A Twofold Life

by Wilhelmine von Hillern

"Oh, Cornelia!" cried one of the guests, the famous actor N----, across the table. "Do you mean to say that we don't understand you?"

"No, certainly not," replied Cornelia. "I had principally in view those whom I consider different from myself. You understand me because you resemble me, and are all, more or less, artist natures!"

"Do you mean that all artist natures are as truthful as yourself?" asked Heinrich, doubtfully.

"Certainly; when I trust a man it is the artist, especially those who represent things."

"I am curious to know upon what you found that idea," murmured Heinrich, in a low tone. "The actor certainly practices dissimulation as his profession."

"Oh, do not say that! You will surely admit that in every man there is an impulse towards truth and falsehood, as well as good and evil," began Cornelia. "With almost all persons this impulse, like their other good and bad qualities, exerts an influence upon their lives; they lie and deceive in personal intercourse. But there are exceptions, among those in whom this propensity to deceive is decomposed by Heaven knows what process of intellectual chemistry, and becomes objective; that is, forms a power of acting entirely apart from the subject. This power seeks an independent form, and finds it in art, wherein it develops the highest, most artistic structure, and those in whom such a process has been completed are artists, especially actors. Then if the commonplace man can satisfy that strange and undeniable propensity towards falsehood only in real life, in the actor it is to a certain extent guided into a higher, loftier region, and he becomes in reality truer and more natural than many who are only considered honest because they are too awkward to feign."

"Your explanation is logical," replied Heinrich, "but you cannot carry it into practical execution. Opportunity makes thieves, a capability for falsehood tempts to falsehood. Even the actor will not disdain to obtain an advantage at the expense of truth, and the temptation is all the greater the more he is convinced that the deception will be successful. Nay, I can even imagine that there must be a charm to him in making use of his histrionic skill, not only upon the stage, but off the boards, and I have seen celebrated actors who could not help perpetually performing a part."

Cornelia reflected a moment, and then said, calmly: "There are such instances, of course, but I do not call such people artists; there are two distinct classes of men who bear that name. If this talent we have just mentioned is coupled with more or less mental capacity, the union produces more or less brilliant performers; if, however, there is a counterpoise of the great qualities of the soul and heart, it produces artists. The performer, it is true, employs the talents at his command in life as well as in art; he knows no higher object than effect. He deceives in life as well as in art when it will make an effect, and in both is true to the same purpose. As he has neither character nor heart, he is neither good nor bad upon principle; he simply turns his talents to his own profit where and as he can. It is this class of people who have in many respects degraded the position of artists. The artist, on the contrary, perceives and seeks something far higher than effect! Like all men of noble aims, he, too, has an ideal towards which he unselfishly struggles--truth. If he seeks this in his art, often even at the expense of the applause so indispensable to the actor, if he is so conscientious in the realm of illusion, why should he not be equally so in the domain of reality? The power of transforming his whole nature at will he considers as a gift bestowed to serve the holy purpose of art, and would no more turn it to his own advantage than the honorable citizen would obtain an illegal profit from an accidental or fairly won supremacy over others. A keener, more active, sensitive faculty, and the habit of an elevated manner of expression, may give him a peculiar, 'exaggerated,' perhaps 'affected' appearance,--words with which the commonplace man so eagerly points out what he does not understand; but you will acknowledge that a person may be affected and yet possess true, genuine feelings; as, on the other hand, the falsest and most designing men often appear the most artless."

"Certainly," said Heinrich.

"You see," continued Cornelia, "that as from the worst and most different materials the brightest, purest flame can be produced, so art transfigures deception with the highest manifestations. Thus in real artists falsehood aspires towards truth! The highest object of his performance is the union of both, and the triumph of falsehood becomes in him a triumph of truth!"