This letter, like the one he had two years before addressed to Caldwell, was fruitless. But his mind was firmly made up that he would persevere until his efforts were successful. And, a few days later, the opportunity he sought presented itself, and he left home to enter in earnest on a regular apprenticeship to the vocation he had chosen. Here, for a little space, we drop the thread of personal narrative for the purpose of introducing a sketch of the origin and significance of the dramatic art. As the subject of this biography is to be an actor, his character to be shaped by the peculiar influences of the theatrical profession, his career and fame to be permanently associated with the history of that profession in America, an exposition of the origin and nature of the drama, of its different forms and applications, and of its personal uses, will bring the reader to the succeeding chapters with a fuller appreciation of their various topics, and give him some data for estimating the place which the art of acting has held, now holds, and is destined hereafter to hold, in the experience of mankind. CHAPTER IV. THE PSYCHOLOGICAL ORIGIN, VARIETY, AND PERSONAL USES OF THE DRAMATIC ART. ANY one who so analyzes the Dramatic Art as to see what its basis, contents, and uses are, will be astonished to find what a deep and wide feature it is in human nature, and how extensive and important a part it plays in human life. The study of the great spectacle of human existence as a whole, from the point of view of the Stage, in the light of dramatic usages and imagery, imparts to it a keener, more diversified, more comprehensive interest and instructiveness than it can receive in any other way. The habit of thus seeing people and things group themselves in pictures, of looking on scenes and acts in their relationship as a whole, of reading character and getting at states of mind and plucking out personal secrets by an intuitive and cultivated art of interpreting the signs consciously or unconsciously given, is spontaneous in men of the highest artistic genius, like Homer, Dante, Shakspeare, and Goethe. And it lends a marvellous charm and piquancy to their experience of the world, enchanting every object with active significance, color, and mystery.