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TALKS 
 ON EXPRESSION 
 
 BY 
 LELAND T. POWERS 
 
 

 Copyright, 191 7, 
 By Leland T. Powers 
 
 fl 
 
 FEB 15 1917 
 
 THOMAS GROOM & CO., INC 
 
 Boston, Mass. 
 191 7 
 
 0CI.A455547 
 
Talks on Expression 
 
Foreword 
 
 IT is admittedly true that the methods and 
 processes of education are really successful 
 when they serve to clarify thought — and 
 then only. 
 
 Learning cannot be " plastered on"; real 
 knowledge cannot even be imparted, but 
 thought can be clarified. 
 
 This of course follows the premise that every 
 individual possesses at the outset, in his own 
 right, all the knowledge he will ever express. 
 Hence educational systems at their utmost 
 can do no more than clear away the debris of 
 false or hazy thinking and awaken the student 
 to a realization of his inherent birthright of 
 intelligence. 
 
 But this is the greatest service possible. 
 Mankind instinctively rises to bless, as its 
 real benefactors, the men and women who 
 through the clarity of their own vision have 
 dissipated the confusion and darkness which 
 were puzzling and halting the aspiration of 
 the people. 
 
 There are a few great figures in the world 
 
 5 
 
TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 of science, another group in the realm of 
 religion, still another in the field of art, whom 
 the race remembers with gratitude because 
 they succeeded in educating their fellows into 
 a clearer view of the realities. They had, in 
 their respective spheres, clarified the thought 
 of men. 
 
 Having been intimately associated with the 
 author of this little book and having known, 
 first hand, the confusion into which most of 
 the thought regarding the art of the Spoken 
 Word had fallen before he undertook to clar- 
 ify it, I crave the privilege of voicing, not alone 
 my own appreciation, but the gratitude of 
 thousands who through this man's clear vision 
 have found the way. 
 
 It is a cause for satisfaction, deep and sin- 
 cere, that Leland Powers has been persuaded 
 to put into print his unique and scientific un- 
 derstanding which, worked out in practice, 
 has made him for the past twenty years, the 
 recognized standard for all who aspire to 
 eminence in the art of the Spoken Word. 
 
 PHIDELAH RICE, JR. 
 6 
 
The Scientific Side of 
 Expression 
 
 EXPRESSION to be in the realm of art 
 must first or last reach that realm by 
 the path of science. Consequently in 
 the art of the Spoken Word the processes, 
 in order to be art processes, must first be- 
 come conscious processes. The " how " and 
 the " why " as well as the " what " must be 
 recognized and understood before the art 
 stage is reached. 
 
 In order to scientifically understand any 
 manifestation, the nature of its cause must 
 be understood, and the laws by which the 
 cause embodies itself must be recognized. 
 
 Back of all expression there are three activi- 
 ties at work as cause. And these three ac- 
 tivities are three factors of one complete 
 trinity, the mind. These factors are, first, 
 the mental concept which gives birth to the 
 desire to express; second, the desire which 
 
 7 
 
TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 gives birth to the impulse to express; and 
 third, the ability or life which carries the im- 
 pulse into expression. These three activities 
 are co-essential, co-existent and co-operative. 
 None of them can exist in its wholeness with- 
 out the other two and each one exists in the 
 other two. I repeat, they are three activities 
 of one thing, the mind. 
 
 The cause, therefore, of right expression is 
 mental. Right expression is an act of the 
 mind and it contains its own proofs that it is 
 so. If a mind-action or thought-process falls 
 short of expression it is because its third 
 factor is dormant or has been overdominated 
 by one or both of the other factors and so 
 the thought-process is left unfinished and un- 
 symmetrical. Complete thought-action, or un- 
 derstanding, comes only from carrying the 
 conception through desire or purpose into ac- 
 tion, or demonstration — the actual doing or 
 living the truth. This must be so because 
 the very mind-activity employed in carrying 
 purpose into actual performance is itself a 
 necessary part of the understanding process, 
 
TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 and if it does not take part and the concep- 
 tion is not carried into performance, then an 
 important and component factor of complete 
 understanding has been left dormant and un- 
 enlisted and so only partial understanding 
 can have been experienced. 
 
 In an address delivered at the Commence- 
 ment exercises at Wellesley College in 1914, 
 Mr. John H. Finley, Commissioner of Edu- 
 cation in the state of New York, said: "I 
 have attempted a catalogue of those who do 
 not tell the truth ; first are those who do not 
 know the truth and tell it, if ever, by accident ; 
 second are those who know the truth, but, 
 knowing it, have no wish to tell it or refuse 
 to tell it ; and third are those who know the 
 truth, or who know it vaguely, and who de- 
 sire to tell it, but know not how to tell it. 
 These intimate the three ends of education: 
 to know the truth, to be willing to tell it, 
 and then to be able to speak #• " (The italics 
 are mine.) 
 
 Conventional methods of education, dealing 
 as they do with the science of the reflective 
 
 9 
 
TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 process of the thought (the finding out of 
 the truth), and the choosing process (the 
 desire to tell the truth), and leaving undealt- 
 with the science of the act or the expressive 
 process (the ability to speak the truth), are 
 really training but two-thirds of the mind-en- 
 tity. The reflective, analytical process is 
 trained ; the ethical, volitional, choosing proc- 
 ess is trained; a proper consciousness of 
 right and wrong, of what is worthy, high and 
 fine as opposed to what is unworthy and un- 
 desirable, is cultivated ; laws relating to these 
 two processes have been discovered, formu- 
 lated and taught, and a student is trained to 
 that extent according to scientific methods. 
 In the third process, that of bringing con- 
 cept and purpose into working contact with the 
 world of other men, which surely is the end 
 desired, the student's mind is too often left 
 untrained and uncultivated. 
 
 The thought thus two-thirds trained does 
 force for itself an expression, an embodiment ; 
 it is bound to do so or it would be but a lazy, 
 boneless, lifeless dream or sentiment; but 
 
 10 
 
TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 the birth, — the taking on an embodiment, — 
 the final, vital act of the thought's coming out 
 into the world as an entity and living force, 
 in other words, the speaking of the truth, has 
 had little scientific help from conventional 
 training and education in colleges and uni- 
 versities. 
 
 It seems that no governing laws have been 
 thought to be existent or necessary for the 
 training of the expressional function of the 
 mind. The teaching of expression along 
 scientific lines and methods finds no place 
 in most of the universities. The reason 
 may be that it is not generally known that 
 expression has its science. It is generally 
 thought that the expressional process is a 
 natural process and will take care of itself. 
 As to that, so are thinking and choosing 
 natural processes, but they cannot be left 
 without training; they are carefully looked 
 after and scientifically trained, but the third 
 factor of the thought — the expressional — is 
 generally left to shift for itself, to work with 
 
 dull, awkward, disobedient tools, to learn in 
 
 ii 
 
TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 the wasteful school of experience. We are 
 taught how to think in and how to think 
 around and about but we are not taught how to 
 think out. 
 
 The questions arise: can expression be 
 taught scientifically, and what principles 
 have been discovered and what laws un- 
 covered in this realm of conscious ex- 
 pression. 
 
 This principle has been discovered: — in 
 right expression, not only is the cause, the 
 starting point, in mind, but that fact must be 
 evident in the expressional act In expression 
 all causation is mental and consequently all 
 expression is mental. 
 
 In the present stage of our development the 
 mind, in its expressional act, uses body or 
 material for the embodiment of its ideas, and 
 here arises the conflict and the necessity of 
 knowing the law in order to obey it. This 
 body, which in our special art the thought 
 uses in its manifestation, makes a claim to 
 an existence of its own apart from its master, 
 the mind. It claims to have life and sensation 
 
 12 
 
TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 springing from its own nerve-centers. It 
 claims to be an animal and it rebelliously in- 
 sists on expressing its own life and sensation, 
 whether or not the expression interferes with 
 and belies the plan and purpose of the right- 
 ful master, mind. 
 
 If this servant, the body, and by body I 
 mean voice and body, were absolutely obedi- 
 ent and fluid to the vitalized thought, our 
 brother to whom we desire to communicate 
 our spiritual vision would be conscious of the 
 body only as a component part of the informing 
 thought. In other words, the body, in pro- 
 portion as it is trained to give up its own 
 claims and become obedient to right mind- 
 action, gets away from between the thought 
 of the speaker and the thought of the listener, 
 tends to become transparent, to take on the 
 form of the thought, and hence to disappear, 
 instead of forcing thought's expression awry, 
 twisting and deforming it, forcing it through 
 clogged and constricted channels to a false 
 expression. 
 
 The latest work being done in the science 
 13 
 
TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 of expression has grown out of the recog- 
 nition of this struggle between the real vitality 
 of the thought and the mock vitality of the mock 
 thought and the drawing of a distinguishing 
 line between the two. 
 
 It must be remembered that mock vitality 
 is nothing more than excitement and the 
 mock thought nothing else than sensa- 
 tion. 
 
 I have found in my experience that the 
 counterfeits are quite generally mistaken, 
 even by intelligent people, for the real thing. 
 It is not easy to distinguish in every case be- 
 tween them. It is by their effects that a 
 listener can distinguish the real from the 
 counterfeit. Right expression, the act of 
 the intelligence, awakens thought in the 
 listener's mind. Wrong expression, the act 
 of sensation, or mock-mind, excites the listen- 
 er, inhibits his clear thought and leaves him 
 with a sense of fatigue. 
 
 The recognition and acknowledgment of 
 this strife between the real mentality and the 
 counterfeit at once draws a line along one 
 
 14 
 
TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 side or the other of which must be ranged all 
 the theories and methods of teaching art. 
 
 The problem which confronts us in the study 
 of expression from a scientific standpoint is, 
 how to be able to recognize the innumera- 
 ble claims which the body makes that its mo- 
 tions, forms and sounds are the language of 
 right mind-action, and to promptly place them 
 where they belong, as the actions of the mock- 
 mind resident in nerve centers and sensation. 
 
 In order to illustrate I will take a concrete 
 example: — I am an orator standing before 
 my audience. I know surely one thing ; I de- 
 sire to communicate through my speech and 
 action a thought and a purpose so that a 
 thought and a purpose may be awakened in 
 the mind of the hearer. In order to be right, 
 my thought must be clear and my purpose un- 
 selfish. The scientific relation of the obedi- 
 ent body to a consciousness of clear thought 
 and unselfish purpose is absolute poise and 
 repose; not the poise and repose of an ox 
 in his stall but of the soaring eagle. That is 
 the law. It is my problem, as an intelligent 
 
 15 
 
TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 orator, to see that my body obeys it. If now 
 I find I am standing on both feet separated 
 far enough to make a broad base, I can know 
 that however clearly my words are stating 
 my thought and however sympathetically my 
 voice is sounding my purpose, my body is 
 speaking its own claim that inertia is poise 
 and repose, and that firmness of establish- 
 ment depends upon the breadth of base. 
 That is the material belief; that is why, 
 probably, an animal feels safer on four legs 
 than on two. The resort to broad base is 
 always the indication of physical weakness, 
 or of the belief that power resides in the 
 earth, so to speak ; that it is antagonistic and 
 must be resisted. Spiritual understanding 
 realizes that all power is from above, and that 
 it is infinite and loving, surrounding and up- 
 holding. Intelligent thought realizes power; 
 non-intelligent sensation fears power and re- 
 sists it. The first is symbolized in attitude 
 by the narrow base. The second by the 
 broad base. 
 Again : — if I find I am constantly changing 
 
 16 
 
TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 my weight from one foot to the other, my 
 body is saying that nervousness is vitality of 
 thought. If I find my muscles tense and 
 rigid, my body is claiming that power is in 
 muscle. 
 
