sas are each built of the same number of logs, and are of a uniform size. They are each composed of five logs, about twelve or fifteen feet long, neatly skinned, and with the ends pointed. These are then laid side by side, and kept in position by cross-pieces fastened to them by pins made of chonta-wood almost as hard as iron. Our canoes are drawn up and all ready for any emergency, and we will sleep on our arms to-night. June 14th.-At six A. M. we started up the Herrera-yacu, leaving in the huts we had occupied some little presents for any Campas that might visit them in our absence. After ascending the river for a few miles, it became unnavigable for canoes, and we returned to its mouth, and started up the left branch, or main river. At six P. M. we stopped for the night on a sand playa. Last night our camp was admirably situated for our being surprised by Indians, the bushes and cane growing right up close to our heads as we lay asleep, and we accordingly kept a good lookout. About midnight, being on watch, and while talking to the major, who could not sleep, we heard three distinct whistles, and a second or two afterward three others in reply, a little farther within the jungle. He jumped up, and we both made the rounds with cocked revolvers, but, after creeping and listening for half an hour, could discover nothing. We then called up some of our Indians, who also had heard the noise; and one old man expressed the opinion that it might be a bird called the "papa-mamma," by the Indians, and alma perdida by the Peruvians. We were neither of us inclined to sleep, so, after my watch was over, the major brought out some cigarettes and cachaça, and we took seats on the edge of a canoe, and sat for a long time talking. He told me the story of this bird, and moreover much concerning the Campas. This is the legend about the bird: "According to an Indian tradition, there was once an Indian whose family consisted of a wife and one beautiful little child, about three years old. On one occasion, the father having gone hunting, and not returning at the accustomed time, the wife became uneasy, and went in search of him. After seeking him for a long time, she, at last, found him, he having lost his way, and rejoicing they returned together. But, when they reached home, and found their child missing, their joy was turned into grief. For days and nights they hunted and hunted, and called and called, being enticed farther and farther into the forest by the wailing cry of Papa - mamma! papa-mamma!' However, after vainly searching for a long time, they finally gave up in despair. But, every night after this, they were visited by a bird, that sat near the hut and uttered this low, clear cry, 'Papa-mamma! Papamamma!' and which they supposed to be the soul of their lost child, or, as the Peruvians have it, alma perdida - 'lost soul."" The bird certainly has the talent of imitating more than one sound, or else we heard the lost soul of some old Campa Indian. It is a strange fact that the children of these savages, born and reared amid the wild animals of this immense jungle, should address their parents as papa-mamma," and this, too, in a tone as tender and with the same accent as that of any pampered little brat of enlightened and refined parents. We account for it by the fact that it is, of all other sounds, the simplest and the most easily uttered by the human lips. The Campa Indians inhabit the hills and spurs of the eastern Cordilleras, among which the tributaries of the Ucayali and Pachitea take their rise. As a general rule, these Indians never come down to the river except when on the war-path, or during the lowwater season, when they make expeditions for turtle and fish. Like all other nations that inhabit a mountainous country, they are fiercer, hardier, and more powerful, than their neighbors of the lowlands, who hold them in the greatest dread. In the year 1712, a priest of the order of St. Francis established a college at the village of Ocopa, in the Andes Mountains, and a short distance from Jauxa. From this station, and through a great part of this Campa country, there went forth priests and the teachings of the Catholic Church, so that, in 1742, there had been established, near the Cero de la Sal, and in the Pajonal, ten towns; and it is said that there were ten thousand converts. But, in this year, an Indian, who had been converted and baptized as Juan Santos, and who had been educated as a priest, arrived among his people, and told them that he was a prophet, and that the other priests were deceiving them. The result was, the immediate death of all priests and white persons in their territory; and, from that time to this, no whites have been able either to establish themselves in that country, or to hold safe communication with them. Many times since, priests, with strong bodies of Christianized Indians, and in some instances escorts of regular soldiers, have endeavored to penetrate into their country, but in every case they have been attacked, and very few have escaped to tell the tale. The government of Peru is set at defiance by this powerful tribe; and at the fort of San Ramon, a frontier fort on the river Chanchamayo, where there is a large garrison of Peruvian soldiers, these soldiers are allowed to bathe or not, just as it suits the fancy of the Indians who hold the opposite bank of the little stream on which