I was not twenty-one when I left the stage for the second time, and I
haven't made up my mind yet whether it was good or bad for me, as an
actress, to cease from practicing my craft for six years. Talma, the
great French actor, recommends long spells of rest, and says that
"perpetual indulgence in the excitement of impersonation dulls the
sympathy and impairs the imaginative faculty of the comedian." This is
very useful in my defense, yet I could find many examples which prove
the contrary. I could never imagine Henry Irving leaving the stage for
six months, let alone six years, and I don't think it would have been of
the slightest benefit to him. But he had not been on the stage as a
child.
If I was able to rest so long without rusting, it was, I am sure,
because I had been thoroughly trained in the technique of acting long
before I reached my twentieth year--an age at which most students are
just beginning to wrestle with elementary principles.
Of course, I did not argue in this way at the time! As I have said, I
had no intention of ever acting again when I left the Queen's Theater.
If it is the mark of the artist to love art before everything, to
renounce everything for its sake, to think all the sweet human things of
life well lost if only he may attain something, do some good, great
work--then I was never an artist.
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