 The untrained body, left to itself, will always 
 express its own excitements and sensations 
 instead of allowing the rightful embodiment 
 and expression of the mind's plan and pur- 
 pose. This fact must be faced if expression 
 is to be scientifically taught. 
 
 To summarize : — Right expression has its 
 beginning in mentality and makes its appeal 
 to thought. Wrong expression has its be- 
 ginning in sensation and makes its appeal to 
 sensation. Wrong expression is not so much 
 the opposite of right expression as it is its 
 counterfeit. It is using nerve-excitement in 
 place of dynamic thought. It is mistaking 
 reflex action for thinking and feeling, and 
 muscular tension for spiritual power. 
 
 If we claim there is a science of expression 
 it means that we claim there have been dis- 
 covered certain fundamental laws in accord- 
 
 17 
 
TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 ance with which an individual can be trained 
 to distinguish between the true and false in 
 causation, and to know the steps by which he 
 has arrived, or can arrive, at the desired end 
 in expression; which end is, that the vital- 
 ity of his thought, the embodiment of his pur- 
 pose, be not interfered with by any material 
 obstruction. 
 
 The study of the science of right expres- 
 sion is the effort to learn the laws which 
 govern the outgoing act — the expressive act 
 — of the thought; to learn the laws which 
 govern embodiment, and to learn to distin- 
 guish between the thought's vitality and the 
 body's sensation or nerve excitement: it is 
 the effort to clearly understand what the 
 thought wants to do and to distinguish between 
 the "want to do" of the thought and the 
 " want to do " of the body. The first is the 
 immediate cause of all right expression; the 
 second is the cause of wrong expression, 
 whether in life or in art. 
 
 This " want to do " of the body necessitates 
 another effort on the part of the student of 
 
 18 
 
TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 right and intelligent expression, viz., to train 
 the body to obey the laws of the outgoing 
 thought so that it will reflect the thought's 
 form and embody the mind's act. 
 
 19 
 
Vitality of Thought 
 
 IS it not true, that thought, however high, 
 however spiritual, serves no end nor no- 
 body, not even the thinker, until it is dy- 
 namic enough to express itself ? Thought is 
 not recognizable, its existence even cannot be 
 proven until it realizes its power and proves 
 its power by embodying itself. This embody- 
 ing process is just as much a mental function 
 as the thinking ; it is thought manifesting its 
 life, proving its ability — its vitality. Every 
 printed page, great sermon, picture, statue, 
 symphony, cathedral, is the realization and 
 proof of the vitality of some one man's thought. 
 The man who stood looking at Saint Paul's 
 Cathedral in London and exclaimed, " Just 
 think! All this was once just lines on a piece 
 of paper! " might have gone one step further 
 and said, " All this was once just a thought in 
 some one man's mind." Here is the point: 
 this thought, first as an unoutlined concept 
 in one man's mind, then as lines on a piece of 
 
 20 
 
TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 i 
 
 paper and at last the gigantic cathedral, pos- 
 sessed in the beginning and all the time a 
 certain something, a certain dynamic func- 
 tion by virtue of which it was able to make 
 itself visible. 
 
 But what of the inarticulate souls ? What 
 of the "dumb, inglorious Miltons," the men 
 to whom great visions come, but who are 
 never able to embody the vision ? Think of 
 the poems dreamed but never written; the 
 sermons planned but never preached; the 
 good deeds willed but never performed! 
 Why? Because of the seeming lack of that 
 same certain something, that dynamic func- 
 tion without which the thought is never a 
 whole thought, never a completed thing. 
 
 Expression is thought completing itself — a 
 mental act altogether. I was about to say, 
 expression is thought completed, but to 
 my understanding the thought is not com- 
 pleted until its expression has awakened 
 thought in the other man's mind. Even then 
 it is only on the way. 
 
 It might be interesting now to ask, — is 
 
 21 
 
TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 this certain, dynamic something which was 
 present in the thought of the man who could 
 build a cathedral, and seemingly absent in 
 the thought of most of us, really absent or 
 is it just dormant and undeveloped ? And if 
 it be present but dormant and undeveloped 
 can it be awakened and developed so that 
 your thought and my thought may at last em- 
 body themselves in terms of harmony and 
 power? And is the training worth while? 
 To answer the last question first, it surely 
 is worth while, if any kind of mental training 
 is worth while. The development, by some 
 means or other, of this vitality of the thought, is 
 essential if the whole thought is ever to be 
 available and effective. The end reached may 
 not be the ability to carve a statue, write a 
 book, compose a symphony, but the end in 
 view is to render the individual able to bring 
 his mental and moral resources into effective 
 relation to the world of other men, whatever 
 may be the nature of the individual's activity ; 
 and the bringing about of this desirable result 
 with the least waste of power, and the clearing 
 
 22 
 
TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 and straightening of the channel of the out- 
 going thought, so that its plan may not be 
 distorted nor its purpose obstructed, is an 
 end to be reached only by the scientific train- 
 ing of the expressional function of the thought. 
 If that end can be attained, the scientific 
 training is decidedly worth while. 
 
 It used to be thought and taught that al- 
 though concept and purpose were activities 
 of the mind and- the sources of all expression, 
 yet, when it came to the expressional act, 
 that particular function fell outside the mind's 
 province and belonged entirely to the physi- 
 cal activity. Expression is, however, a mental 
 activity. It exists because thought exists. 
 Without thought there can be no right expres- 
 sion and, conversely, without expression there 
 can be no complete thought. Expression is 
 not the effect of the thought; it is thought's 
 effectivity ; it is the thought in its vital, culmi- 
 nating flower, demonstrating and proving its 
 own existence. The sun furnishes an ex- 
 cellent illustration or figure. The sun's rays 
 are its expression ; its only means of proving 
 
 23 
 
TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 its existence. Light rays, heat rays, actinic 
 rays are not effects of the sun, they are the 
 sun's effectivity. The effect is produced by 
 them. So the thought's expression, instead 
 of being an effect, is the function of the 
 thought which produces the effect. 
 
 As has been before stated, the thought's 
 trinity can be considered simply as follows: 
 
 i. The reflective, intellectual function, . . . 
 which conceives and plans. 
 
 2. The affective, volitional function, . . . 
 
 which chooses and decides. 
 
 3. The effective, vital function, . . . which 
 
 carries into expression the decision 
 and plan. 
 
 These three factors are co-essential, co-ex- 
 istent, and co-operative. They form one 
 whole mind-activity. 
 
 In some mentalities the expressive func- 
 tion may be partially dormant, or undeveloped; 
 in another mentality the reflective, or the 
 affective factor, may be partially dormant or 
 
 undeveloped, but if the individual be capable 
 
 24 
 
TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 of any thought whatever, all three factors are 
 there. 
 
 In every whole mind-action the three factors 
 are taking part, one dominant and the other 
 two subordinate. In different individuals 
 different factors are habitually dominant, and 
 this fact is the jreason why one individual is 
 said to be a man of reflection, another a man 
 of impulse, while the third is called a man of 
 action. 
 
 In symmetrical, right activity, whether in 
 art, religion, daily living and work, in whatever 
 field of activity one finds his expression, the 
 whole thought, in its three introactive func- 
 tions, must find itself embodied and reflected. 
 When the thought has thus proved its ex- 
 istence and vitality, the reflective factor in- 
 dicates its presence by the fact that the ex- 
 pression has a recognizable form, shape and 
 plan, whether the expression be a poem, a 
 bridge, a painting, whether it be teaching, 
 acting, living; without form and plan there 
 is, in the expression, no proof of intelligence. 
 
 The affective factor indicates its presence 
 25 
 
TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 by the fact that the expression has unfold- 
 ment-in-sequence, or purposeful harmony, that 
 the shape is symmetrical, and that the plan 
 shows an end in view and unfolds to that end. 
 
 The vital factor indicates its presence by the 
 expression as a whole, the demonstrated ability 
 to carry the plan and purpose into fulfillment. 
 
 A WHOLE THOUGHT is dynamic, cre- 
 ative. It can remove mountains, dig canals, 
 discover continents, redeem the world. 
 
 POINTS 
 
 i. There is a certain function of thought 
 that may be called the thought's vitality 
 — ability to do. 
 
 2. This function can be awakened and 
 
 trained. 
 
 3. Training and development come through 
 
 practice rightly directed. 
 
 4. This right direction depends upon the 
 
 recognition and application of a prin- 
 ciple; also the recognition of the 
 difference between sensation and vital 
 thought as the cause of expression. 
 26 
 
Media 
 
 EVERY thought, in order to prove its ex- 
 istence, is obliged to overcome and 
 master material in some form or other. 
 Thought in its expressive act, making its ap- 
 peal to intelligence, does so in spite of material, 
 never with its willing aid. 
 
 When thought does seize on material and 
 fuse it into embodiment the proof that it is 
 right thought and right expression is that the 
 media used, whether spoken words, the 
 printed page, paint and canvas, marble or the 
 voice and body, cease to be apparent as 
 material ; they become transparent, they dis- 
 appear, just as the surface of a good mirror 
 disappears, giving place to the reflected image. 
 
 The material medium in right expression 
 gets out of the way, ceases to obtrude, just in 
 degree as it is correctly and deftly used. In 
 other words, — just in degree as it is obe- 
 dient to its rightful master, the mind. When 
 rightfully mastered and obedient the mate- 
 
 27 
 
TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 rial medium becomes de-materialized; it 
 becomes the " outer end " of the active, rec- 
 ognizable thought ; it is expression. Expres- 
 sion is not the material medium in action, it 
 is vital thought de-materializing the inter- 
 vening, interfering material. The material 
 medium of itself is always, either passively or 
 actively, resistant to right expression. 
 
 In the case of the sculptor and his marble 
 block the passive resistance is obvious. Im- 
 bedded in the block the sculptor sees his 
 angel imprisoned. The marble does not 
 want to yield her up. It knows nothing of 
 any angel. It knows only marble and doesn't 
 want to be broken. But the sculptor ham- 
 mers it, chisels it, rubs it and polishes it, 
 does away with every bit of superfluous, in- 
 terfering marble, until at last the angel stands 
 free, no longer marble to the intelligent gaze 
 of the observer but the sculptor's vision 
 embodied. 
 
 In serving the idea marble became trans- 
 figured. 
 