the fort is situ ated. Only a short time ago, a priest, who was on a visit to this fort, was invited to baptize some children, but he had no sooner gotten out into the shallow water, with the child in his arms, than he was fired upon by the Indians; and, although he was badly wounded, and dragged himself back under cover, the troops were afraid to retaliate. Although the sworn enemy of the white inan, they communicate with him sufficiently through other tribes, and in indirect ways, to enable them to procure knives and axes-the only things, indeed, that the Indians of this country really care for. nothing if not captious. He is like the redpepper, utterly useless if not intensely biting. So, as I felt it to be the duty of every guest to try and enliven the circle, I determined to say something to rouse his ire. "I have been reading a French novel-a delightful French novel-lately." This was my first gun. I knew it would wake the echoes, if nothing more. "Yes, I dare say you have," answered the enemy, "fifteen of them at least, and each one worse than the last." "I admit the number, but hesitate at the classification: the last one was a great deal better than any of the rest of them." "And that was not saying much, I will be bound. False sentiment, false morality, and ingenious excuses for breaking one's mar riage vows, finding anybody else's husband or wife more agreeable than your own-I despise the whole set of them." "But they will do you no harm, for you have no marriage-vows to break.” "I do not intend to read works on the profession of burglary, simply because I do not intend to be a burglar-that negative reason would not make the literature of the jimmy' or the picklock interesting to menor do I as at present advised wish to read the false sentiment of the French school. It does not amuse me." "Don't you enjoy the wit, vivacity, absorbing interest, and intense knowledge of human nature, which the French story-tellers show?" "Oh, yes; I like the ingenuity of the French mind, but their 'intense knowledge of human nature,' as you say, I hate. It means diving with the dissecting knife into the morbid and diseased portions of the poor, imperfect thing we call human nature, and rouses in us at the best a regret that we have such a corrupt side to us; or it does worseit rouses in.us a tendency to indulge in the passions, and particularly the passion of talk. ing about our own emotions. The French novel is full of that temptation." "What do you mean by temptation? Of all the vocabulary of the undeterminate emotions, I consider the word' temptation' as the least explained." "Oh, you must go to the doctors of the law and language for your definitions. I sm not going to be balked of my attack on French novels. I think they have done great harm to the world, particularly the American world. I think they have brought about this imbecile notion of the femme incomprise. Our grandmothers had no such notions. They were glad to have a roof over their heads, and to be allowed to help build up the family honor, and to regard home as sacred, and to rear their families in decency and purity. They had no time to be 'incom prises.' "Poor grandmothers! I always think of that excellent witticism, that the Puritan mothers had to endure all that the Puritan fathers did and the Puritan fathers, too!' Don't you think the Puritan fathers must have been a trifle dull sometimes?" "No; excellent, good, truthful, squaretoed gentlemen." "I suppose you think they went out and squeezed poor old Giles Cory to death between two stones, or hung a witch or two, and came in to their dinners in a very amiable frame of mind, don't you, Orestes?" "Yes. No doubt these amusements quieted the natural man. They worked off original sin in that way, and came home in a frame of mind the most amiable and loving." 'Well, you see husbands nowadays have none of these resources. Instead of squeezing old Giles Cory to death, they are pressed to death in Wall Street or elsewhere themselves, and they are obliged to bring home rather incomplete tempers. I have read of two suicides, in to-day's paper, of unhappy wives, and two cases of women who have been kicked to death." "Yes," said Orestes, as the Western bumorist remarked, the season for sitting on circular saws has opened,' referring to the periodicity with which that unique, or seemingly unique, excitement passes over the American mind-so the season has now arrived for wife-murder and suicide. The childstealing mania has been nipped in the bud by the publicity of the poor Charley Ross case; but if Charley Ross had been found, we should have had all the dear little fouryear-olds captured by prowling monsters. However, to return to the French novels, I think they have led to the frequency of divorce. The French cannot be divorced because of their church. We can, and are, instead of compromising the thing." "I do not agree with you that divorces are frequent, or the domestic morality of our society light. We hear very much of divorce, which proves that it is a rare thing and a terrible thing. I claim that there are more happy homes, more congenial marriages, in our country than any other, except perhaps England, from which we derive our ideas. Human nature is imperfect, and tempers do not always agree, so that people must sometimes separate. But it is wonderful to me to see how many live together happily." "Yes," said