a wall, or get my arms within a bandage, and, so pinned or confined, repeat the most violent passages of _Othello, Lear, Hamlet, Macbeth_, or whatever would require most energy and emotion; I would speak the most passionate bursts of rage under the supposed constraint of _whispering them_ in the ear of him of her to whom they were addressed, thus keeping both voice and gesture in subjection to the real impulse of the feeling.... I was obliged also to have frequent recourse to the looking-glass, and had two or three large ones in my room to reflect each view of the posture I might have fallen into, besides being under the necessity of acting the passion close to a glass to restrain the tendency to exaggerate its expression--which was the most difficult of all--to repress the ready frown, and keep the features, perhaps I should say the muscles, of the face undisturbed, whilst intense passion would speak from the eye alone." If the propriety of some of these exercises be questionable, there can be no doubt that the general effect of such discipline was to correct the acquired tendencies of his youth and to chasten his style until it lacked nothing less than refinement. All this concerned the _technique_ of his art. Its soul--the thoughts, the feelings, the characters to be embodied by it--formed the subject of deeper, more constant and more delightful meditation. Here at least Macready was at no disadvantage in a comparison with the most illustrious of his predecessors. Some there may have been who gave more vividly the salient points of a character, or who, as in the case of Kean's Othello, infused into their personations of some of the grandest but least complex of Shakespeare's creations an intensity of passion that defied all rivalry. But none ever brought to the study of the poet the intellectual discernment, the sympathetic spirit, the true and heartfelt devotion with which Macready ministered at his shrine. Not his own part alone, but the whole play, including the words and scenes omitted in representation, were imprinted in his memory and continually revolved. The groundwork was thus laid in a thorough knowledge of the _medium_, to use the expression of Taine, applying it, however, not to mere external facts and circumstances, but to that individuality of form, ideas and style which the great dramatist has given to each of his works. Then the meaning and bearing of every phrase received their share of light from the same general source, and the performance was pervaded throughout by a consistency and a subtle discrimination which rendered it a living commentary, acting on the intellect through the emotions.