6o L. A. Sherman 



play, to fill the treasury. Again, when an actor takes a benefit, what is 

 the piece most commonly chosen? — Hamlet. Why? 'Because,' it may be 

 answered, ' Hamlet himself is notoriously a " star " part, with plenty of 

 soliloquies, with plenty of what I believe is called "fat" in the Pro- 

 fession; and moreover because the part has become consecrated somehow, 

 invested by tradition with a certain aura of greatness and crowned as 

 with a halo.' . . . We all know that to play Hamlet, and play him success- 

 fully, is the crown of every young actor's ambition. But here comes in 

 another mystery — which yet is not mystery at all, unless the critics have 

 fogged us. When he comes to it, he always plays it successfully. . , . 



It is the fashion, and was the fashion before we were born, so that we 

 may call it the custom — it is the custom to talk of So-and-so's Hamlet: 

 of Garrick's Hamlet, Kemble's Hamlet, Kean's Hamlet; Macread/s, Sal- 

 vini's. Booth's, Phelp's, Irving's Hamlets ; Tree's Hamlet, Forbes-Robert- 

 son's Hamlet. This custom of speech, if it mean anything, would seem to 

 imply that each of these gifted interpreters has given to the world a dif- 

 ferent interpretation of that mystery; and that each has made an indi- 

 vidual success of it: which, when we come to think of it, approaches the 

 miraculous, if not the absurd. By various paths they all arrive at the 

 core of the great secret: and yet there would seem to be some mystery 

 about a mystery which turns out to be a different one every time it is 

 explained. 



Now I suggest that all these fine fellows in their turn have made a 

 success in Hamlet simply because it was there all the time : ready-made by 

 a man who had been beforehand with them, and, having a capital interest 

 in the play, had unconsciously taken care that their self-conscious displays 

 should never attain to spoiling it. I suggest that all those critics, too 

 (Coleridge, Goethe, Klein, Werder, and the rest), have been plucking 

 different hearts out of the mystery and exhibiting them, simply because 

 there was never any mystery in Hamlet, and consequently no secret heart 

 to pluck out. 



We quote Quiller-Couch, again, upon a point which critics and 

 many readers accept as proof of Hamlet's irresolution: 



The commentators want to know why Hamlet, having discovered his 

 uncle's guilt, did not make an end of him at once. It appears that this is 

 what they would have done. . . . So, you see, one never knows. One 

 meets them going to the University Sermon or shuffling along upon some 

 other blameless errand, and — can we believe it? — any one of these Harry 

 Hotspurs will have killed his some six or seven dozen Scot's at a breakfast, 

 washed his hands, and said to his wife, 'Fie upon this quiet life! I want 

 work.' Oh yes; and that is the sort of men they indeed are, if only you 

 believe what they write just now to the newspapers! 



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