Orestes, "when you consider what very uninteresting, fractious, extravagant, proud, discontented creatures American women are! For my part, I want to go back and marry Madame du Deffand. Since you are so fond of French heroines, won't you condescend to read me Horace Walpole's description of her—or perhaps you do not read English?" "Orestes," said I, “you are insufferable! However, since you have never succeeded in making one of those uninteresting, fractious, extravagant, proud, discontented creatures consent to the horrible tyranny of the marriage relation with you, I will consent to read you the description." "Well, read it slowly and distinctly; so few of you women can read aloud decently an accomplishment worth far more than your piano-playing or your very poor singingworth more than your water-colors or your attempts at oils." Thus Orestes! "By all means, let us have Horace Walpole, however poorly read, rather than Orestes in his present mood!" So I began: "She was easy and volatile, yet judicious and acute, sometimes profound, and some times superficial; she had a wit, playful, "Oh, the charming, brilliant, feminine "Now you are praising her for her opportunities, not her natural qualities. She had the advantage of knowing all the brightest geniuses of her age;' we of the present age haven't any Horace Walpoles to know. That is just like your unfairness." "Don't you think you had better return to Horace Walpole?' I knew Orestes would think so if I attempted to say any thing, so I resumed reading: "Thus trained, her faculties acquired a pliability of movement, which gave to all their exertions a bewitching air of freedom and negligence, and made even their least efforts seem only the exuberance or flowerings of a mind capable of higher excellence, but unambitious to attain them.'" Ah, that is sweet!" said Orestes. "I "On whatever topic she touched, trivial "Capital!" said Orestes; "there is a de- dreadful comparison of your inferiority to. Madame du Deffand." "Well, as Horace finally got to call her 'that blind old debauchee of wit,' I will.” So I resumed my reading: To these qualifications were added an independence in forming opinions, and a boldness in avowing them,. which wore at least the semblance of honesty, a perfect knowledge of the world, and that facility of manners which, in the commerce of society, supplies the place of benevolence.'" "He 'A "Yes, a little of Horace Walpole's cynical unbelief at the end," said Orestes. never could wholly praise anybody. semblance of honesty?' why, Madame du Deffand was the perfection of honesty. She acknowledged that she was an infidel, and yet she was dreadfully afraid to die." "Those imperfections and inconsistencies make her very real, very human, and very lovable, I think. I do not blame Horace Walpole for emphasizing them. The portrait becomes so much more perfect-like Cromwell's insisting on his moles being painted in. The thing is characteristic and intense." "Madame du Deffand," said Orestes, solemnly, "had one quality which you women are very deficient in generally. She had humor. Do you notice how lightly and prettily Horace records that? On whatever topic she touched, trivial or severe, it was alike en badinant.' Now, I think American women are very deficient in that quality; they want graceful lightness of wit and humor. All women want it. They are either very silly, and laugh loudly and without meaning at nothing, or they are ponderous and pretentious, or, worse still, complaining and ill-tempered. They have not that faculty which Lord Houghton describes in his 'Monographs, Personal and Social,' in speaking of Lady Ashburton, of making high comedy out of daily life.' Do you remember the description?" Yes," said I, taking the book from the table and turning to it, "here it is, too good to be half quoted: "I do not know how I can better describe this faculty than as the fullest and freest exercise of an intellectual gayety, that presented the most agreeable and amusing pictures in few and varied words, making high comedy out of daily life, and relieving sound sense and serious observation with imaginative contrasts and delicate surprises.'" "Do you know any woman of whom that can be said?" asked Orestes. "Yes, I do. I have a great admiration for my own countrywomen. I think them the most sparkling women in the world. They labor under immense disadvantages, which Englishwomen do not, particularly those in the position of Harriet Lady Ashburton, for whom life and its accidents had been conquered for a thousand years. A woman born in a garden, and invited to walk into the most beautiful of houses, and to use a large fortune, and to adorn a distinguished ancestry, and to fill gracefully a position of extreme luxury and distinction, is in rather a different position from one who is born on Plymouth Rock, grows up in a climate which "Ah! go on; don't force upon me the always makes her ill and nervous, has to fight "And you think she would marry you? That would rouse the researches of more systematic reasoners,' I think," said I, infuriated. with narrow circumstances, or, what perhaps is worse, a new and rapidly - accumulated prosperity, and who is politely requested by society to be always very agreeable, and to make the wilderness blossom like the rose. Such has been the position of American women, only I have not sketched half the hardships or half