 In our own field of expression, The Spoken 
 28 
 
TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 Word, where the material media are the 
 living voice and the animate body, it would 
 seem that these, surely, must be fluidly re- 
 sponsive to every varying phase of intelligence 
 and artistic purpose. The truth is, however, 
 that only as the voice and body are coerced 
 and trained into obedience to vitalized thought 
 and only as the expressional function of the 
 mind is awakened and trained to command 
 and handle the voice and body correctly and 
 deftly, do they do anything but interfere with 
 the mental concept and purpose. In their un- 
 trained states, the voice and body are the most 
 rebellious and deceitful of all the media right 
 expression has to employ. The more they are 
 freed in their own physical realm, without the 
 government of intelligence being established, 
 the more obstructive they become to right ex- 
 pression. 
 
 The cause of this is, as has been stated in 
 another chapter, but which cannot be re- 
 peated too often; this living instrument 
 seems to insist on having an intelligence and 
 
 power of its own, an intelligence resident 
 
 29 
 
TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 in its own nerve-centers and a power in its 
 muscular tensions, and this counterfeit in- 
 telligence is forever trying to hypnotize both 
 speaker and hearer into mistaking it for real 
 intelligence and is so often successful, on 
 the stage, in the pulpit, at the bar, on the pub- 
 lic platform, that oratory, thus misconceived, 
 has fallen into disrepute and rightly so. The 
 orator's power has come to be associated too 
 much with physical excitement and too little 
 with dynamic thought. Public speakers are 
 too often content to make this physical appeal. 
 It is sometimes cloaked with the name, per- 
 sonal magnetism. It is a physical appeal to 
 a physical response. Speakers who depend 
 on this animal activity for power, must be 
 classed with the colored preacher who pos- 
 sessed a wonderful ability to throw his con- 
 gregation into spasms of religious ecstasy. 
 When asked to explain his method he said : — 
 "Well, sah, after I have chosen mah tex' and 
 arranged mah remahks, I goes out into the 
 back yahd an' expouns the sermon to my 
 dawg. I tries it over in different tones of 
 
 30 
 
TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 voice, and when I gets it worked up to that 
 extent that it keeps the dawg howlin', then I 
 knows that the power of the sperit is with me." 
 
 True efficiency in a public speaker is not 
 measured by the amount of excitement he 
 can create but rather by the amount of think- 
 ing he can awaken in the audience. 
 
 Real vitality of thought clarifies and vivi- 
 fies the expressive form but never destroys it. 
 Physical excitement, which is the counterfeit 
 of vitality of thought, tends to straighten and 
 elongate all expressive form and thus destroys 
 it. It is an enemy to intelligent expression. 
 
 The right mind always wants the body and 
 voice to do the right thing in expression, and 
 whenever they obey this want, whether in 
 their trained or untrained conditions, the mind 
 of the auditor recognizes it as right, and that 
 his intelligence is being addressed. That is 
 because the mind's way is the universal way 
 and can always be recognized by mind. 
 
 Right expression always carries with it a 
 revelation that intelligence is obtaining the 
 mastery over that which is the remnant of 
 
 31 
 
TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 the tiger and the ape in human nature. The 
 struggle is always going on, and every bit of 
 expression, right or wrong, shows which is 
 holding the upper hand, the intelligence or 
 the animal. 
 
 It is a common but erroneous belief that 
 mind can think and mind can feel but that 
 mind cannot act, cannot express; that it has 
 no life of its own and consequently that the 
 body is necessary in expression in order to 
 supply the life, the energy. A sort of part- 
 nership is thus erroneously supposed to exist 
 between the mind and the body, a sort of 
 division of labor. The right understanding, 
 however, is that intelligence does not recog- 
 nize the -material body in right expression ; 
 the material senses recognize it but the mind 
 recognizes only embodiment of idea. The 
 body becomes the embodiment when it ab- 
 solutely obeys the command of thought and 
 does not allow its own sensations and nerve 
 excitements to be in any way its masters. 
 
 In and of themselves, voice and body in 
 right expression, are nothing but obstructions : 
 
 32 
 
TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 only as they serve the idea do they get out of 
 the way. Any more voice than is required 
 for the full expression of the thought and 
 feeling is too much, and interferes with right 
 expression almost as much as too little. 
 
 However graceful the body or beautiful 
 the voice, if the attention of the auditor is 
 held by this beauty and grace, as being some- 
 thing separate from the truth expressed, in 
 just that degree are the voice and body ob- 
 structive and disobedient. It would be as if 
 the surface of a statue were so highly polished 
 as to distract the eye from the sculptor's 
 living thought. Voice, body, marble must 
 serve the idea; then they are redeemed; 
 then they disappear as material and serve 
 in the house of the Lord. 
 
 If the belief prevail that the embodiment 
 in any art is anything in and of itself, if a 
 separation be made between the concept and 
 the expression, then the art tends towards 
 decadence. When art in any subtle way 
 works toward degeneracy it is when the 
 beauty of the embodiment is worshipped 
 
 33 
 
TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 rather than the spirit which produced it; 
 when the form is looked on as possessing the 
 intelligence of which it is only the symbol; 
 when the effect is looked upon as the cause ; 
 when the appeal is made to the emotions 
 rather than the intelligence. 
 
 34 
 
The Speaking Voice 
 
 IT is my belief and understanding that the 
 good voice is possible for, and latent in, 
 every individual. I believe the good voice 
 is the real voice. 
 
 Nothing is so helpful to the voice-student as 
 this understanding; that the good voice is 
 his and already in his possession, latent, 
 locked up, tied up, buried, hidden, but waiting 
 to be liberated ; and that the processes of edu- 
 cation and training are the untying and un- 
 locking and clearing away of obstructions and 
 the opening of channels ; that it is all a proc- 
 ess of discovery, or of coming into one's in- 
 heritance ; not a reaching out after something 
 to attach to one's equipment ; not a process of 
 acquirement, but a process of freeing. 
 
 The good voice is the expression of the 
 true self. The habitual voice is the expres- 
 sion of the habitual self. " Habitual " should 
 not be confused with " natural." Nature, 
 correctly interpreted, is right and harmonious 
 
 35 
 
TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 and works according to law. Habit may be 
 xight and may be wrong. Furthermore, our 
 habitual voices not only express our own mis- 
 takes but also the mistakes and habits of 
 thought of our grandparents, neighbors, en- 
 vironment, occupation and opinions : not only 
 our own opinions but inherited opinions and 
 ^opinions of opinions. 
 
 The good voice expresses understanding; 
 the faulty voice, habit or opinion. Faults of 
 voice are, in their origin, the outgrowths of 
 some kind of fear. They are caused in the 
 beginning by some non-understanding or mis- 
 understanding of power and later are contin- 
 ued or induced by some misconception, mis- 
 direction or misapplication of power. Fear 
 is the result of the misunderstanding of power, 
 and faults of voice become fastened on us in 
 childhood before we know anything about 
 power except as something which makes us 
 do what we don't want to, and something 
 which we cannot successfully resist, but which 
 we might, if we were cunning enough, hide 
 from or elude. Consequently the nasal voice, 
 
 36 
 
TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 which is elementally a whine, the flat voice, 
 which came originally from shrinking from 
 struggle, the high voice, which came in child- 
 hood from fear of the hopelessness of its pro- 
 test against power, and the constricted voice, 
 which was born in childish petulance and 
 anger, are all accepted later as our natural 
 voices. 
 
 The man who believes that power resides 
 in physical strength must change his mind 
 before he can come into his good voice. If 
 he himself possesses physical strength he will 
 think power resides in his own person and he 
 may develop a strong voice and a loud voice 
 but not one capable of interpreting or in- 
 spiring spiritualized thought. Or he may be 
 a physically weak man; in that case he will 
 imagine power resides in other men but not 
 in himself, and will resent power, fear power, 
 envy power, or feel that he can only unsuc- 
 cessfully resist power. His voice will prob- 
 ably be either weak, nasal, high-pitched or 
 constricted, not because of the fact that he 
 is physically weak, but because he believes 
 
 37 
 
TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 power to reside in physical strength instead 
 of spirit. 
 
 The enlightened mind interprets power in 
 terms of freedom — broadening of horizon, 
 heightening of zenith. Right thought realizes 
 power instead of fearing it. It sees power as 
 beneficent rather than malignant; not as 
 something that overthrows but that surrounds 
 and uplifts. The unenlightened thought re- 
 sists power because it fears. The enlight- 
 ened thought utilizes, manifests and embodies 
 power because it understands. 
 
 Fear, either conscious, unconscious or sub- 
 conscious, is the fundamental basis of such 
 wrong mind-actions as bashfulness, self- 
 consciousness, envy, emulation, hypocrisy, 
 suspicion, discontent, anxiety, conceit, etc. 
 The physical signs and effects of these wrong 
 states of mind are: relaxed or contracted 
 chest, shallow or clavicular breathing, rigid 
 face muscles, tight upper lip, pinched nos- 
 trils, constricted throat, inert soft-palate. 
 
 Fear reverses all intelligent processes. 
 Every one of the physical conditions men- 
 
 38 
 
TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 tioned above is exactly contrary to what is 
 necessary for proper voice production. The 
 good voice requires an expanded torso and 
 deep breathing : fear contracts the chest and 
 shortens the breath. The good voice re- 
 quires free and flexible face muscles: fear 
 freezes them. The good voice insists on an 
 open throat: fear clutches the throat and 
 constricts all the breath channels. The 
 effects of fear, ignorance and hypocrisy on 
 the muscles of the body are unavoidable and 
 unconcealable, and the quality of the voice is 
 the betrayer and interpreter, beyond the con- 
 trol of the speaker, of these conditions of 
 thought. A perfectly trained voice, with a 
 mind of fear, ignorance and pretence, will un- 
 consciously revert to the old falsity. Fear 
 must be lost in the right understanding of 
 power — that power is loving and casts out 
 fear. 
 
 In freeing the voice of the student from 
 wrong habits the teacher should be a keen 
 detector of wrong habits of thought in the 
 student. He should be alert to detect what 
 
 39 
 
TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 particular form of fear may have become habit- 
 ual in the student. Self-consciousness is the 
 usual form. Self-conceit is a form of fear and 
 often bashfulness is a form of self-conceit. 
 The wise teacher will kindly and patiently 
 guide the student out of these mistaken men- 
 tal attitudes. It is of first importance that a 
 vocal ideal should be established in the stu- 
 dent's mind ; in his mind's ear he must hear 
 the voice he hopes to have. As before said, 
 nothing is so helpful to the student as to bring 
 him to understand that this longed-for voice 
 is his already, waiting to be freed and em- 
 bodied. He must hear it, however, with his 
 mind's ear. Sometimes he will recognize it 
 in the voice of a great singer, or in some more- 
 than-usual good tone in the voice of his 
 teacher. He never recognizes it in anything 
 that is mediocre : he recognizes it only in the 
 voice that is so nearly ideal that it awakens 
 his spiritual sense. This vocal ideal can be 
 trusted to develop if only it be once awakened. 
 In the meantime the teacher will give the 
 
 student such vocal exercises as necessitate 
 
 40 
 
TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 the reversal of whatever bad vocal habit is 
 to be overcome, and will patiently and en- 
 couragingly show the student the way, mak- 
 ing clear to him what the exercise is for and 
 watching that it be practiced carefully and 
 intelligently. The student can accomplish 
 in one hour's practice with his thought clear 
 as to just what he is trying to accomplish 
 with the exercise, with his pattern held 
 clearly before him in his mind's ear, than in 
 days of mere " doing " the exercise with in- 
 attentive thought. Whenever a right tone 
 is liberated the student's attention must in- 
 stantly be called to it, and the difference 
 between it and the habitually wrong tone be 
 established, not only in the student's ear but 
 also in his sense of the way he produces the 
 two tones — the right and the wrong. He 
 must patiently make the right way his habit 
 and his intelligence must recognize what con- 
 dition of thought accompanied the sense of 
 right vocal production ; at the same time his 
 ear must recognize the right vocal sound. 
 It is doubtful if anything helpful can be 
 41 
 
TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 written about the definite exercises to be 
 given to the student to overcome vocal faults 
 and to develop right tone-production. Writ- 
 ten directions are liable to misunderstanding 
 and misapplication, however intelligent may 
 be the reader and however carefully the 
 writer may try to correctly describe and ex- 
 plain the exercises. 
 
