it for me, for instance, to play five or six parts in a week? It was a mere floundering about; committing to memory a quantity of words as best I could and doing the parts in a haphazard fashion; it was a very doubtful advantage. Of course the long runs that we have now have their detrimental side; but the long run is necessitated by the conditions as they exist to-day. The cost of productions is so great, service of all kinds is so high, that unless a manager gets a long run out of a play he cannot go on. He must have a run of a few months or he will have to give up. The long run is bad for the completing of a versatile actor because he can get hold of very few parts,

but there are many ways in these days in which an actor, if he or she chooses, and is in earnest about the art, can get tuition and preparation for the stage. There are still several good stock companies that play a variety of plays at reasonable intervals. There are schools and societies. And so, while there may be certain disadvantages under the existing order of things, there are also compensations.

People are realizing the value of the drama, and how necessary it is to foster it. All arts need fostering and assisting. You have made a splendid beginning in this respect in New York. You have built that magnificent temple, the New Theater. It is a young child; it's going to have the

with Modjeska for some time. It seems to me that nobody could play certain parts as she played them. Her histrionic position was in some respects unique. She made a most extraordinarily deep impression in London in the '80s. She was a great interpreter, and had a rare individuality apart from her acting. She possessed the most extraordinary power of application, and was devoted to her calling, and can be compared only to Duse. With Irving, too, I was associated. I was never a member of his company, but I joined him on three special occasions for certain parts. He was a remarkable figure, and he came, as it were, at a psychological moment. The public was ready; he had no rivals, no opponents; and, moreover, he had the welfare of his calling greatly at heart. He, too, had an individuality bound to succeed. It so happened that

he followed the groove that led to the stage, but he would have been a success had he followed almost any groove. For instance, he would have made a great diplomatist or a great Churchman. I found my association with him delightful, and I loved the man.

The great stars of the stage (and of other arts as well) shine periodically. They come in waves, so to speak. The Comedie Française, for instance, in the days when Coquelin first joined them, had a very remarkable company. I cannot say that we have to-day any such brilliant group. But others as great will come. The tide will flow again. The pioneers in the field did good work-ambitious work-and have been the cause of all the improvement that has come. In my time were men like Sir Squire Bancroft, Sir John Hare, and Sir Henry Irving. To

the young. In England we have a censorship of the drama; but what does it result in? Maeterlinck's "Monna Vanna," for instance, a perfectly moral play, and on a high plane, is put under the ban. This is disheartening, of course. It is refusing nourishment to a great art. I look forward to the time when the public will be trusted in England in these matters as it is in America. There always will be drama; there always will be acting. Acting is an instinct. There is not a child in the world who does not "make believe" from the age of a few months upward; it is the great joy of its life. The thing to do, it seems to me, is to foster and nourish the art; to put it and keep it on the highest possible plane.

I am sometimes asked whether audiences vary in their effect on me and on my acting. It seems to me, as I look back, that audiences in different countries are very much alike. They are moved by the same things. In the great fundamental matters I have found audiences in Germany, Scotland, England, Ireland, Canada, America (the countries where I have played) much the same. And I have watched audiences in France and Italy; there is very little difference between them. Perhaps on certain nights they will be more demonstrative than on other nights, and one may feel himself more en rapport with his hearers one night than another. Perhaps they make more uproar in London when they are pleased, and they make a great deal of noise also when they are displeased. My impression is that what is known as "booing" when a play does not please is dying out in England. It was very bad at one time. Here in this country I gather that they do what saves a lot of friction if they do not like the play, they simply walk out.

Most actors have some special part they would rather play than any other. If I wanted to do my best-make an impression, so to speak-I should elect to play Hamlet; and I think the secret of its success and popular appeal, apart from the interest of the story-and the story moves with extraordinary rapidity-lies in the fact that every thoughtful man or woman has just a little of Hamlet in his or her composition. He reflects their own

conscience; they have a personal feeling for Hamlet's point of view, Hamlet's fear, Hamlet's tentativeness, Hamlet's ambitions. You will always find a little of Hamlet in any person who thinks at all. Hamlet is a part that taxes one terribly. It is a hard day's work. I can never do anything else when playing Hamlet.

Perhaps the dominating characteristic of my impersonation of Hamlet is that I play him as though he were absolutely sane. That is what I try to convey to my audiences, that he is perfectly sane, but of a highly strung, nervous temperament. He is, too, a procrastinator. He postpones action from time to time for good reasons, and I think his procrastination is perfectly natural. He tries to find out, he ponders, he hesitates. "This is not the moment," he thinks, and then suddenly the moment arrives, as it so often does, when we are forced to do the thing we have long had in our minds. He wants the truth; he is thwarted by being sent here and there, until at last the great moment arrives, almost by accident. But enough of this. I very much doubt if it is an actor's business to talk about "the this or the that " of the part he interprets. His duty is just to play it.

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What I should like to do now would be to play repertoire--"Hamlet," "Merchant of Venice,' Macbeth,' Othello;" I am also very fond of Kipling's "The Light that Failed." But I cannot touch them at present. I have twelve plays lying in my rooms in London, and of course it would be much more interesting to change about and play different rôles, but one must not fly in the face of Fortune by exchanging a certain success for a venture. When one keeps repeating a play, the very monotony of it becomes an ordeal. One must guard against becoming stereotyped; one must keep the part fresh and vital, and speak the lines every night as if speaking them for the first time. This in itself is an ordeal, and becomes an effort, even though the part may not impose much physical or mental strain. I have been playing "The Passing of the Third Floor Back" for eighteen months, and I shall take it to Washington, Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, and other cities, where audiences have practically been created for this play from the fact of its New