the requirements. Nothing but the intense chivalry of the American man has enabled the weaker vessel to swim at all. She ought, in nine cases out of ten, to have sunk beneath the wave, to have been wrecked entirely. That she has made the voyage, or, to quit the awkward metaphor, that she has succeeded in doing as well as she has, is wonderful. That she may have failed of possessing the wit of Madame du Deffand, or the rapidity of movement and dexterity of fence' of Lady Ashburton, is not surprising; but I do not agree with you that she always has." "It strikes me, as I look about our large cities, that this daughter of the Puritans, this hard-worked and abused creature whom you describe, has conquered her lot, and looks very blooming; she certainly wears very good clothes, and I should call her any thing but oppressed." 46 who gives me all the fascination of her attractive and interesting character, and changes so often that I am reminded of the old song Phillis is my only joy, you know the rest." "And you would chain such a creature to the grocer's book; expect her to keep house; submit to all your humors, and to the horrors of the intelligence-office; have the neuralgia in her face, try to keep up with the advanced spirit of the times (that is the phrase, isn't it?), be beautifully dressed on nothing at all; read, write, and cipher; play the piano, dance exquisitely, look prettily, and still have a 6 sense of humor,' and make 'high comedy or high tragedy of life!' Why, Orestes, you make me faint!". 'Yes, I want her to manage the grocer's book, but never to let it appear. Let her keep all her annoyances sub rosa, show the world that a woman can keep a secret (she can do it well enough when she wishes to). I wish her to consume her own smoke like the new railway-engines. I do not wish any pandering to lethargic ease, any mornings spent reading French novels on sofas (I never do that). I do not wish her to sit communing with herself, and imagining herself abused. That is very poor business; she had better be attend properly cleaned—” Well, Orestes, I do not call her oppressed, and I agree with you that she is blooming, nay, more, she is beautiful, and she does wear very good clothes. I am talking of the different conditions under which this fairing to the chimneys, and see that they are flower has been reared, and how improbable it is that in one or two generations she should, as a production, we will say, of Nature and art, reach the two developments we have been considering; yet I am always struck, and I think foreigners are as a rule, with the cleverness and the culture of American women." "Yes, I think I have heard them called 'smart'-that delightful word!--but I do not think they do half enough to oil the wheels of life, that lubricating of the machinery of life which a sense of humor brings about; I think they are fretful often, and talk too much about their health, and their servants, and their annoyances. I don't want to hear about any of those things. I want to hear about books and pictures, and the last play, and the new opera, and fashion, and some good-natured gossip." "I should think almost any woman I know could gratify your requirements to that extent." "No, they always tell me their ailments. Now, I am not the family physician, nor am I, again, the intelligence office. I do not want to hear about John or Thomas, or Bridget or Hannah. I want a woman to make 'high comedy' of her annoyances!" Yes, that would be desirable. I hope all your female friends will have the strength to do it for you! But you must remember that some women are born Lady Macbeths, and can only make high tragedy' out of life." "So it is high enough, very well. I love a Rachel-a high-stepping, dark-eyed, tragic creature, with a passionate temper, an emotional nature, her tears very near her smiles, who adores me one minute and hates me the next, but always winds up by adoring me, and whose tears never make her nose red, but "This is the tragic one, or the comic one. Who is to see to the chimneys?" "We will put the comic one at that; I think there is a sense of humor connected with the old idea of the chimney-sweep, don't you think so? And I fear my tragic beauty would pout, and-" "And put you up the chimney? Yes, I hope she would. It is very easy to be virtuous for other people, and very easy not to commit other people's sins. What do you intend to do in the mean time, while Mrs. Orestes is doing all these things so well?" "As Woodcock says in his 'little game,' I think I should smoke a cigar!" like to know the author. She sits there, utterly neglected by her husband, who is hav ing a great flirtation with her intimate friend, and who makes her parlor the ground on which he carries it on, and she has a little sentimental dream of love, of what a reciprocated friendship might be. For that she is disgraced, scolded, and has to submit to my lord's displeasure. He meantime carries on his little affair with Miss Susan O'Hara, and no one minds it in the least. He is the only one who does any thing wrong in the play, and he reaps the reward of virtue, and looks down on her verse of poetry with lofty disdain." "The play has great merit; it is true to life," said Orestes. "Ladies mustn't dream." "Did it ever occur to you that you might improve?" "Never," said Orestes-"never; our vices are only our virtues carried to an extreme. Men never do