Quote of the Day (Max Beerbohm, on Why Actors Are Sensitive)

“The writer’s work is given to you between the covers of a book; the painter’s on a piece of flat canvas; the actor’s in the lineaments of his own face, the port of his own body, the various inflections of his own voice. In criticizing his work, you criticize, also, him….The actor, having to devote all his time to the development of his emotions, is the least logical creature in the world, and the least likely to be comforted by nice distinctions. He cannot detach himself, as you detach him, from his work. Very silly of him, but, when you come to consider it, quite natural! So far as he is concerned…‘in criticizing his work, you criticize, also, him.’ Wonder not at his sensitiveness!” —British essayist-critic-caricaturist Max Beerbohm (1872-1956), “Actors,” in The Prince of Minor Writers: The Selected Essays of Max Beerbohm, edited by Phillip Lopate (2015)