CHAPTER X.

I saw nothing of Catsbach for a whole week, but continued my study of Hamlet, in perfect reliance that the so long wished-for opportunity was at hand. Miss Claribel also was very constant at our rehearsals. My mother's delight and admiration of us both knew no bounds; but though she still wept at Ophelia, it was evident that the philosophic Dane was her favourite. In gratitude for my exertions to revenge my father's death, she forgave any little demonstration of rudeness I made towards the Queen; and indeed was always greatly rejoiced when I shook the cushion out of the arm-chair in the energy of my expostulation with that ancient piece of furniture, which generally did duty for the wicked Gertrude. In fact, nothing could go off better than the whole play; and boxes, pit, and gallery, all represented by one enraptured spectator, were unanimous in their applause. There was one of the performers, however, who did not seem to share in the enthusiasm. Miss Claribel appeared discontented with the effects of her finest points, and began to hint her doubts as to our ultimate success. "The words are perfect in both of us," she said, "the actions appropriate, and all Hamlet's own instructions to the players scrupulously obeyed"--

"Well," I interrupted, "what is there to fear? You see how our audience here is affected."

"It is that very thing that gives me uneasiness. Nature on the stage is quite different from nature off it. Whether it ought to be so or not, I don't know; but it is so, and that is enough. We give the passion of these characters as they affect ourselves, but a real actor must give them as they affect others. We ought to study the perspective of grief or rage, and give it so as to be seen in the true light, not where Mrs de Bohun is sitting on that sofa, but where crowds are seated at the farther end of a theatre; and therefore the great and almost insurmountable difficulty of a tragedian is to keep such a proportion in his performance as not to appear absurdly exaggerated to people close at hand, or ridiculously tame to the more distant spectators."

"You would, then, act by an inspiration from without, and not from the divine fire within?" I answered, with a tone of indignation.

"No, no," she said; "keep all the fire you can; only let it be seen and felt by all the audience. But if you trust on each representation to the fiery impulse of the moment, you will sometimes find it glow too much, and sometimes it will probably be hidden in smoke. The genius feels the passion and grandeur of a great Shaksperian creation, perhaps as entirely as Shakspeare himself, but it is only the artist who can place it before others. A poet could see the Venus of Canova in a block of marble, but it was the hammer and chisel of the sculptor which gave it its immortal form. I feel with regard to this very Ophelia that I know every phase of her character; that I can identify myself with her disappointments and sorrows; but the chances are, after the identity is established, that I end by making Ophelia into Miss Claribel, and not Miss Claribel into Ophelia."

"No, for you speak Shakspeare's language in Ophelia's situation, and with Ophelia's feelings."

"But with Miss Claribel's lips, and shakings of the voice, and tears in the eyes, which arise from the depths of Miss Claribel's nature; and, in fact, I now feel convinced that, in order to succeed on the stage, a flexibility of character that enables one to enter into the minutest sentiments of the personage of the drama, is by no means required, but only such a general conception of the character as preserves the Shaksperian heroine from the individualities of her representative; and gives to an intelligent pit, the spectacle not of a real, living, breathing woman, born of father and mother, but of a being of a more etherial nature--human, yet not substantial--divine, yet full of weakness--the creation of a splendid imagination, and not the growth of mortal years, or supported by 'human nature's daily food.'"

My mother went on with her knitting in a most hurried and persevering manner--a habit she indulged in whenever she was puzzled. I might have followed her example if I had had the knitting needles in my hand, for I did not see the drift of these perplexing observations. Miss Claribel saw our bewilderment, and translated her dark passages into ordinary prose by saying that her oration had been a lecture against mannerism, or the display of the individualities of an actor instead of a clear development of the character represented. "It was also a theory," she added with a smile, "that mannerism often arises from a too close appropriation of a character, which makes a performer assimilate it with his own."

"From all which I conclude," I said, with a mortified air, "that in spite of black bugles and silk stockings, I shall still be Mr Charles de Bohun, and not Hamlet, prince of Denmark."

"'The hands are not the hands of Esau,'" she replied, "'but the voice is the voice of Jacob.' Still there is no reason to despair, nor even perhaps to augur a disappointment, for nobody can form an opinion either as to success or failure till the experiment has been fairly tried, and I trust we shall now not have much longer to wait."

"But with these misgivings--to call them by the gentlest name--I wonder, Miss Claribel, you still insist on trying your fortune on the boards."

"I made a vow, under very peculiar circumstances," she replied, "that I would support myself by my dramatic powers; and though a fortune of millions were to fall at my feet to-morrow, I would show those who derided my ambition that it was justified by my talents. I will be an actress, and the first on the stage!"