 Many of the difficulties met in vocal train- 
 ing come from a belief on the student's part 
 that his voice-consciousness should be in his 
 throat. The result of such a belief is a mus- 
 cularization of those parts of his throat 
 which for right tone production should have 
 only the sense of ^expanded openness. By 
 turning the attention of the student away 
 from his throat to breath-control and voice- 
 support, which must take place at his dia- 
 phragm, his mind is rightly directed and a 
 proper condition of throat more easily follows. 
 
 Right breath-control and voice-support are 
 indispensable factors of right voice-produc- 
 tion. Without them the throat inevitably 
 takes upon itself the office of controlling the 
 
 42 
 
TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 breath, which office properly belongs to the 
 diaphragm and the muscles of the torso. 
 
 Before the voice can be intelligently used 
 as an interpreter of spiritualized thought, all 
 the right habits of vocal production must be 
 established. Nothing is so effective in con- 
 firming these right habits and leading the 
 student into a full realization of the ideal 
 voice as using it as the interpreter of the 
 truth and beauty of good literature. Only 
 after the adequate preliminary training and 
 tuning of the vocal instrument, however, can 
 the student be brought into a demonstrable 
 understanding of the use of his voice as a 
 medium of artistic expression. This second 
 step in vocal education is more interesting 
 perhaps, but not more important, than the 
 first. The first calls for patience and abounds 
 in drudgery ; the second has the deep inter- 
 est of discovery and brings with it a sense of 
 coming into one's inheritance. 
 
 Let it be remembered that however beauti- 
 ful and free and obedient the voice may be, 
 if the possessor of the voice be not also 
 
 43 
 
TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 possessed of spiritual and intellectual life and 
 culture, there will be nothing of value for the 
 beautiful voice to express, nothing worthy 
 of chosen expression. On the other hand, 
 however high the purpose, however spirit- 
 ualized the thought, however beautiful the 
 vision, without the trained voice the revelation 
 through the Spoken Word will be obstructed 
 and imperfect. 
 
 If there be, indeed, a science of expression 
 the fundamental laws must be found oper- 
 ative in every expressional act. The voice as 
 an expression of the activity of the mind must 
 manifest in itself the mind's trinity. Let me 
 again state the fundamental principle of the 
 science of expression. Expression is a mind- 
 activity and every expressional manifestation must 
 prove that its cause and source are in mind. In 
 order to prove this the expressional manifes- 
 tation must show the operation of another 
 law, called the Law of Trinity, which may 
 be stated as follows: 
 
 The whole thought or mind-action is a trin- 
 ity, the three factors of which are : 
 
 44 
 
TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 i. Reflective Factor (Intellectual). 
 
 2. Affective Factor (Volitional). 
 
 3. Effective Factor (Vital). 
 
 This trinity proves itself in expression as 
 follows : 
 
 1. Reflective Factor, in shape or form. 
 
 2. Affective Factor, in unfoldment-in-se- 
 
 quence. 
 
 3. Effective Factor, in ability to act : mo- 
 
 tion. 
 
 Voice, as expression, obeys the Law of Trin- 
 ity as follows : 
 
 Intelligence is symbolized in and governs em- 
 phasis and inflection, (form) 
 Errors: — sharpness, high pitch, — arising 
 from desire to argue and convince rather 
 than to define and arrange in order. 
 
 Volition is symbolized in and governs melody, 
 harmony, smoothness and flexibility, (un- 
 foldment) 
 
 Errors : — too many curves, caused by over 
 desire to please, hypocrisy, sentimentality. 
 Minor cadence — over desire for sympathy. 
 45 
 
TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 Vitality is symbolized in and governs freedom, 
 fullness, range, rate, and resonance, (mo- 
 tion) 
 
 Errors: — loudness, roughness, monotony; 
 all resulting from belief in power in muscle 
 and life in body. 
 
 Voice itself, apart from words, is a member 
 of another trinity, a trinity of languages, 
 which, in our special art of the Spoken Word, 
 the mind uses for its embodiment. The 
 three factors of this trinity are 
 
 i. Words. 
 
 2. Voice or intonation. 
 
 3. Action. 
 
 1. Reflective Factor employs as its special 
 language, words — voice showing concepts 
 of thought. 
 
 2. Affective Factor employs as its special 
 language voice, intonation, showing feeling 
 produced by thought. 
 
 3. Effective Factor employs as its special 
 language action — showing energy of 
 thought and feeling. 
 
 46 
 
Expressive Action 
 
 EVERY method of teaching expressive ac- 
 tion today, unless it be so antiquated or 
 so lacking of a scientific basis as to be 
 not worth while, embodies more or less, or at 
 least is tinged by, the discoveries and teach- 
 ings of Francois Delsarte. Dr. Alger, in his 
 Life of Forrest, says, "Delsarte toiled for 
 forty years with unswerving zeal, to trans- 
 form the bungling empiricism of the stage, 
 into a perfect art growing out of a perfect 
 science. . . . Art, Delsarte said, with his 
 matchless precision of phrase, is feeling 
 passed through thought and fixed in form." 
 Whatever were the faults and vagaries 
 of his theory of expressive action, Delsarte 
 made a tremendous advance in the teaching 
 of the science and art of expression over 
 anything that had been done before his day, 
 and no advance has since been made that 
 has not been mainly in the direction pointed 
 out by him. 
 
 47 
 
TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 One of the universally accepted principles 
 of all training in expression or in any depart- 
 ment of human activity, was first discovered 
 and formulated by Delsarte, namely, that 
 beneath the vast myriad of accidental actions 
 and combinations of actions, there are a few 
 fundamental actions, which, if they could be 
 established in habit, would not only correct 
 all faulty action but would develop and free 
 power ; that in training for expression all ex- 
 ercises should be taken upon these few ele- 
 mental ; that practice of accidentals develops 
 weakness and inefficiency. 
 
 Delsarte also formulated the following law : 
 The fundamental of all expressive position is poise. 
 Poise is always unchangeable. The point of support 
 may change with the varying state of emotion, but 
 poise is never violated. Any intelligent teaching 
 of expressive action must be governed by an 
 understanding of this law. 
 
 Delsarte taught that, in expressive attitude, 
 there are possible but nine fundamental points 
 of support, or centers of poise, and over each 
 one of these centers of poise are grouped a 
 
 48 
 
TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 vast number of combinations of expressive 
 combinations, almost without limit, but each 
 distinctive group having the same fundamental 
 root. Also that in all expressive action grace 
 and distinction are dependent on the distinc- 
 tiveness and control of elemental actions. 
 
 The three grand laws of expression, Trin- 
 ity, Opposition and Evolution, are Delsartian, 
 and they are accepted in all fields of art to be 
 self -evidently true. In our art the disobedi- 
 ence of them, in any particular, at once re- 
 sults in awkwardness or affectation. Obedi- 
 ence to them causes the body to become 
 transparent to thought-activity, and leads to 
 freedom and spontaneity in all expressive 
 action. 
 
 In considering the material human body as 
 an expressional servant of the thought there 
 are certain symbolisms and correspondences 
 existing in its form and outline, which, when 
 stated, at once seem true. For instance, 
 Delsarte taught that the three factors of the 
 thought's trinity, the mental, moral and 
 vital, find themselves reflected in the three 
 
 49 
 
TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 factors of the human body's trinity, the 
 head, the torso and the limbs; each one of 
 these agents being the symbol and primary 
 agent in expression of one of the thought- 
 activities. They are alloted as follows: 
 
 i. Mental — has for its special agent the 
 head. 
 
 2. Moral — has for its special agent the torso. 
 
 3. Vital — has for its special agent the limbs. 
 
 This correspondency seems obviously and 
 interestingly true the moment it is brought 
 to one's attention. Delsarte's explanation is, 
 that as in mind the mental function perceives 
 and guides, the moral impels and the vital 
 supports and executes, so in body the head 
 guides, the torso impels, and the limbs (legs) 
 support and (arms) execute. 
 
 Undoubtedly the reason we so readily agree 
 that the head is the agent of the mentality of 
 the thought is on account of the common be- 
 lief that the reflective process goes on in the 
 head, just as it is commonly believed that 
 the "love activity" goes on in the heart and 
 
 50 
 
TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 as the heart is in the torso, the torso seems to 
 be the rightful agent of the moral factor of the 
 mind; and as the physical ability to go and 
 come, to support and execute, resides pri- 
 marily in the limbs, that division of the human 
 body, it is commonly believed, should be the 
 particular agent of the vital factor of the 
 thought. 
 
 One thing seems certain; — in our present 
 state of spiritual development truth speaks 
 to us in parables and symbols and awakens 
 partial understanding to fuller understanding. 
 Jesus found it necessary to teach spiritual 
 truths by means of parables and thus found 
 a gate-way through which Truth delivered 
 the message which could be thus received 
 and, in a measure, understood. 
 
 If we accept these symbols and correspond- 
 ences taught by Delsarte in the sense of 
 parables, and if they are not confounded with 
 laws and principles, they can be used in art 
 as something which enables it to carry truth 
 through the blockade of the five senses to the 
 thought on the other side. 
 
 51 
 
TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 It must be insisted on, that neither the 
 physical form nor any of its parts has any 
 power in expression to appeal to spiritualized 
 thought, except as it becomes obedient to 
 right mind. 
 
 Years of experience, patient study and ob- 
 servation have led me into the understanding 
 of certain fundamental truths and their re- 
 lation to art which I have endeavored to set 
 forth in these pages, and which seem to me to 
 differ vitally and basically from certain teach- 
 ings of Delsarte, as far as I am conversant 
 with them. 
 
 I am convinced that Delsarte confused vi- 
 tality of thought with sensation, and that he be- 
 lieved the mind and the physical body to be 
 in partnership. He states the mind's trinity 
 as reflective, affective and sensitive. If one is to 
 hold true to the understanding that the ' c mock- 
 mind " of sensation is an enemy to right ex- 
 pression, and that expression is a mental prop- 
 osition from beginning to end and takes place 
 in spite of the material body, certain Delsartian 
 points of view would have to be disputed. 
 
