This careful attention to detail came back to my mind
years afterwards, when he gave readings of Macbeth. He never gave a
public reading without first going through the entire play at home--at
home, that is to say, in a miserably uncomfortable hotel.
During the first rehearsal he read every one's part except mine, which
he skipped, and the power that he put into each part was extraordinary.
He threw himself so thoroughly into it that his skin contracted and his
eyes shone. His lips grew whiter and whiter, and his skin more and more
drawn as the time went on, until he looked like a livid thing, but
beautiful.
He never got at anything _easily_, and often I felt angry that he would
waste so much of his strength in trying to teach people to do things in
the right way. Very often it only ended in his producing actors who gave
colorless, feeble and unintelligent imitations of him. There were
exceptions, of course.
When it came to the last ten days before the date named for the
production of "Hamlet," and my scenes with him were still unrehearsed, I
grew very anxious and miserable. I was still a stranger in the theater,
and in awe of Henry Irving personally; but I plucked up courage, and
said:
"I am very nervous about my first appearance with you.
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