any thing wrong; they cannot." "I know it is always so refreshing when you hear of the weakness, the folly, the wick edness of woman, to reflect that men are so good." Yes, it gives you hope for the future, a belief in the possibility of the perfection of the race," said Orestes. "And it is very pleasant to have something to look forward to that has not yet ar rived." "Certainly; you cannot look forward to any thing that has arrived." "Then we may look forward to the perfection of the masculine character? How kind of you!" "Oh, yes, I am as kind as I can be." "You always remind me, Orestes, of one of Arsène Houssaye's speeches. Do you remember the marchioness who hung her head with all the ingenuousness of fourscore?'" "Yes, perhaps I am ingenuous, among my other virtues. Was she the same marchioness (one of your good French ones) who said: 'I entered the world through marriage -a bad enough entrance, is it not? At the end of two years and a half the marquis, my husband, died; I clung to this new misfor tune for fear of a worse. My regrets were not very lively, for the marquis had taken the trouble to come into the world and to go out of it again-that was all! I moistened his will with my tears, and veiled my face with solemn-looking crape, which yet did not hide the cheerful horizon of widowhood?'" "Yes, the same dear, witty marchioness. You see there is some danger in having women too witty. Who knows but that if Mrs. Orestes, now, should happen to be witty, she might smile when she heard or thought of the cheerful horizon of widowhood?"1 “Ah! no, I told you-or at least I wished to confide to you-that I preferred the tragic one." "No; you have promised to marry Ma dame du Deffand, if I can find her." "Supposing that we split the difference, and I will describe exactly what will suit me. I wish her to be noble, true, generous, and sincere, charitable in the highest sense, not only with her money and her time, but in her judgments. I wish her to be very severe in the manner of this soliloquy thinks, besitates, halts, mentally questions, broods, shows flashes of feeling, falls away into dreamy spec toward herself, excessively lenient toward She must have that 'fine tone' which Horace Walpole describes; her key - note must be high. Then I wish her to be stamped with a special distinction-nothing common, nothing like anybody else. She must have the noblest and truest purpose in every thing she does, and yet be so entirely without conceit that she does not suspect herself of having any excellence whatever. I shall be careful never to tell her that she has any for fear that she might grow conceited. Then she must be witty without propensity to satire; full of agreeable talk, without saying aught that is disagreeable of any one. She must be religious without bigotry or narrowness; she must be very prudent, but not the least prudish. She must never be grotesque; she must remember that fine saying that she 'belongs to a sex who cannot afford to be grotesque,' therefore she must avoid even the exercise of the talent for imitation, if that should lead her to be grotesque. She must be very sensible of my merits, and very indifferent to her own. She may be as learned as she pleases, if she will only conceal it; and, above all, she must make high comedy of life!" "When you find her, will you be so good as to invite me to the wedding?" OURERA II. UR previous paper brought us to the end of the second act. We now enter upon the most stirring and important of all the acts of this great drama. At one time it was thought that the capability of an actor in this part was shown by his reading of the famous soliloquy, beginning "To be or not to be "--probably the best-known passage in Shakespeare, which every one with a taste for elocution is fond of repeating, and every one with a philosophical bent is prone to study. Mr. Booth begins this soliloquy with a great deal of feeling. He enters upon the stage in a mood profoundly meditative. His bearing, the expression of his countenance, and his whole manner, indicate the dreamy abstraction of one who is speculating upon a profound problem. But these outward forms soon disappear. As he talks, the meditative mood escapes from him, and presently there is little more than rapid and characterless declamation. We have already pointed out Mr. Booth's deficiency in the use of pause. In this soliloquy it is imperatively needed; but here, after the first few lines, Mr. Booth's tendency to hasty, half-considered utterance asserts itself. The dreamer who meditates ly under way, dashes along as if the whole business were to deliver a certain number of words within a given time. The lines For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, The pangs of despised love, the law's delay, are all flung off at a heat, as if learned by rote, not as if coming meditatively thought on thought. Nor are they expressed with all their shades of meaning, with those touches that give life and color to language. Every person who has really studied this famous soliloquy knows that half the time Mr. Booth is quite at sea as to its artistic sense. We say artistic sense advisedly. Everybody knows the drift of the argument, but only the student is aware of all the suggestions and the halfhidden thoughts which the passage contains, and which it is the province of the reader to shape and body forth. We have heard actors