 52 
 
TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 To return to the subject of expressive ac- 
 tion: — the body as a whole, and every one 
 of its different agents of expression, have 
 bearings, attitudes and inflections. Bearings 
 indicate permanent conditions or habits of 
 being, attitudes indicate temporary states of 
 being, and inflections indicate passing, mo- 
 mentary phases of being. 
 
 Underlying all expressive bearings and 
 attitudes of the body as a whole is the ele- 
 mental idea of poise; that is, the proper 
 relation of the mass of a body to its base. 
 Material left to itself will constantly endeavor 
 to broaden its base. It seems to recognize 
 earth as its source and support, and to be im- 
 pelled to return to it, and to flatten itself out 
 as much as possible on the surface of the 
 earth. 
 
 Spiritual intelligence recognizes that its 
 source and support are from above, and what- 
 ever it governs it lifts into the position of up- 
 rightness. 
 
 The two elemental lines, the vertical and 
 the horizontal, stand, in expression, for these 
 
 53 
 
TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 two conditions of consciousness. The ver- 
 tical is the line of intelligent uprightness, of 
 affirmation and of establishment of truth. 
 The horizontal is the line of non-intelligent 
 inertia, of negation and of overthrow. 
 
 The upright position is the symbol of mind- 
 governed man; the horizontal, of mind-de- 
 serted material. All ignoble emotions tend 
 to make the body depart from its upright 
 position. All noble emotions and inspiring 
 thoughts emphasize the body's uprightness 
 and lessen its seeming dependence on the 
 earth for support. 
 
 Fear and physical weakness employ cer- 
 tain identical signals, such as broad base, 
 unsteady agents of support, trembling and 
 bending. Fear and physical weakness, when 
 they are temporary states of being, are ex- 
 pressed in temporary attitudes 'rather than 
 in habitual bearings. It is the habitual con- 
 dition of the mind which is symbolized in the 
 habitual bearing of the body. 
 
 In passing from habitual bearing to tem- 
 porary attitude of the body it is necessary to 
 
 54 
 
TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 begin with the elemental military attitude ; — 
 heels together, weight on both feet, body up- 
 right. The significance of this attitude is — 
 readiness to obey, — to receive commands. 
 It is the servant's attitude, the attitude of the 
 inferior. Unless the weight can be changed 
 to one foot, leaving the other free, the indi- 
 vidual cannot change his base. A desire to 
 advance will sway his body forward, a desire 
 to retreat will sway his body back. But the 
 weight held over both feet limits all ex- 
 pressive attitude of the body to that circum- 
 scribed realm. 
 
 If now the weight be taken on one foot and 
 the free foot advanced or withdrawn, the 
 attitude of the individual immediately assumes 
 the expression of a person under command of 
 his own will. His desire to advance carries 
 his weight over his advanced foot, leaving 
 the other foot free to carry still farther for- 
 ward the now free and movable base. His 
 desire to withdraw carries the weight over 
 his back foot, leaving the other free to be- 
 come a new base still farther back, etc. 
 
 55 
 
TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 The base composed of a supporting foot and 
 a free foot, in combination with the elemental 
 base, where the weight is on both feet, sup- 
 plies a series of points of support which the 
 three factors of the thought's trinity can use 
 for their special symbols and combinations 
 of symbols. 
 
 When the thought's vitality is dominant the 
 obedient body symbolizes that state by ad- 
 vancing its weight over the advanced foot. 
 When the thought's reflectivity is dominant 
 that state is symbolized by the weight of the 
 body being] over the back foot. The base, in 
 expressive attitude, has slight office in the 
 expression of the volitional factor of the mind. 
 That factor of the mind either likes or dis- 
 likes, either chooses or rejects, and the 
 thought's choice or decision is registered at 
 the base merely as a point of departure from 
 one state of poise to another. 
 
 As attitudes over the feet express elemen- 
 tally the state of the energy of the thought, 
 rather than the plan or purpose, the element of 
 motion is more in evidence in the expression 
 
 56 
 
TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 than is the element of shape or form. This 
 is, of course, because motion is the special 
 symbol of energy. 
 
 Every attitude is fully expressive only as it 
 indicates the motion employed to arrive at it. 
 
 It may be interesting now to note how mo- 
 tion itself obeys the law of trinity in that in 
 its three essential directions — towards a cen- 
 ter, about a center and away from a center — 
 each of the three factors of the mind's trinity 
 finds its own expressive symbol. 
 
 The reflective activity uses motion towards 
 a center. 
 
 The affective activity uses motion about a 
 center. 
 
 The effective activity uses motion from a 
 center. 
 
 In all expressive attitudes the center of 
 impulse to move should be in the chest. 
 The order of unfoldment is as follows: ex- 
 panded chest, attitude over foot, arm gesture, 
 speech. Attitude should never follow arm 
 gesture and neither attitude nor gesture 
 should follow speech. 
 
 57 
 
TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 Awkwardness in attitude or gesture is due 
 either to disobedience of the law of opposi- 
 tion and balance, or of the law of evolution 
 or unfoldment-in-sequence. 
 
 What is here written about expressive ac- 
 tion is not an attempt at more than the barest 
 statement of two or three fundamental laws 
 and their relation to the movement and atti- 
 tudes of the body as a whole. 
 
 The purpose is to interest the reader in 
 the fact that there are laws and principles 
 underlying and governing form, motion and un- 
 foldment and to lead him to discover by in- 
 dependent thought that these laws are uni- 
 versal and govern the movement of the solar 
 system as well as the most elusive of the ex- 
 pressive movements of the head or the hand 
 or the brow and that these laws are laws of 
 mind and not of matter. 
 
 58 
 
Laws of Expression 
 
 THE very word " Expression " not only 
 states to our thought an idea, but paints 
 a picture of an action — motion from 
 within out. It states the idea of something 
 hidden, invisible, moving out into visibility; 
 of a something imprisoned using its prison- 
 house as a means of coming out into recog- 
 nized existence, forcing it (the prison-house) 
 to take on the form and motion of the pris- 
 oner ; to become his embodiment. 
 
 Still more interesting is the truth that this 
 body, this prison-house, depends for its sig- 
 nificance, its value, upon being so used by 
 this something which is within or behind. 
 
 We have grown to speak of this invisible 
 something which gives shape and motion and 
 meaning to its prison-house, as being " with- 
 in " or " behind," simply from the fact that 
 it is invisible and intangible to the physical 
 senses until its activities are pictured by an 
 embodiment. By embodiment is meant any 
 
 59 
 
TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 and all activities which give the impression of 
 shape, motion and unfoldment One's objective 
 thought has taken on its shape just in such 
 a degree as one can define it, handle it, con- 
 centrate one's attention on it, arrest its mo- 
 tion, divide it, unfold its processes. It may- 
 be still unexpressed to the other man because 
 it may not have " moved out" far enough. 
 In order that another may feel, hear and see 
 one's thought it seems necessary that the 
 thought should seize upon material (body), 
 and make it embodiment. If this embodi- 
 ment be marble carved to the shape of one's 
 thought, or if the embodiment be in the 
 form and melodies of music, then we think 
 of the invisible and intangible something as 
 being outside the visible symbol and reflected 
 by it. We think of the spiritual cause as 
 being, not confined inside the form and giving 
 it shape from within, but more as if the 
 statue, painting or symphony were a mirror in 
 which the spiritual activity were reflected; 
 or as if the spiritual activity surrounded and 
 
 outlined the symbol by dissolving away all that 
 
 60 
 
TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 was superfluous. Nevertheless we speak of 
 all these acts of expression as the inner activity 
 of the mind working out into visible or audible 
 forms and motions. At once we find our- 
 selves conceiving of two factors in expression, 
 the inner and the outer, the invisible and the 
 visible; and of these as being inseparable 
 parts of one whole activity. The first we con- 
 ceive as cause, the second as manifestation. 
 
 We understand that in expression all cause 
 is in mind and all manifestation is in or through 
 form, motion and unfoldment Form, motion 
 and unfoldment must never be accepted as 
 cause nor must t)fey be looked upon as ef- 
 fect ; the effect takes place in the thought of 
 the observer; they — form, motion and un- 
 foldment — awaken thought and emotion only 
 as they reflect the mind-action which produces 
 them. Form, motion and unfoldment are 
 ideas in mind. Manifestation is mental and is 
 a trinity and can be resolved into its three 
 factors or conditions, and although these fac- 
 tors, form, motion aud unfoldment, are never 
 cause in expression yet they awaken in the 
 
 61 
 
TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 observer, as I said before, the same mind- 
 action of which they are the manifestation. 
 
 Form is recognized by the human conscious- 
 ness as a manifestation of plan and speaks to 
 the intellectual activity, or that part of the 
 mind which measures, enumerates, outlines, classi- 
 fies and defines. 
 
 Motion is recognized by the human con- 
 sciousness as a manifestation of energy and 
 appeals to that part of the mind which acts, 
 executes and demonstrates. 
 
 Unfoldment is recognized as a manifestation 
 of purpose and appeals to one's understand- 
 ing of good-will, love. 
 
 A mind-activity does not embody itself ex- 
 cept for the purpose of being understood, in 
 order that a brotherhood of mind may be rec- 
 ognized. I, as the observer, find in my own 
 consciousness a trinity of activities corre- 
 sponding to the three kinds of appeal made 
 by the expression. I find that I can think in 
 the sense of reflecting, defining and analyzing. 
 I find I can think in the sense of liking, de- 
 siring, choosing, willing, loving. I find I can 
 
 62 
 
TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 think in the sense of executing, demonstrating, 
 expressing. 
 
 Let us call the first the reflective, or intel- 
 lectual activity of the thought. 
 
 Let us call the second the affective, or vo- 
 litional activity of the thought. 
 
 Let us call the third the effective, or the 
 vital activity of the thought. 
 
 These three form a trinity — they are co- 
 existent, co-essential and co-operative. This 
 trinity is the causation of all right expressive 
 manifestation ; hence, logically, a trinity must 
 be discovered in every manifestative phe- 
 nomenon. 
 
 In all manifestative phenomena, whether 
 in life or art, there are discoverable three 
 fundamental laws which are so interlaced, 
 inter-dependent, and introactive that they 
 form a trinity, each one implying the other 
 two and each one depending upon the other 
 two for its wholeness and completeness. 
 These laws are called the three grand laws of 
 expression. 
 
 First, the Law of Trinity. 
 63 
 
TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 Second, the Law of Opposition or Balance. 
 
 Third, the Law of Evolution. 
 
 The Law of Trinity. The three-fold activities 
 of the thought are apparent in and govern all 
 right expression as follows: the reflective ac- 
 tivity governs and is expressed in the outline 
 of the form ; the affective activity governs and 
 is expressed in the sense of a central starting 
 point or impulse, the unfoldment from which 
 results in the expressive form; the vital activity 
 governs and is expressed in the ability and 
 adequacy of the form to express the thought's 
 purpose. 
 