When I saw the play of her features, and heard the calm, subdued energy of her voice, I felt little doubt that her prophecy would be accomplished. I, however, began to feel some very lively doubts as to Hamlet, and it required several criticisms from my mother, and a great deal of stamping and grimacing before the mirror, to restore me to the enjoyment of the sunshine of self-respect. At last Catsbach returned. He sent to announce his arrival, and to say he would join me that evening, and bring with him a literary friend, who might be very useful to me in my dramatic career. They came. "Let me introduce you to my friend, Mr Wormwood, the orator and poet," said Catsbach, shaking me by the hand very warmly himself. "You will be the best friends in the world; and Wormwood has been very anxious for a long time to make your acquaintance." The stranger bowed low, and so did I; not without a strong tickling of my vanity at the wideness of my reputation. We sat down, and I could contemplate my visitor at full leisure. He was a little man, of whom the prevailing feature was a nose of astonishing prominence, that overshadowed not only the remaining features of his face, but the whole of his person. It formed the central point of his whole organisation, and was, in fact, Mr Wormwood, without the help either of face or figure. His brow retreated in apparent alarm, pulling the eyebrows with it nearly to the top of the skull; his chin also had retired into his neck, and there was nothing visible but the one prevailing feature--a pyramid in a waste of sand. The sudden retrocession of his brow was only seen in profile; and as he was bald, and treated all the exposed skin of his head as forehead up to the very crown, he presented a very intellectual appearance in the eyes of those with whom high brows are considered "the dome of thought, the temple of the soul." His side hair was carefully combed off, so as to expose as great an expanse as possible; and it was evident that great pains were bestowed on the picturesqueness and poetry of the appearance--a small thin man, rather shabbily drest, and with manners duly compounded of civility and pomp.

"I am delighted to know you, Mr De Bohun. I form a very high estimate, indeed, of your genius and accomplishments; though I have not yet had the pleasure of seeing any of your works."

"I am indebted to the good opinion--too much indebted, I fear--of our friend, Mr Catsbach," I replied.

"By no means. You have had a play ignominiously rejected by a brutal and unjudging world. Sir, I honour you on the triumph, and congratulate you on the success."

The man seemed quite serious as he spoke; so I looked for some explanation to his friend.

"Wormwood has achieved the same victory on several occasions," said Catsbach; "and on carefully going over his plays, according to the severest principles of art, he finds that they were ludicrously and inhumanly laughed at, or still more inhumanly refused a place on the stage, in exact proportion as their merits lifted them above the intellectual level of an audience, or the narrow understanding of a manager."

"Exactly so," said Wormwood; "and you will find it uniformly the case. Success in literature is almost the surest sign of an author's imbecility; and, _à fortiori_, public neglect a sign of his genius and erudition. I have already heard that your tragedy is refused; I hope to congratulate you on your Hamlet being hissed off the stage."

"Really, sir," I said, somewhat nettled, "I scarcely understand whether you are in jest or earnest; and I sincerely hope to escape your congratulations on my Hamlet, as I am not aware of any right I have acquired to them on the fate of the play."

"Was it not returned on your hands, sir? Catsbach certainly gave me to understand that you had attained that mark of eminence; but if you are still in danger of being accepted, and performed, I must withhold the expression of my praise till I see whether an audience will be more propitious than the manager, and overwhelm your tragedy with derision and contempt, as I have no doubt it deserves." After accompanying this with a smile, which he evidently meant to be propitiatory and complimentary, he seemed to retire for shelter behind his nose, and employed himself in throwing on each side any of the straggling locks that intruded on the sacred domain of his expansive brow.

"What sort of fool is this you have brought?" I said to Catsbach, availing myself of the temporary seclusion of our visitor behind the promontory I have described.

"A tremendous author, I assure you. A poem in forty books, called 'The Brides of Solomon,' which nearly ruined him, for it never sold, not even to the cheesemongers; a 'History of the World previous to its Creation, an Epic in Seven Days," which it would take seven years to read, was his next; then a dozen plays on the Roman Emperors--a play to each--which were never acted; so now he is a prodigious critic in the Hog in Armour, and talks German mysticism, and gives dissertations on the Philosophy of Historic Research in a review of Tom Thumb. I thought it as well to secure his help; for, if you succeed, we can do without him; and if we fail, he will find out a pleasant reason, and enlist you in the corps."

"That would be an honour I don't aspire to, and the use of such assistance I cannot see."

"Pooh! Never mind the fool. Give him some brandy; let him talk; he may be useful, and the day of trial is near at hand."

"You've got a theatre?" I inquired.

"Theatre, orchestra, company, and all," said Catsbach; "so let us light our cigars, and hear some critical drivel."

Mr Wormwood, as if he had heard our conversation, emerged from his shady situation, and turning his full face towards us, commenced a dissertation on his principles of art, which, being founded on, and exemplified by, his own writings, was a most comfortable doctrine for candidates for fame, and made a pelting with oranges and apples little less agreeable than a crowning with garlands and a shower of bouquets.