| The Author | [Frontispiece] |
| PAGE | |
| King Lear | [35] |
| King Lear (progressive pictures) | [38] |
| Don Quixote | [41] |
| Don Quixote (progressive pictures) | [44] |
| Falstaff | [47] |
| Falstaff (progressive pictures) | [50] |
| Shylock | [53] |
| Shylock (progressive pictures) | [56] |
| Hamlet | [60] |
| Hamlet | [61] |
| Iago | [66] |
| Othello | [67] |
| Bottom the Weaver | [77] |
| Pierrot | [80] |
| Romeo | [83] |
| The Apothecary in "Romeo and Juliet" | [89] |
| The Apothecary (head study) | [92] |
| The Three Witches in "Macbeth" | [95] |
| Uncle Tom | [98] |
| St. Dunstan | [101] |
| Fleury | [104] |
| The Professor | [109] |
| The Soul Struggle | [112] |
| Sir Thomas More (Holbein picture) | [118] |
| Sir Thomas More | [119] |
| Sir Thomas More in his Garden at Chelse | [124] |
| Sir Thomas More bidding Farewell to his Favourite Daughter | [125] |
| Napoleon | [129] |
| False Beards (twelve progressive pictures) | [132], [133], and [136] |
CHAPTER I
THE ART OF THE STAGE
How ephemeral is this art of the stage, how evanescent. Words quickened by the voices of the actors tremble for a moment in the sympathetic atmosphere of the theatre and are then engulfed in silence. This in its turn gives way to newly spoken words. Out of the illustrative gestures and actions of the players are pictures formed which each new phase of the unfolding of the play destroys. Joy gives place to grief, and grief to joy, gentleness to rage, and love to hate.
The passions wax and wane. The scenes fade even as the lantern pictures vanish from the white screen. The curtain rustles down, severing those bonds of sympathy that the play has forged. Actors and audience turn away to pick up the links in their own particular chains of destiny.
How ephemeral, how evanescent.
Yet that universal law of compensation yields its recompense: for no art is more enduring in its influence.
Most men are so profoundly impressed by the drama that the recollection of a performance will abide for years; indeed some are so sensitive to its effect that their whole lives are coloured or are even changed by the sensation created by one fine bit of acting.