 The Law of Opposition or Balance. Whole- 
 ness is an essential factor in all right expres- 
 sion and implies a recognizable center with all 
 opposing sides balanced ; thus proving in the 
 expression a right and adequate intellectual 
 plan and a proper measure of energy in the 
 thought to unfold its purpose into a determined 
 symmetrical and well-balanced form. 
 
 Note: Every expressive manifestation is 
 rendered significant through the realization 
 of its center. Without such a realization 
 
 6 4 
 
TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 the phenomenon seems to be a fragment with- 
 out any expression of plan or purpose, con- 
 sequently lacking wholeness and complete- 
 ness. 
 
 The Law of Evolution. An expressive mani- 
 festation is significant only when it reflects the 
 truth that its form is the result of a central 
 impulse, born of a purpose and served by energy 
 of thought sufficient to unfold it sequentially 
 along a determined path or plan to a deter- 
 mined form. 
 
 Note applicable to all three laws: In ev- 
 ery expressive manifestation there is reflected 
 the purpose which gave birth to the impulse 
 to express, the conception which gave birth to 
 the purpose and which planned and guided 
 and directed the expression, and the energy 
 which carried the impulse into the form of 
 expression determined and directed by the 
 intellectual concept. 
 
 In the first law plan is primary and purpose 
 and energy secondary. 
 
 In the second law energy is primary and plan 
 and purpose secondary. 
 
 65 
 
TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 In the third law purpose is primary and plan 
 and energy secondary. 
 
 COMPREHENSIVE LAW. In right expres- 
 sion all causation is mental and the expression must 
 prove it. All manifestation is in form, motion and 
 unfoldment and is also mental. 
 
 The fact that it is arbitrarily said that the 
 above statements are laws is one thing; 
 whether or not the reader of this book under- 
 stands them to be laws is another. They 
 surely are not laws for him until they are 
 self-evident to his understanding. Laws can- 
 not be theorized into existence nor argued 
 into existence. If they are laws they are 
 discoverable. 
 
 It has been my endeavor to so word my 
 own thought that the thought of my reader 
 might follow mine in its unfolding and thus 
 we might together reach the same con- 
 clusion. If we can agree that the universe 
 rightly understood is an expression of its 
 Cause and that it reflects or indicates a cer- 
 tain method in this expression, and if we find 
 that same method or activity or correspond- 
 
 66 
 
TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 ency, or whatever it might be termed, again 
 manifested in our own minds or thought- 
 processes and their expressional activities, 
 then we can, I believe, accept this discovered 
 method as obedient to universal law. 
 
 QUESTIONS ON THE FOREGOING 
 CHAPTER 
 
 Question. — What is meant by manifestation? 
 
 Ans. — The outward sign of an inward 
 
 activity; anything that seems to 
 have form, motion and unfold- 
 ment. 
 
 Question. — Can a manifestation have one 
 of these characteristics without 
 having the other two? 
 
 Ans. — It cannot; these three outward 
 
 signs are a trinity. 
 
 Question. — What is meant by a trinity? 
 
 Anis. — A whole made up of three essen- 
 
 tials which are co-essential, co- 
 existent and co-operative. 
 
 Question. — If the outward sign be a trinity 
 
 67 
 
TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 what must we conclude about 
 the inward activity ? 
 
 Ans. — That it also is a trinity. 
 
 Question. — Given the trinity, form, motion 
 and unfoldment, can one trace 
 back from them the nature of 
 the trinity of which they are the 
 sign? 
 
 Ans. — Yes, as follows: — form implies 
 
 design, or plan, in the cause; 
 design, or plan, implies wisdom 
 or intelligence; hence, wisdom 
 must be one of the character- 
 istics of the cause. Motion, in 
 the expression, implies energy 
 in the cause, energy implies life 
 or power; hence, power is another 
 of the characteristics of the 
 cause. Unfoldment, in the ex- 
 pression, implies in the cause a 
 central impulse towards a fulfill- 
 ment, which means a desire, 
 or purpose, which means love. 
 Hence, love must be the third 
 
 68 
 
TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 characteristic existent in the 
 cause. 
 
 Question. — What then have we found to be 
 the trinity existent in cause? 
 
 Ans. — Wisdom, love and power. 
 
 Question. — Does this trinity exist in matter 
 or in mind ? 
 
 Ans. — In mind. In reality these activ- 
 
 ities are spiritual, being attri- 
 butes of God. 
 
 Question. — Is the trinity existent in nature, 
 namely, form, motion and un- 
 foldment, material? 
 
 Ans. — No, the factors of this trinity are 
 
 ideas in mind; if their cause 
 is mental they must also be 
 mental. 
 
 Question. — Why is one logically certain that 
 form, motion and unf oldment are 
 members of a trinity ? 
 
 Ans. — Because each one implies the 
 
 other two and can be defined in 
 
 terms of the other two, as follows: 
 
 Form expresses the arrival, at de- 
 
 69 
 
TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 termined limits, of motion em- 
 ployed by an unfoldment begin- 
 ning at a center. 
 Unfoldment expresses a central 
 impulse employing motion to 
 arrive at form. 
 
 Motion expresses the means a 
 central impulse employs in its 
 unfoldment to arrive at form. 
 
 70 
 
Form 
 
 5URFACE is the plane of contact be- 
 tween an idea and its recognition by 
 a human consciousness. It has length 
 and breadth but no thickness apart from the 
 volume of the idea of which it is the outline. 
 It is the outward manifestation of the cen- 
 ter's activity. When " surface " is thought 
 of as being anything separate from the idea 
 it outlines it must be thought of as having 
 thickness, which is a contradiction of the 
 thought of surface. 
 
 Outline is the recognition by a human con- 
 sciousness of an intelligent plan inherent in 
 the idea. Center is the recognition of a lov- 
 ing purpose or principle governing the idea 
 and giving it wholeness. Radius is the recog- 
 nition of life and power reflected in the idea 
 and capable of carrying the loving purpose 
 into fulfilment in the recognized plan. 
 
 Form, in reality, is an idea in mind and 
 cannot be fixed in finite outline. " Form " is 
 
 71 
 
TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 the name we give to what takes place in our 
 minds when we recognize an intelligent plan 
 in an idea. What seems to the senses to be 
 outline and surface of form, or in other words, 
 shape, is in reality the limit of our under- 
 standing of the plan. 
 
 Shape, or form, seems to the physical 
 senses to be finite ; a definite thing outlined 
 by our beliefs in regard to it. What is outside 
 of our understanding seems not to exist. As 
 our understanding grows the form seems to 
 change or unfold. The form present in one's 
 consciousness is forever made up of the 
 fading presence of the one just gone before 
 and the dawning presence of the one just to 
 come. 
 
 Real form is spiritual and is outlined only 
 by God himself. One's spiritual understand- 
 ing must conceive of forms as being, in reality, 
 unfoldments from centers of growth; always 
 symmetrical, always whole and harmonious, 
 but never finitely fixed in an unyielding out- 
 line. 
 
 In art " form " is never frozen into the fixity 
 72 
 
TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 and death of finiteness; it ever speaks of 
 unf oldment ; it is ever alive with the move- 
 ment gone through as well as with the move- 
 ment just begun and yet to come. Thought 
 unfolds that way; so does a rose; so does 
 civilization. 
 
 Rodin says in speaking of this truth: "It 
 is in short a metamorphosis of this kind that 
 the painter or sculptor effects in giving move- 
 ment to his personages. He represents the 
 transition from one pose to another ; he indi- 
 cates how insensibly the first glides into the 
 second. In his work we still see a part of 
 what was and we discover a part of what is to 
 be." 
 
 Expression is the contact between an idea 
 and its recognition, — not the point of contact 
 but the contact itself. It is not a locality but 
 an impact. 
 
 The desire for expression and the working 
 out of that desire are activities we have in 
 common with the Father. God's expression 
 is The Word spoken of in the first verses of 
 John. It is the Life and Light of men. 
 
 73 
 
TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 Our expression is the recognition of brother- 
 hood ; it is the recognition of the mistake of 
 "mine and thine" in the realization of the 
 truth of "ours." 
 
 QUESTIONS 
 
 Question. — What is the most valuable thing 
 any school can teach its students? 
 
 Ans. — To think independently. 
 
 Question. — What is meant by thinking in- 
 dependently ? 
 
 Ans. — To be able to follow logically, 
 
 uninfluenced by opinion, a 
 thought-process which unfolds 
 point by point to a conclusion. 
 
 Question. — Do we generally associate the 
 word " thinking " with the study 
 of expression ? 
 
 Ans. — I am afraid not. 
 
 Question. — Do we associate thinking with 
 the study of mathematics ? 
 
 Ans. — We surely do. 
 
 Question. — Granting that each subject be 
 
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TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 equally well taught, is there a 
 reason why mathematics seems 
 more in the realm of thought 
 than does expression ? 
 
 Ans. — Only because we have been 
 
 taught to believe that abstract 
 thinking is the only kind of 
 thinking. Mathematics necessi- 
 tates abstract thinking, reflec- 
 tive thinking. Expression deals 
 with vital thinking — thought in 
 action. 
 
 Question. — Is there a science of expression ? 
 
 Ans. — There is. 
 
 Question. — What is the fundamental prin- 
 ciple underlying the science of 
 expression ? 
 
 Ans. — The cause of all right expression 
 
 is mental. 
 
 Question. — Does this mean that in the art 
 of expression there must be, first 
 of all, a clear mental concept ? 
 
 Ans. — Yes, but that is only a part of 
 
 what is meant. The mental 
 
 75 
 
TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 cause is a trinity made up 
 of a concept, a desire and an 
 ability, — all mental. 
 
 Question. — Given a mental cause what 
 would be the nature of the em- 
 bodiment ? 
 
 Ans. — Mental, of course. 
 
 Question. — Can one truthfully conceive of 
 a mental cause producing a 
 physical embodiment? 
 
 Ans. — No. 
 
 Question. — What is meant by a mental em- 
 bodiment in the art of expres- 
 sion? 
 
 Ans. — The embodiment can be said to 
 
 be mental when the mental 
 concept is made visible. 
 
 Question. — When is this correctly done ? 
 
 Ans. — When the mental concept is 
 
 carried out in definite pictures 
 of thought under mental guid- 
 ance. 
 
 Question. — State this in another way. 
 
 Ans. — When there is no action of voice 
 
 76 
 
TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 or body that does not spring 
 from vivified thought. 
 
 Question. — Are not the voice and body 
 material ? 
 
 Ans. — They are in themselves, but in 
 
 proportion to their obedience to 
 thought they cease to be material 
 and become the idea embodied, 
 as does the paint of the painter 
 when it truly serves his vi- 
 sion. 
 
 Question. — What is the especial danger at- 
 tending the use of the voice and 
 body as media ? 
 
 Ans. — They claim an intelligence of 
 
 their own, residing in nerve-cen- 
 ters. 
 
 Question. — What would this mock intelli- 
 gence do? 
 
 Ans. — It would call attention to its own 
 
 excitements and sensations. 
 
 Question. — What province have voice and 
 body in the art of expression? 
 
