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Show 536 THE CODE OF TERPSICHORE. of truth, and found ourselves on nature, and not on her imitators, however excellent they may be; they may improve, but they cannot perfect us. The master may teach his pupil much, but from nature, when the master has done with him, he will learn more; and, what is most important, he will acquire sufficient knowledge to correct the errors which he has been taught by one whom he once thought perfect in his art. There are some masters who do not scruple to set themselves up as models for their scholars; this is ignorance and folly. A good master points out what is good and corrects what is faulty, to the best of his power; but he does not insist on his pupil forming himself entirely on his manner-no individual being endowed with perfection in every department of the art he professes. Such a constraint would also tend to strangle in their birth all the emotions of a heart capable of feeling the beauties of nature, and the effects of a mind possessed of the power of devising means to express them. Violent and excessive gesticulation is most frequently accompanied by want of sensibility. It is unnatural, and consequently obnoxious to good taste. A multitude of gestures is not necessary to express even the deepest passion of which the human heart is susceptible; the eye, aided by the slightest movement, will often make it as manifest as possible. The time has been (and some performers in our own days are guilty of similar absurdities) when actors, whether the dialogue of the piece required it or not, assumed the most solemn and emphatic tone; they " split the ears of the groundlings" when saying or relating the most simple and indifferent things ; some of them imposed on the multitude by an inflexible tragic deportment, which was, in most cases, ridiculous, because out of character |