"Contingent Beings"

In 1932 someone named William J. O’Neill gave my father a loose leaf book of typed acting notes. I assume they are a copy, but they’re a copy which is typed-out manually—Forty-seven pages of notes, single-spaced.

The preface:

“These personal notes on acting are offered with the intention that the aspiring actor will find them helpful in perfecting his body, intellect and will. The body will be trained though the practice of the principles herein contained. The intellect will be exercised in the fulfillment of all the principles, but particularly, in the analysis of character, not only in the play at hand, but in the world itself. The will receives training by compelling the actor to do the matter required to make the play successful, and by strengthening personally the actor against the pit-falls of erroneous motives. As no contingent being is an end in itself, so acting is a means to an end, the perfection of our natures.”