 Ans. — They have no province save as 
 
 77 
 
TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 they become the obedient ser- 
 vants of the mind. 
 
 Question. — What has been a common be- 
 lief about voice and body ? 
 
 Ans. — That they naturally express what 
 
 is in the mind. 
 
 Question. — Is this true ? 
 
 Ans. — If the body were truly the spirit- 
 
 ual body and we had already 
 proved we were dwelling in the 
 kingdom of Heaven, this would 
 be so. At present we have to 
 choose to be absent from the 
 body and present with truth. 
 
 Question. — How can we be absent from the 
 body when so much of our time 
 is given to training it ? 
 
 Ans. — As we train the body to obey cer- 
 
 tain fundamental laws, which 
 are mental and spiritual, we are 
 present with the law; thought 
 is directed to a mental process 
 and away from the feelings and 
 
 sensations of the body. The 
 
 78 
 
TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 body is being guided out of the 
 way. 
 
 Question. — When a mental cause produces 
 a mental manifestation or an 
 appeal to mind, we have what ? 
 
 Ans. — A logical result. 
 
 Question. — What do we mean by logic ? 
 
 Ans. — "The science upon which cor- 
 
 rect thought depends — the art 
 of attaining by argument the 
 correct conclusion and avoiding 
 a wrong conclusion." 
 
 Question. — Would it be logical to assume 
 mental causation if the appeal 
 of the finished product were 
 physical ? 
 
 Ans. — It would not. 
 
 Question. — Is it generally believed that a 
 mental concept is necessary to 
 any expression? 
 
 Ans. — It is, but not always proved. 
 
 Question. — If the claim for mental causation 
 were made when the result was 
 physical where was the mistake ? 
 
 79 
 
TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 Ans. — The mistake was in the process. 
 
 Question. — Granting the clear mental con- 
 cept why did not the expression 
 appeal to mind ? 
 
 Ans. — Because an untrained agent was 
 
 trusted to do the right thing. 
 
 Question. — Just where was the point of de- 
 parture from the right proc- 
 ess? 
 
 Ans. — Just when mental guidance was 
 
 abandoned for nerve-response 
 (often mistaken for feeling). 
 
 Question. — Do the physical agents ever do 
 the right thing in expression if 
 left to themselves ? 
 
 Ans. — They do not. When left to 
 
 themselves they follow the path 
 of the least resistance. 
 
 Question. — Would the mental concept be 
 made visible, simply because it 
 is clear in the mind of the 
 speaker, if the physical agents 
 have not been trained to be 
 
 obedient ? 
 
 80 
 
TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 Ans. — The mental concept would not 
 
 only not be made clear in expres- 
 sion but would become less clear 
 to the one endeavoring to express 
 it- 
 Question. — What would be made visible ? 
 
 Ans. — Some measure of concept (de- 
 
 pending upon the speaker's first 
 clarity of thought) together with 
 the confusion resulting from 
 turning a mental concept over 
 to a physical response. 
 
 Question. — What would be the least bad 
 effect? 
 
 Ans. — The speaker's purpose would be 
 
 dimmed and blurred. 
 
 Question. — What would be the maximum 
 bad effect ? 
 
 Ans. — The whole appeal would be made 
 
 to sensation. 
 
 Question. — In right expression to what is 
 the appeal made ? 
 
 Ans. — From mind to mind. 
 
 81 
 
TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 Question. — What relation do concept and 
 expression bear to each other? 
 
 Ans. — They are two essential activities 
 
 of the same thing, each incom- 
 plete without the other. 
 
 Question. — What is the process of the in- 
 telligent study of expression ? 
 
 Ans. — A constant endeavor to embody 
 
 the best concept and purpose 
 one has of the literature one 
 desires to interpret, guided by 
 the best artistic judgment one 
 possesses at the time. As the 
 expression becomes more nearly 
 true to one's concept, the inner 
 vision becomes clearer; the 
 clearer vision then demands a 
 clearer embodiment, and so the 
 process unfolds. 
 
 82 
 
Intelligence and Dramatic 
 Art 
 
 DURING an interesting discussion of 
 dramatic art, a man of thought and 
 judgment in literary and art matters 
 asked me why in my opinion any high-minded 
 actor is ever willing to impersonate a villain 
 or any character of disreputable sort. The 
 question recalled to my mind the fact that I 
 had once been told that it took a good man to 
 play a villain intelligently, for to a real villain 
 villainy does not appear villainous but desir- 
 able and intelligent. An actor who is a man 
 of principle places villainy rightly in the scheme 
 of human life which the play depicts, and rec- 
 ognizes how much of good is contradicted by 
 what the " villain " stands for, and just how 
 unreal is the villain's estimate of values. 
 
 The man of principle understands why the 
 villain is introduced into the scheme of the 
 play; that he is the shadow that emphasizes 
 
 83 
 
TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 the lights ; that the play is a picture of human 
 life setting forth some struggle between the 
 forces which build up and the forces which 
 strive to pull down. 
 
 An actor of vile heart would doubtless con- 
 sider Iago the most intelligent person in the 
 entire play and although Iago might consider 
 himself so, yet the actor who had the Iago mind 
 could not, it seems to me, intelligently grasp 
 what Shakespeare meant that character to 
 mean in the whole scheme of the tragedy of 
 Othello. 
 
 Still the question is, why should a good man 
 want to play bad characters. It may be be- 
 cause he desires to show how ugly villainy 
 really is when viewed in the light of intelli- 
 gent goodness. The more intelligent the 
 actor the clearer he sees the purpose of the 
 play — the reason for the whole presentation. 
 He sees why the struggle between the forces 
 of good and evil is dramatically set forth. 
 He understands and appreciates the high pur- 
 pose of the author. An actor of villainous 
 mind is not so intelligent as the actor of high 
 
 84 
 
TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 mind and principle and consequently is not so 
 good a judge of what villainy represents in the 
 picture; to him it may seem luminous but 
 to the good man it stands for blackness — 
 the absence of light. 
 
 An intelligent actor does not shrink from 
 playing a detestable character from any fear 
 that the badness of the character's mind will 
 react upon his own and influence him to bad- 
 ness. The character's behavior grows more 
 repugnant to his own mind as he sees deeper 
 and deeper into his motives and aims. The 
 good actor also knows that villainy rightly de- 
 picted will never lead an auditor into villainy, 
 so his satisfaction in contributing his artistic 
 bit to the mosaic of the intelligently presented 
 play is not dimmed by false fear. 
 
 One might ask the question, why does an 
 actor desire to play any part, good or bad. He 
 surely would not be moved to play the char- 
 acter of a good man hoping it might make 
 him any better than before, for, if he be an 
 intelligent actor, he knows that no such 
 effect would result, any more than playing a 
 
 85 
 
TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 villain's part would in any way corrupt him; 
 nor, if he be intelligent, would he be weak 
 enough to derive pleasure from imagining 
 that the audience would attribute to him, per- 
 sonally, any of the goodness he depicts in the 
 character. 
 
 The desire to dramatically interpret any 
 character, worthy or unworthy, springs from 
 an artistic impulse and purpose existent in 
 the actor's mind. How he is going to do it is 
 a problem for his intellect to determine ; how 
 successfully he is able to carry out his purpose 
 in accordance with his intellectual plan is a 
 problem for his technical ability to answer. 
 Therefore, apart from his technical ability to 
 play the part, there are two activities at work 
 in the actor's mind — his artistic purpose and 
 his intellectual plan. Many an actor has the 
 desire to play a certain part and he may have, 
 at the same time, enough technical skill to 
 act it; if now his artistic intelligence is en- 
 listed; if he does not give over the whole 
 matter to his desires and impulses but guides 
 and directs these motor forces with his intel- 
 
 86 
 
TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 lect, there will result in the impersonation 
 what is called " form." This " form " in the 
 characterization is the only proof possible 
 that the actor has allowed his intellect to take 
 any part whatever in the work. 
 
 By " form " is not meant the character's 
 physical appearance or outline but the angles 
 and curves of his thought and feeling; the 
 high-lights and shadows of his acts. Just as 
 the form of a spoken sentence is indicated 
 and fixed by the emphatic word and by the 
 proper subordination of phrases, so in a 
 characterization the " form " is determined 
 by the emphasis of certain characteristics and 
 a proper subordination of others; the result- 
 ing high-lights, half-lights and graded shad- 
 ows give the impression of shape or form and 
 it is that which indicates that intelligence is 
 guiding, and speaks to intelligence in the 
 auditor. 
 
 If the actor's artistic purpose be vital enough 
 to demand embodiment and if his intellectual 
 plan be clear and definite and if his voice and 
 body be schooled and trained to facile obedi- 
 
 87 
 
TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 ence to his vital thought, then will the " form " 
 of the characterization be clear and definite 
 and interpretive of the actors artistic purpose. 
 
 Lack of intellect, or the subordination of 
 the intellect to the emotions, which is a mis- 
 take too often made by actors and orators, 
 blurs and distorts the form and hence the 
 artistic purpose is lost. Without form there 
 will be no appeal to the intelligence of the 
 auditor and the emotion produced in the 
 auditor will not be a legitimate emotion but 
 one born of sensation. 
 
 There are instances where the artist is in- 
 tellectually and morally undeveloped but so 
 wonderfully trained in the technique of his 
 art, in the use of its forms, its languages, 
 its symbols and its vocabulary, that he is a 
 wonderful instrument, and using emotion as 
 his creative starting point rather than intelli- 
 gence, but using the language of spirit and the 
 forms of intelligence, he may embody an im- 
 pulse which the auditor must believe started 
 in intelligence and spiritual vision; conse- 
 quently it often reproduces in the auditor the 
 
 88 
 
TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 legitimate intelligent and spiritual activity, 
 and the auditor credits the performer with 
 possessing and being moved by the same 
 spiritual exaltation by which he himself is 
 moved. 
 
 The end, however, for such an artist is a 
 disintegration of the instrument — a loss of 
 power; sensation no longer able to take on 
 the language of spirit but always baldly ap- 
 parent as sensation making an ineffectual 
 appeal to sensation. 
 
 89 
 
The Right Appeal 
 
 ONE afternoon upon returning from a 
 reading by an actor, who presented for 
 the enjoyment of his audience scenes 
 from a play in which he had acted as a star, 
 I was filled with a kind of wonder that the 
 reading was so unsatisfactory. I had enjoyed 
 the acting of this star in this very play but the 
 reading left me quite unmoved, in short, my 
 only feeling at the close of the performance 
 was one of bewilderment that one who could 
 so adequately interpret a character when he 
 occupied the stage and had the freedom of 
 his own art should, when he invaded the realm 
 of the reader, fall so far short. Indeed many 
 mediocre readers could have read the scenes 
 with a greater appeal to the intelligence and 
 to the imagination than did this greater star. 
 Finally I realized that the art of reading was 
 no more understood by the actor than is the 
 art of acting by the reader. The reader, how- 
 ever, realizes his own shortcomings in the 
 
 90 
 
TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 realm of acting, but the actor generally imag- 
 ines that he quite understands the reader's 
 art, and not understanding the difference in 
 technique, reads in a way not only to dull one's 
 imagination but sometimes to make one won- 
 der if one were not deceived even in his acting. 
 
