Butler, the famous Fanny Kemble, was going to give
a reading of the play. His heart throbbed high with anticipation, for in
those days TRADITION was everything--the name of Kemble a beacon and a
star.
The studious young clerk went to the reading.
An attendant came on to the platform, first, and made trivial and
apparently unnecessary alterations in the position of the reading desk.
A glass of water and a book were placed on it.
After a portentous wait, on swept a lady with an extraordinary flashing
eye, a masculine and muscular outside. Pounding the book with terrific
energy, as if she wished to knock the stuffing out of it, she announced
in thrilling tones:
"'HAM--A--LETTE.'
By
Will--y--am Shak--es--peare."
"I suppose this is all right," thought the young clerk, a little
dismayed at the fierce and sectional enunciation.
Then the reader came to Act I, Sc. 2, which the old actor (to leave the
Kemble reading for a minute), with but a hazy notion of the text, used
to begin:
"Although of Hamlet, our dear brother's death,
The memory be--memory be--(What _is_ the color?) _green_"....
When Fanny Kemble came to this scene the future Hamlet began to listen
more intently.
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