bench it did not attract his attention. What book do you think it was? Oh, no, not a treatise on tool-work in iron; that would have been fine. It was something even finer than that. The book was a copy of Vergil's 'Eneid' and the marginal notes on the pages show that he was as ambitious to acquire a taste for good literature as for the possession of technical skill."—New York Press.
(24)
ACTING, ACTOR AFFECTED BY
The following remembrance of Henry Irving is given by his friend and associate Ellen Terry:
My greatest triumph as Desdemona was
not gained with the audience, but with
Henry Irving! He found my endeavors to
accept comfort from Iago so pathetic that
they brought the tears to his eyes. It was
the oddest sensation, when I said, "Oh,
good Iago, what shall I do to win my lord
again?" to look up—my own eyes dry, for
Desdemona is past crying then—and see
Henry's eyes at their biggest, luminous,
soft, and full of tears! He was, in spite
of Iago and in spite of his power of identifying
himself with the part, very deeply
moved by my acting.
(25)
ACTION, INSTANT
I have seen ten years of young men
who rush out into the world with messages,
and when they find how deaf the world is,
they think they must save their strength and
get quietly up on some little eminence from
which they can make themselves heard. "In
a few years," reasons one of them, "I shall
have gained a standing, and then I shall use
my power for good." Next year comes, and
with it a strange discovery. The man has
lost his horizon of thought. His ambition
has evaporated; he has nothing to say. The
great occasion that was to have let him
loose on society was some little occasion
that nobody saw, some moment in which he
decided to obtain a standing. The great
battle of a lifetime has been fought and lost
over a silent scruple. But for this the man
might, within a few years, have spoken to
the nation with the voice of an archangel.
What was he waiting for? Did he think that
the laws of nature were to be changed for
him? Did he think that a "notice of trial"
would be served on him? Or that some
spirit would stand at his elbow and say,
"Now's your time?" The time of trial is
always. Now is the appointed time. And
the compensation for beginning at once is
that your voice carries at once. You do not
need a standing. It would not help you.
Within less time than you can see it, you will
have been heard. The air is filled with
sounding-boards and the echoes are flying.
It is ten to one that you have but to lift your
voice to be heard in California, and that
from where you stand. A bold plunge will
teach you that the visions of the unity of
human nature which the poets have sung
were not fictions of their imagination, but a
record of what they saw. Deal with the
world, and you will discover their reality.
Speak to the world, and you will hear their
echo.—John Jay Chapman.
(26)
Activity and Light-giving—See Light and Activity.
Activity and Thought-training—See
Thinking, How Coordinated.
Actors Become Preachers—See Evangelism,
Unusual.
ADAPTABILITY
As an illustration of adaptability to circumstances and the willingness to take chances in order to achieve results of any kind, of the men who open up a new country to civilization, a recent incident is instructive:
A little schooner reached Seattle recently
from Nome, on Bering Sea. She had made
the voyage down during the most tempestuous
season of the year in the North
Pacific, and had survived storms which tried
well-found steamships of the better class.
Yet there was not a man on board, from the
captain down, who had ever made a voyage
at sea, save as passengers, on a boat running
to Alaska. There were no navigating instruments
on board save a compass and an
obsolete Russian chart of the North Pacific.
These men wanted to come out for the winter, and there was no other way within their means to accomplish the trip. They got hold of the schooner and they started with her. They were not seamen or navigators, simply handy men who were accustomed to doing things for themselves. This was out of the routine, but they did it.
(27)
The men who made the voyage down from Nome in a little schooner without any previous knowledge of seamanship probably
