Book 1: Boleslavsky's Acting: The First Six Lessons. Chapter 2: Memory of Emotion.

We have a special memory for feelings, which works unconsciously by itself and for itself. It's right there. It is in every artist. It is that which makes experience an essential part of our life and craft. All we have to do is know how to use it.

For example, in a certain city there lived a couple who had been married for 25 years. They had married when they were very young. He had proposed to her one fine summer evening when they were walking in a cucumber patch. Being nervous, as nice young people are apt to be under the circumstances, they would stop occasionally, pick a cucumber, and eat it, enjoying very much its aroma, taste and the freshness and richness of the sun's warmth upon it. They made the happiest decision of their lives, between two mouthfuls if cucumbers, so to speak.

A month later they were married. At the wedding supper a dish of fresh cucumbers was served--and nobody knew why they laughed so heartily when they saw it. Long years of life and struggle came; children and, naturally, difficulties. Sometimes they quarreled and were angry. Sometimes they did not even speak to each other. But their youngest daughter observed that the surest way to make peace between them was to put a dish of cucumbers on the table. Like magic, they would forget their quarrels, and would become tender and understanding. For a long time the daughter thought the change was due to their love for cucumbers, but once the mother told her the story of their courtship, and when she thought about it, she came to another conclusion.

The outward circumstances made these people what they were long years before, in spite of time, reason, and maybe---desire, unconsciously.

They just naturally yielded to themselves to the feelings as they came. They were stronger than any present feeling. It is just as when you start to count, "1, 2, 3, 4," it takes an effort not to continue, "5, 6, etc.". The whole thing is to make a beginning---to start.

This is an actor's fundamental work--to be able "to be" what he desires consciously and exactly.