The lowest range of the histrionic inhabitations of the soul is _obsession_, where the man is insanely held by some inferior or evil spirit, as when Nebuchadnezzar went out and ate grass, like an ox. The next grade is _sympathetic domination_, where the idea of another being is so vividly seated in the imagination of a person that for the time it makes him its involuntary agent. The intermediate or neutral level, half-way from the lowest to the highest, is the region of _voluntary assumption_, or acting properly so called, where the player by his own free intelligence and will reproduces or imitates foreign characters. Then there is the ascent into _inspiration_, where loftier influences or spirits than are native to the impersonator take possession of him, enhancing his powers, animating and guiding him beyond his own knowledge or volition. And lastly, there is the supreme height of _divine incarnation_, where some deity stoops into the cloud of mortality, or the infinite God in varying degrees deigns to inflesh and enshrine himself in man. Christendom owns one unapproachable and incomparable example in its august Founder. But in India, Egypt, Greece, were mystic men, who, too wise and grand to be thought lunatics, have claimed to be of a lineage divine and dateless. This is a realm for silence. But every unique, whether Gautama or Jesus, is only the transcending culmination of a rule that rises through levels below. Either great men have played the rôles of incarnate gods or descending gods have assumed the rôles of men on earth. CHAPTER V. THE DRAMATIC APPRENTICE AND STROLLING PLAYER. WHEN Edwin was nine years old, he was thin, pale, and had a slight forward stoop of the chest and shoulders. He was full of fire, courage, impulsive force, but had a quick pulse, a nervous habit, a sensitive brain and skin. The tears came easily to his eyes, and under severe exertion his endurance quickly gave out. At that time he seemed a fair candidate for consumption and an early grave. His father is known, on several occasions, to have expressed fears that he should not be able to raise him.