MR HENRY IRVING ON INDIVIDUALITY.

Otago Witness, Issue 2103, 14 June 1894, Page 42

MR HENRY IRVING ON INDIVIDUALITY.

American papers jast to hand contain fall reports of the interesting'address Mr Henry Irving recently delivered at Harvard College on "Individuality." In the course of his remarks Mr Irving said :

Each and all of you should learn to value and to use your own individuality ; that is the purpose of my talk with you to-day. It is a priceless gift, and comes next in sequence of value to honour and health. It is the one power which you all possess, and which may lead to permanent renown ; and if in your youth you try to put it from you so as to pare yourself down to a sort of common denominator, you come as near as may be to the intellectual standard of that " base Indian " who " threw a pearl away, richer than all his tribe." Tbe fable of the fox who lost his tail is not merely a nursery mylb ; it has itß analogue in those persons of to-day who try to persuade the men and women of stronger gifts of individuality than their own to voluntarily deprive themselves of this superiority. CHAEACTEB AND CARICATURE. For myself, I cannot understand why any man shonld want to formulate himself to the identity of someone else. Each man is different from his fellows, just as are the .leaves of a tree ; and at best a perfect simulation can be but an imperfect substitution. I belong to a calling where our first endeavour ought to be to assume identities not our own. We actors have to study, either as a whole or by parcels, from living models ; for our craft is to present appearances other than our own, and to do things which all men who see and heac may recognise as not impossible typically. This study must be both intellectual and physical, for if an identity is to be presented, all its component parts must hang together with a proper cohesiveness. In this study one cannot help arriving at soma high opinion of the worth and valua of identity. A story is told of a certain Mr Smnb, in London, who, fancying he resembled the great Duke of Wellington, used to dress so like him aud so carry himself that people to whom the " Duke " was not well known us 3d to salute him. The Duke, on being told that Mr Smith had said he was often taken for him, remarked: " Dear me I—odd,1 — odd, is it not ? but I have never been taken for Mr Smith." I need not tell you there is a vast difference between character and caricature. What was natural to tbe creator is often unnatural and lifeless in an imitator. No two people form the same conception of character, and thsrefore it is always* advantageous to see an independent and courageous exposition of an original ideal. That which is common to all men finds so many ways of conveyance, aU different and yet all suitable, that the possibilities of expression become widened and multiplied with every new experience. Goethe says : " The really high and difficult part of art is the apprehension of what is individual characteristic. And why ? Because no others have experienced exactly the same thing, and you need not fear lest what is peculiar should not meet with sympathy." "know youb-elf" It must be always borne in mind that merely to imitate is not to apply a similar method. If any one of you have great thoughts or burning passion, you will need to copy no style nor limit yourself to any method. Your thoughts will find their way to the hearts of others as surely as the upland waters burst their way to the sea. la fine, tbe greatest of all the lessons that art can teach is this — that truth is supreme and eternal. No phase of art can achieve much

on a false basis. Sincerity, which is the very touchstone of art, is instinctively recognised by all. There never were truer and wiser words spokeo- than those of old Poloaius : — To thine own self bo true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.

But how can a man be true to himself if he does not know himself? "Kqow thyself" was a wisdom of the ancients. But how can a man know himself if he mistrusts his own identity, and if he puts aside his special gifts in order to render himself an imperfect similitude of someone else? Do not try to wrest from the future tbe birthright of some other by the trick of Esau's hairy bands. Tbe blindness of Isaac was a type as well as a reality ; for the world may be blind to one sense, -as that father was, but to it, as to him, there remain other senses which blindness cannot mar. The voice will betray, though the touch may deceive. Therefore, I ask you to weigh well the advantages which may present themselves to you before you try to part with, to minimise, or to forego in any way your own individuality. Study it without being egotistic, and understanding the weak places shun their temptations and try to protect youreelf by added strength. Knowing yourself, you may learn to know others ; and so in process of time you will both consciously and unconsciously earn thosa abiding principles of human' nature and of human character which add to the knowledge and the progress of the world.