Some Notable Hamlets of the Present Time: Sarah Bernhardt, Henry Irving, Wilson Barrett, Beerbohm Tree, and Forbes Robertson

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Greening, 1900 - Actors - 193 pages

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Page 125 - tis not to come ; if it be not to come, it will be now ; if it be not now, yet it will come ; the readiness is all ; since no man has aught of what he leaves, what is't to leave betimes?
Page 161 - tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now ; if it be not now, yet it will come : the readiness is all : Since no man, of aught he leaves, knows, what is't to leave betimes ?
Page 160 - That patient merit of the unworthy takes, When he himself might his quietus make With a bare bodkin ? Who would fardels bear, To grunt and sweat under a weary life, But that the dread of something after death, The undiscovered country, from whose bourn No traveller returns, puzzles the will ; And makes us rather bear those ills we have, Than fly to others that we know not of.
Page 189 - I loved Ophelia: forty thousand brothers Could not with all their quantity of love, Make up my sum.
Page 56 - We do not like to see our author's plays acted, and least of all Hamlet. There is no play that suffers so much in being transferred to the stage. Hamlet himself seems hardly capable of being acted. Mr.
Page 77 - ... therefore be no attempt to impress what he says upon others by a studied exaggeration of emphasis or manner ; no talking at his hearers. There should be as much of the gentleman and scholar as possible infused into the part, and as little of the actor. A pensive air of sadness should sit reluctantly upon his brow, but no appearance of fixed and sullen gloom. He is full of weakness and melancholy, but there is no harshness in his nature.
Page 77 - I HAVE acted Ophelia three times with my father, and each time, in that beautiful scene where his madness and his love gush forth together like a torrent swollen with storms, that bears a thousand blossoms on its troubled waters, I have experienced such deep emotion as hardly to be able to speak. The exquisite tenderness of his voice, the wild compassion and forlorn pity of his looks, bestowing that on others which, above all others, he most needed.
Page 126 - Now cracks a noble heart. Good night, sweet prince ; And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest ! Why does the drum come hither ? [March within.
Page 76 - It may be, that the intellectual manager will yet have to see how far " Hamlet " can be curtailed to suit this luxurious and selfish age. There are not many audiences which will relinquish their beer for the sake of art. This was a very special occasion. But the supreme moment for the audience had come when the curtain fell. If they had sacrificed their refreshment, waiting there, as many of them had done, since three o'clock in the afternoon, they had done something for art. They had, at least,...
Page 66 - But whatever nice faults might be found in this scene, they were amply redeemed by the manner of his coming back after he has gone to the extremity of the stage, from a pang of parting tenderness to press his lips to Ophelia's hand. It had an electrical effect on the house.

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