who have thrown many lights over Shakespearean passages, who have brought out hidden meanings, who have revealed unthought-of ideas; but we assert with confidence that Mr. Booth far oftener covers up and obscures meaning than he reveals it. After the soliloquy comes the perplexing scene with Ophelia, and here, more forcibly than elsewhere, arises the question of Hamlet's sanity. The literature evolved in the dispute of this issue is compendious, profound, and searching; nevertheless, we cannot do full justice to Mr. Booth's personation without giving the question a brief consideration. is only natural under all the circumstances -a great sorrow, an appalling secret, distracting fears, a lost love, and a revelation from the grave! It is true that he tells us of his intention to put on an "antic disposition," but we can only suspect that this assumption is largely prompted by the "fever at the core;" he gives us to understand that he is to enact madness for a purpose, but we apprehend that this very purpose is as wild and turbulent as the strange disposition which is supposed to cover it up. Let us look at a few of the facts. Hamlet assumes madness under cover of which to mature his purposes in relation to the usurping king, and to conceal " the heart of his mystery." But by so doing he does not in the least further his designs, and only excites the apprehensions of the whole court that something must be wrong. "Prompted to his revenge by heaven and hell," he plans nothing, projects nothing, apparently intends nothing except at some good time or other to fulfill the commands of his father's spirit; and in all this the assumption of madness seems to be quite as motiveless as the rest of his conduct. Throughout he seems to lack the balance, directness, and reason of perfect saneness. In the midst of his halting uncertainty he seizes upon the chances of the presence of a company of players to produce a play before the court, the story of which so much resembles the taking off of his own father that he hopes, by watching its effect upon the king, to confirm the story of the ghost. The play does confirm these suspicions; in truth, it renders the guilt of the king beyond question; and yet, no sooner has Hamlet established this fact than he at once surrenders all his designs, foregoes the advantage of this complete verification of the ghost's story, and goes off to England at the command of the Assuredly a purpose so infirm and easily diverted as this is very far from being a sane one. Hamlet's whole conduct toward Polonius betokens uncertain temper and an aimless caprice that has no logical defense. The violent death, by his own hand, of the father of the woman he loves, causes no remorse or grief-never once awakens in him sorrow even on Ophelia's behalf; it was caused in an explosion of frenzy, and so distraught is the unhappy creature's mind that never once does he apprehend the significance of the act, or understand the blow he has struck at Ophelia's peace. It is an error to draw a sharp line of de-king. markation between the sane and the insane, inasmuch as the two classes fade into each other. Between the extremes the gulf is great, but the intermediate gradations are infinite. Many astute physicians have declared that no person is wholly sane on every point. A man may be of sound judgment on nine questions, but exhibit marked disorder on the tenth; it is, indeed, certain that he will not be equally sane, balanced, and judicial, on every subject. All imaginative persons seem a little crazed to those of cool blood; the poetical temperament, ever since poets have flourished, has been suspected of being at least remotely allied to madness. There may be ebullitions and disorders in minds that commonly are peculiarly clear and regulated; and hence, in view of these facts, it is unphilosophical to make a sharp issue as to whether Hamlet is sane or insane. Hamlet is sane in many things; but to say that he is sane in all is to misunderstand the meaning of the word. A sensitive, introspective nature, so burdened with sorrow and tossed between conflicting duties and fears, would be sure to do unaccountable things, and exhibit strange perturbations of spirit. That Hamlet should fall away into dreams, explode in self-upbraidings, break into feverish mirth, show wild and unsettled conduct, Perfect sanity moves steadily forward to its purposes; it is calm; it foresees; it is not disturbed by every idle whiff; it is serene amid conflict, opposition, and danger. That is not sanity which drifts hither and thither; which would, and yet would not; which permits the imagination to run away with the reason; that obeys the behest of every impulse; which knows no helm or guidance for its turbulent disorders. It is only by understanding this duplex nature of Hamlet's condition that we can at all comprehend his conduct toward Ophelia. We must enter into the soul of that sensitive, high-strung, overwrought nature, and realize how the touch of certain chords awakens all his wild brain, his torn heart, his terrible | We like Mr. Booth's management of the the tumult of bis heart. He encounters It is customary now on the stage to explain this scene by bringing the king and Polonius on as eaves-droppers, causing Hamlet to detect their presence. The fact that he is overheard, that he discovers how Ophelia has been set upon him to learn his