I felt it once when I played Olivia
before Eleonora Duse. I felt that she felt it once when she played
Marguerite Gauthier for me.
When I read "Hamlet" now, everything that Henry did in it seems to me
more absolutely right, even than I thought at the time. I would give
much to be able to record it all in detail--but it may be my
fault--writing is not the medium in which this can be done. Sometimes I
have thought of giving readings of "Hamlet," for I can remember every
tone of Henry's voice, every emphasis, every shade of meaning that he
saw in the lines and made manifest to the discerning. Yes, I think I
could give some pale idea of what his Hamlet was if I read the play.
"Words! words! words!" What is it to say, for instance, that the
cardinal qualities of his Prince of Denmark were strength, delicacy,
distinction? There was never a touch of commonness. Whatever he did or
said, blood and breeding pervaded him.
His "make-up" was very pale, and this made his face beautiful when one
was close to him, but at a distance it gave him a haggard look. Some
said he looked twice his age.
He kept three things going at the same time--the antic madness, the
sanity, the sense of the theater. The last was to all that he imagined
and thought, what charity is said by St.
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