 Out of this experience I arrived at the fol- 
 lowing conclusions which I have set down 
 rather didactically: 
 
 When an intelligent actor reads a play for 
 an audience the dangers are two: first, that 
 he will read each part as he would act it, 
 using too many physical signs of emotions 
 resulting from dramatic situations rather than 
 just the essential sign of the emotions resulting 
 from the intelligent realization of the meaning 
 of the situation; or second, recognizing the 
 first danger, he falls into the simple intellectual 
 reading of lines without sufficient emotional 
 response. 
 
 In either case the creative imagination of 
 the hearer is not aroused and stimulated; in 
 the first instance, because the appeal is made 
 primarily to the physical eye and ear and the 
 
 91 
 
TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 result is sensation; or, in the second place, 
 too much is left to the intellect alone and the 
 intellect alone never arouses the creative 
 imagination ; there must be just enough action 
 and color; there must be present in the 
 reader's interpretation just the few essential 
 signs of the emotion which the understanding 
 both of the lines and of the dramatic situation 
 has developed in the reader. Too many 
 physical signs shut the door in his face; too 
 few fail to get it open, the door being the in- 
 telligence of the auditor. 
 
 The reader's right appeal is made through 
 the intelligence to the creative imagination; 
 never to the physical senses or to sensation. 
 If the intelligence of the auditor be considered 
 the door of his house the creative imagination 
 is the queen mistress and the senses are her 
 maidservants and menservants. When the 
 artist comes with his appeal and in answer to 
 his knock the door is opened the mistress 
 resents his dallying in the hallway to chuck 
 the parlormaid under the chin; and if he does 
 so dally he will probably get no farther than 
 
 92 
 
TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 the hallway and must be content to get his 
 response from the servants' hall. 
 
 Emotions which result from an act of the 
 intelligence or from an appeal to intelligence 
 are legitimate and true. If emotions result 
 without such an appeal they spring from sen- 
 sation and nerve excitement and are not 
 pleasant to see nor profitable to experience. 
 
 93 
 
Technique and Spontaneity 
 
 TO the student of any art how much more 
 attractive is the word spontaneity than 
 the word technique! And this is as it 
 should be. Of what use is technique in any 
 art save as it finally enables one to be spon- 
 taneous. Technique is only for the purpose 
 of getting the material out of the way so that 
 the vision in one mind may be shared with 
 the brother mind. 
 
 Training in the technique of any art does 
 not mean slavery to convention in that art : it 
 means training into an unerring and facile 
 knowledge of how to handle the tools of that 
 art; lacking which knowledge one's creative 
 thought is never fully free to exercise its 
 spontaneous life. 
 
 A student once asked this question: sup- 
 posing an artist or an actor without training 
 could spontaneously give true expression to a 
 character or to whatever was in the realm of 
 his art, would not such a one be deserving of 
 
 94 
 
TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 greater fame, and would he not produce a 
 stronger revelation than the artist who had to 
 be trained to do the same thing. 
 
 I think it can truly be said that there is no 
 record in the world's list of great artists, 
 sculptors, musicians, actors, orators, of any 
 such genius. Whoever has produced any- 
 thing lasting and worthwhile has done it 
 through hard work and rigorous training. 
 
 The freedom and spontaneity of expression 
 which we all crave is bound to be ours some- 
 time and must be ours before we can do any 
 original work, but it will not be the freedom 
 we think it will be, and it will not come to us 
 until we have mastered our tools. Drudgery 
 and patience are essential to that desired end. 
 
 The actor who is an adept in the technique 
 of his art can be just as free as he chooses in 
 his manner of depicting a character; that is 
 his own problem and is a question of intelli- 
 gence and devotion to truth, and he need not 
 be bound by convention. The freedom and 
 spontaneity in art, of which one hears too 
 much, is never meant to apply to the student 
 
 95 
 
TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 or the novice; they are not yet in the realm 
 of art. Students, especially in the art of the 
 spoken word, seem to think they must begin 
 with freedom, when, as a matter of fact, free- 
 dom is a result — an arrival; it comes after 
 years of patient obedience and of experience ; 
 it really is the last thing to be achieved. 
 
 Training in fundamentals will start one 
 well on the way to this freedom; nothing else 
 will. Fundamentals are all an intelligent 
 teacher can rightly claim to teach; three or 
 four simple things, and the explanation of the 
 why and wherefore of these simple things. 
 The rest is all drill and practice, which is the 
 only way these three or four simple things 
 can be taught or can be learned. 
 
 Our true art work will be done in the years 
 to come when, with avenues cleared of ob- 
 struction, with every agent of expression 
 trained, obedient, and responsive, the creative 
 mind recognizes its own magnificent freedom. 
 
 9 6 
 
Audience 
 
 A FRAGMENT OF A TALK BEFORE 
 A CLASS 
 
 ALL art implies and necessitates an audi- 
 ence ; if the audience be not present in 
 reality it is always imagined; further- 
 more, the artist himself comprises the ob- 
 server as well as the performer. The artistic 
 effort, however, has not reached the art stage 
 until it arrives at a harmonious and beautiful 
 outward form which reflects the purpose and 
 intelligence which produced its harmony and 
 beauty; all previous stages are transitional 
 and are only indicative that growth is going 
 forward, yet during this transitional period — 
 the studio period — the artist has constantly 
 in his mind's eye the vision of the finished 
 form. 
 
 We will apply these statements directly to 
 our own art. Here we are at work in the 
 studio; our work is not at the finished stage, 
 ready for the public eye; we are working 
 
 97 
 
TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 towards our ideals; we are clearing away 
 obstructions, ridding ourselves of super- 
 fluities, training ourselves in the use of the 
 tools of our craft. It is an interesting fact, 
 but not generally recognized, that in every 
 effort we make in our practice by ourselves, 
 each one of us imagines his audience there 
 before him listening to him, but listening to 
 his finished production, although the work is far 
 from being at that stage. 
 
 I suppose every one of us here has had the 
 experience of reciting before a few friends 
 some selection on which he has worked faith- 
 fully by himself until it seemed to have 
 reached a fit stage for the eyes and ears of the 
 audience and then, with the audience sup- 
 plied, found the effort was without form and 
 void; not necessarily because the friends said 
 it was so but because he himself heard and 
 saw himself through the ear and eye of his 
 audience, and every tone and expression fell 
 so far short of what he meant it to be or 
 thought it would be that his heart failed him 
 
 and discouragement followed. This experi- 
 
 98 
 
TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 ence is the result of the presence of listeners 
 who see truly the stage at which your work 
 has arrived: while alone you were the audi- 
 ence but you could not look at your work in 
 process; you looked always at what you 
 wanted it to be. That is right; otherwise 
 there would be no growth. 
 
 When the real audience-factor is supplied 
 then you, yourself, see the work in its in- 
 completeness, because you see it with the 
 eyes of your audience and a true perspec- 
 tive of your effort is presented to you and 
 you can intelligently measure the distance 
 between your accomplishment and your 
 ideal. 
 
 Here in the class we have the audience 
 right before us, observing all our steps of 
 growth, supplying the real audience-factor, 
 which is so essential to the student of art, be- 
 cause it makes him see clearly the distance 
 between his effort and his ideal and in what 
 direction he is falling short. You of the 
 audience are also being trained in an ability 
 to place the effort of the reader at its proper 
 
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TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 stage of development; you soon learn that 
 you are not to criticise the rendering because 
 it has not reached the ideal stage but rather 
 to observe, sympathetically, the processes of 
 growth. 
 
 IOO 
 
The Word 
 
 "WN the beginning was the Word, and 
 the Word was with God, and the Word 
 was God; the same was in the begin- 
 ning with God." 
 
 Art being man's chosen, selected expres- 
 sion, in art man is reflecting what God does 
 in His creation. Art is man's word, the body- 
 ing forth of his idea. 
 
 Let us apply John's statement to the ex- 
 pressive act of man's mind, which is art : — 
 In the beginning — the inception — of my 
 thought dwelt its expression, and the ex- 
 pression was with my thought, and the ex- 
 pression was my thought, the same was in the 
 beginning — the inception — with my thought. 
 This statement, I believe, can be accepted as 
 universally true. In art we are always striv- 
 ing to speak in terms of mind from an under- 
 standing to an understanding. Our task, our 
 struggle, as well as our glory and our joy, is 
 to make transparent the muddy avenues of 
 
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TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 the flesh, in spite of which we have to speak 
 our word to the listening brother soul, so 
 transparent that the sense and consciousness 
 of the body disappear and the idea, the truth, 
 the love, as they exist in one's thought, are 
 seen in their own fitting embodiment. 
 
 But how to do it? All right study of the 
 spoken word has the solution of that problem 
 for its end and aim. All technical training, the 
 constant work with the instrument, which is 
 body and voice, is in order that it, the instru- 
 ment, may take on the thought's form and 
 color, which is always there, existing in the 
 thought, and with the thought and is the 
 thought; and to prevent the substitution of 
 the form and color of physical sensation, which 
 always strives to bury the real thought. 
 
 Do not let us get complicated and puzzled. 
 It is all as simple as telling the truth. Given 
 the poem, the character, the scene, the story, 
 we study it until, through the creative imagi- 
 nation, we have made it a statement in words 
 of our own thought and emotion; or, rather, it 
 has awakened into life in our minds the same 
 
 102 
 
TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 thought and emotion of which it is the expres- 
 sion. Then the words are really our words, 
 and possess life, form and color in our minds. 
 Our efforts to give this life, form and color 
 their proper image and outward showing may, 
 at first, result in muddy incoherency and 
 chaotic expression, which almost put our men- 
 tal life, form and color to sleep, almost bury 
 them, even to our own consciousnesses; but 
 over and over we try, criticising intelligently 
 our own performance, doing away with some 
 action which is the expression of habit and not 
 at all in tune with our purpose, and doing 
 what we know to be right, be it ever so little. 
 Every right expression, be it ever so small, 
 reacts on one's thought and makes the thought 
 clearer and strengthens the emotion. One 
 by one the non-essentials in one's effort at 
 expression are dispensed with, and the essen- 
 tials given with more and more authority, until 
 we begin slowly to recognize a creation, the 
 inward vision translated into its true form 
 and color. 
 
 It is all there in mind ; everything that ever 
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TALKS ON EXPRESSION 
 
 was, is or ever will be. Great literature, gre' 
 experiences, deep thought, the sight of great 
 art, each and all awaken it; it struggles and 
 yearns and beats for expression. 
 
 The ability to make manifest the inward 
 life, in its rightful form and expression, 
 which it eternally possesses, constitutes the 
 artist. Rendering the voice and body obe- 
 dient servants will not suffice, unless the 
 inward awakening is constantly taking place. 
 
 Read great literature. It is the expr^oiuii. 
 of the human heart in chosen terms; it is 
 the picture of life in chosen terms, and will 
 awaken the consciousness of that life in you. 
 
 Awake, awake, to your kinship with the 
 eternal! That is the trumpet call of all art. 
 
 104 
 
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