secret, is made the reason for Hamlet's conduct toward her. There is evidence to support this view of the case. We know that Ophelia is but obeying the behests of her father; we know that the king and Polonius are listening; and there is one line in the text, "Where is your father?" which may be interpreted as evidence that Hamlet had detected the fact of the hidden listeners. But, while this situation would be certain to lead Hamlet into some kind of erratic conduct, it gives no explanation of the form his wildness here takes. is more consonant to the complex nature of his tried heart to believe that his conduct has no such simple and cheap explanation. Explanation! This is the thing so many commentators are wrecked upon. There are some things that cannot be explained, and this supreme fact is often conclusive evidence of their truthfulness. To force explanations upon us of Hamlet's conduct is to destroy its mystery, its illusive, fascinating undertouch -if we may so express it-its profound agitations that ascend from depths of feeling and suffering, which, while they perplex, are still recognized as genuine. There are many strange things in the philosophy of life that we must believe without hoping to explain. It side of Ophelia, and thence launches his bit- The scene with Rosencrantz and Guilden- Mr. Booth attempts in this scene to force the language into meanings not intended. He is resolved that Hamlet shall not be brutal toward Ophelia, that he shall evince tenderness, love, feeling, sympathy, with only enough wildness to mislead his covert listeners. "Go to a nunnery' " is not with him a frenzied command, but tender, tearful advice. Where others storm, he remonstrates. "Why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners?" is urgent and affectionate solicitation for Ophelia to forego her hopes of marriage. "I am myself indifferent honest," and what follows, is an earnest desire to convince her The great scene with the queen is one that he and all men are unworthy of a wom- that a skillful actor could scarcely go far an's love. In acting out this view of the wrong in, but Mr. Booth at the close of it scene, Mr. Booth is compelled to gallop over manages to force a situation that completely many sentences with a total disregard of their reverses the meaning of the text. Altogethmeaning; but it must be conceded that he er, we cannot complain of the acting of the makes an effective scene, and succeeds in scene, nor do we recall any signal error. For moving the sensibilities of his auditors. But our part, we are never satisfied with any of he is rather the tender lover taking a last the longer speeches delivered by Mr. Booth; farewell of his mistress than Hamlet, with as already explained, they seem to us to lack light and shade, and commonly to be uttered in an off-hand dash that ignores all the shades of meaning. These defects mark the "Look here upon this picture, and on this," as they do other of his deliverances. The intense exultation he exhibits when, in slaying Poloni. us, he thinks he has killed the king, is painful in suggesting a too great willingness on Hamlet's part to accomplish the death of Claudius by accident, and without personal risk; and the indifference manifested at the discovery that Polonius is the victim of his rash plunge behind the arras is fairly heartless. Hamlet scarcely killed men with the coolness of a bravado. It is to be wished that in this scene the practice of bringing on the ghost were abandoned. The voice of the spirit floating in the air, coming none could tell whence, would be far more awful and impressive. This plan would, moreover, meet one difficulty. Hamlet sees his father in "his habit as he lived," but the ghost always comes in, as in the first scene, in armor. The ghost dressed so as to fail of recognition by the audience would be hurtful to the effect of the scene, and therefore the plain contradiction between the text and the fact is permitted. Let the ghost's voice be heard, his form visible only to Hamlet's distracted but preternaturally mental vision, and the effect of the scene would be enhanced. The words addressed to the ghost here overflow with tenderness. In the hands of a great actor, Hamlet should melt every listener into tears: .. Look you. how pale he glares! His form and cause conjoined, preaching to stones, Would make them capable.-Do not look upon Mr. Booth makes a good point later in the scene when the queen extends her hands over his kneeling figure to bless him. He leaps up, catches her hands, saying "When you are desirous to be blessed, I'll blessing beg of you;" but he fails to convey the idea in Hamle's mind, which is that when the queen shall have confessed herself to Heaven, and has shown by her acts her desire to be blessed, then, and not until then, can he accept a blessing from her. Hamlet, refusing her maternal benediction, also rejects all proffers of affection from the now heart-broken woman. "Good-night," he says, and turns away exclaiming "I must be cruel, only to be kind." But Mr. Booth is not cruel. He declines the blessing, but he folds his mother in his arms, weeps over her, utters the most tender "good-nights," and upon this picture the curtain falls, leaving all to wonder wherein Hamlet's cruelty exists. In attempting a new line of "business" here, Mr. Booth has unmistakably done violence to the plain meaning of the text. |