The Lyceum and Henry Irving - Softcover

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1903 Excerpt: ... and peasant slave am I!' in which the descent from frantic determination to no determination at all is most delicately traced. Whenever an opportunity offers, Mr. Irving drops into a thoroughly colloquial manner of speaking, and this is nowhere more conspicuous than in his address to the players, to whom he talks as a familiar friend. Here he may be charged with compromising the dignity proper to the princely station, and the charge will not be unfounded. "But his Hamlet is not to be compared with other Hamlets; it is right to show that he is consistent with himself. Dignity in his Hamlet is not a predominating quality. His heart is too large and too kindly to attach much importance to a social distinction which has brought him nothing but misery, and, placed in the world where he has one only friend, he is glad to talk freely to persons with whom guile is impossible. Be it composed of strolling players or grave-diggers, any company is better than that of the courtly spies who are at the beck of his uncle and aunt-mother. We have heard many persons talking fluently of a metaphysical Hamlet without understanding in the slightest degree the meaning of the adjective thus applied, unless, indeed, a person who has arrived at a conclusion that people may be deterred from committing suicide by a belief in future punishments is to be deemed a metaphysician on that account--in which case metaphysicians would be formidably numerous. We are inclined to suspect, however, that the word 'metaphysical' as applied to Hamlet, is a showy substitute for meditative. If so, it is utterly inapplicable to the Hamlet of Mr. Irving, a fine genial creature, who would willingly have clasped all the world to his bosom had not untoward events rendered its 'uses' so stale and unpr...