit of all they are to learn, and make the letter in every sense
suggestive of the spirit. First, care should be taken to give
something worth memorizing; secondly, ideas must be memorized before
the words. A word is a symbol, and in so far as we have the habit of
regarding it as such, will each word we hear be more and more
suggestive to us. With this habit well cultivated, one sees more in
a single glance at a poem than many could see in several readings.
Yet the reader who sees the most may be unable to repeat the poem
word for word. In cultivating the memory, the training should be
first for the attention, then for the imagination and the power of
suggestive thought; and from the opening of these faculties a true
memory will grow. The mechanical power of repeating after once
hearing so many words is a thing in itself to be dreaded. Let the
pupil first see in mind a series of pictures as the poem or page is
read, then describe them in his own words, and if the words of the
author are well worth remembering the pupil should be led to them
from the ideas. In the same way a series of interesting or helpful
thoughts can be learned.
Avoidance of mere mechanism cannot be too strongly insisted upon;
for exercise for attaining a wholesome, natural guidance of mind and
body cannot be successful unless it rouses in the mind an
appreciation of the laws of Nature which we are bound to obey. A
conscious experience of the results of such obedience is essential
to growth.
XV.
ARTISTIC CONSIDERATIONS
ALTHOUGH so much time and care are given to the various means of
artistic expression, it is a singular fact that comparatively little
attention is given to the use of the very first instrument which
should be under command before any secondary instrument can be made
perfectly expressive.
An old artist who thanked his friend for admiring his pictures
added: "If you could only see the pictures in my brain. But--"
pointing to his brain and then to the ends of his fingers--"the
channels from here to here are so long!" The very sad tone which we
can hear in the wail of the painter expresses strongly the
deficiencies of our age in all its artistic efforts. The channels
are shorter just in proportion to their openness. If the way from
the brain to the ends of the fingers is perfectly clear, the brain
can guide the ends of the fingers to carry out truly its own
aspirations, and the honest expression of the brain will lead always
to higher ideals. But the channels cannot be free, and the artist
will be bound so long as there is superfluous tension in any part of
the body. So absolutely necessary, is it for the best artistic
expression that the body should throughout be only a servant of the
mind, that the more we think of it the more singular it seems that
the training of the body to a childlike state is not regarded as
essential, and taken as a matter of course, even as we take our
regular nourishment.
The artificial is tension in its many trying and disagreeable
phases. Art is freedom, equilibrium, rhythm,--anything and
everything that means wholesome life and growth toward all that is
really the good, the true, and the beautiful.
Art is immeasurably greater than we are. If we are free and quiet,
the poem, the music, the picture will carry us, so that we shall be
surprised at our own expression; and when we have finished, instead
of being personally elated with conceited delight in what we have
done, or exhausted with the superfluous effort used, we shall feel
as if a strong wind had blown through us and cleared us for better
work in the future.
Every genius obeys the true principle. It is because a genius is
involuntarily under the law of his art that he is pervaded by its
power. But we who have only talent must learn the laws of genius,
which are the laws of Nature, and by careful study and steady
practice in shunning all personal obstructions to the laws, bring
ourselves under their sway.
Who would wish to play on a stringed instrument already vibrating
with the touch of some one else, or even with the last touch we
ourselves gave it. What noise, what discord, with no possible
harmonies! So it is with our nerves and muscles. They cannot be used
for artistic purposes to the height of their best powers while they
are tense and vibrating to our own personal states or habits; so
that the first thing is to free them absolutely, and not only keep
them free by constant practice, but so train them that they will
become perfectly free at a moment's notice, and ready to respond
clearly to whatever the heart and the mind want to express.
The finer the instrument, the lighter the touch it will vibrate to.
Indeed it must have a light touch to respond clearly with musical
harmonies; any other touch would blur. With a fine piano or a
violin, whether the effect is to be _piano_ or _fortissimo,_ the
touch should be only with the amount of force needed to give a clear
vibration, and the ease with which a fortissimo effect is thus
produced is astonishing. It is only those with the most delicate
touch who can produce from a fine piano grand and powerful harmonies
without a blur.
The response in a human instrument to a really light touch is far
more wonderful than that from any instrument made by man; and bodily
effort blurs just as much more in proportion. The muscles are all so
exquisitely balanced in their power for co-ordinate movement, that a
muscle pulling one way is almost entirely freed from effort by the
equalizing power of the antagonizing muscle; and at some rare
moments when we have really found the equilibrium and can keep it,
we seem to do no more than _think_ a movement or a tone or a
combination of words, and they come with so slight a physical
exertion that it seems like no effort at all.
So far are we from our possibilities in this lightness of touch in
the use of our bodies, that it is impossible now for most of us to
touch as lightly as would, after training, bring the most powerful
response. One of the best laws for artistic practice is, "Every day
less effort, every day more power." As the art of acting is the only
art where the whole body is used with no subordinate instrument, let
us look at that with regard to the best results to be obtained by
means of relief from superfluous tension. The effects of unnecessary
effort are strongly felt in the exhaustion which follows the
interpretation of a very exciting role. It is a law without
exception, that if I absorb an emotion and allow my own nerves to be
shaken by it, I fail to give it in all its expressive power to the
audience; and not only do I fall far short in my artistic
interpretation, but because of that very failure, come off the stage
with just so much nervous force wasted. Certain as this law is, and
infallible as are its effects, it is not only generally disbelieved,
but it is seldom thought of at all. I must feet Juliet in my heart,
understand her with my mind, and let her vibrate clearly _across_ my
nerves, to the audience. The moment I let my nerves be shaken as
Juliet's nerves were in reality, I am absorbing her myself, misusing
nervous force, preparing to come off the stage thoroughly exhausted,
and keeping her away from the audience. The present low state of the
drama is largely due to this failure to recognize and practise a
natural use of the nervous force. To work up an emotion, a most
pernicious practice followed by young aspirants, means to work your
nerves up to a state of mild or even severe hysteria. This morbid,
inartistic, nervous excitement actually trains men and women to the
loss of all emotional control, and no wonder that their nerves play
the mischief with them, and that the atmosphere of the stage is kept
in its present murkiness. The power to work the nerves up in the
beginning finally carries them to the state where they must be more
artificially urged by stimulants; and when the actor is off the
stage he has no self-control at all. This all means misused and
over-used force. In no schools is the general influence so
absolutely morbid and unwholesome, as in most of the schools of
elocution and acting.
The methods by which the necessity for artificial stimulants can be
overcome are so simple and so pleasant and so immediately effective,
that it is worth taking the time and space to describe them briefly.
Of course, to begin with, the body must be trained to perfect
freedom in repose, and then to freedom in its use. A very simple way
of practising is to take the most relaxed attitude possible, and
then, without changing it, to recite _with all the expression that
belongs to it_ some poem or selection from a play full of emotional
power. You will become sensitive at once to any new tension, and
must stop and drop it. At first, an hour's daily practice will be
merely a beginning over and over,--the nervous tension will be so
evident,--but the final reward is well worth working and waiting
for.
It is well to begin by simply inhaling through the nose, and
exhaling quietly through the mouth several times; then inhale and
exhale an exclamation in every form of feeling you can think of Let
the exclamation come as easily and freely as the breath alone,
without superfluous tension in any part of the body. So much freedom
gained, inhale as before, and exhale brief expressive
sentences,--beginning with very simple expressions, and taking
sentences that express more and more feeling as your freedom is
better established. This practice can be continued until you are
able to recite the potion scene in Juliet, or any of Lady Macbeth's
most powerful speeches, with an case and freedom which is
surprising. This refers only to the voice; the practice which has
been spoken of in a previous chapter brings the same effect in
gesture.
It will be readily seen that this power once gained, no actor would
find it necessary to skip every other night, in consequence of the
severe fatigue which follows the acting of an emotional role. Not
only is the physical fatigue saved, but the power of expression, the
power for intense acting, so far as it impresses the audience, is
steadily increased.
The inability of young persons to express an emotion which they feel
and appreciate heartily, can be always overcome in this way.
Relaxing frees the channels, and the channels being open the real
poetic or dramatic feeling cannot be held back. The relief is as if
one were let out of prison. Personal faults that come from
self-consciousness and nervous tension may be often cured entirely
without the necessity of drawing attention to them, simply by
relaxing.
Dramatic instinct is a delicate perception of, quick and keen
sympathies for, and ability to express the various phases of human
nature. Deep study and care are necessary for the best development
of these faculties; but the nerves must be left free to be guided to
the true expression,--neither allowed to vibrate to the ecstatic
delight of the impressions, or in mistaken sympathy with them, but
kept clear as conductors of all the heart can feel and the mind
understand in the character or poem to be interpreted.
This may sound cold. It is not; it is merely a process of relieving
superfluous nervous tension in acting, by which obstructions are
removed so that real sympathetic emotions can be stronger and
fuller, and perceptions keener. Those who get no farther than
emotional vibrations of the nerves in acting, know nothing whatever
of the greatness or power of true dramatic instinct.
There are three distinct schools of dramatic art,--one may be called
dramatic hysteria, the second dramatic hypocrisy. The first means
emotional excitement and nervous exhaustion; the second artificial
simulation of a feeling. Dramatic sincerity is the third school, and
the school that seems most truly artistic. What a wonderful training
is that which might,--which ought to be given an actor to help him
rise to the highest possibility of his art!
A free body, exquisitely responsive to every command of the mind, is
absolutely necessary; therefore there should be a perfect physical
training. A quick and keen perception to appreciate noble thoughts,
holding each idea distinctly, and knowing the relations of each idea
to the others, must certainly be cultivated; for in acting, every
idea, every word, should come clearly, each taking its own place in
the thought expressed.
Broad human sympathies, the imaginative power of identifying himself
with all phases of human nature, if he has an ideal in his
profession above the average, an actor cannot lack. This last is
quite impossible without broad human charity; for "to observe truly
you must sympathize with those you observe, and to sympathize with
them you must love them, and to love them you must forget yourself."
And all these requisites--the physical state, the understanding, and
the large heart--seem to centre in the expression of a well-trained
voice,--a voice in which there is the minimum of body and the
maximum of soul.
By training, I always mean a training into Nature. As I have said
before, if art is Nature illuminated, we must find Nature before we
can reach art. The trouble is that in acting, more than in any other
art, the distinction between what is artistic and what is artificial
is neither clearly understood nor appreciated; yet so marked is the
difference when once we see it, that the artificial may well be
called the hell of art, as art itself is heavenly.
Sincerity and simplicity are the foundations of art. A feigning of
either is often necessary to the artificial, but many times
impossible. Although the external effect of this natural training is
a great saving of nervous force in acting, the height of its power
cannot be reached except through a simple aim, from the very heart,
toward sincere artistic expression.
So much for acting. It is a magnificent study, and should be more
truly wholesome in its effects than any other art, because it deals
with the entire body. But, alas I it seems now the most thoroughly
morbid and unwholesome.