They announced _Hamlet._ There was no fear of my missing it this time. Fortunately, it was Ernest's week to make up the portfolio. I left the office at four o'clock and went to take my position in the queue, rather better informed, this time, than I had been on my first visit to Paris. I knew _Hamlet_ so well that I did not need to buy the words; I could follow the actors, translating the words as soon as they were uttered. I must admit that the impression made upon me far exceeded my expectations: Kemble was wonderful as Hamlet, and Miss Smithson made a divine Ophelia. The stage scene, the screen scene and that of the two portraits, the mad scene and that in the graveyard electrified me. Only then did I realise what the drama could be, and from the ruins of my past feeble attempts, which the shock of this revelation brought about, I saw what was needed to create a new world.
"And darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters"; as the Bible puts it.
This was the first time that I had seen real passions on the stage, inspiring men and women of real flesh and blood. Now I understood Talma's moans over each fresh part he created; I understood that everlasting aspiration for a literature that could give him the chance of depicting a hero who should be a living being; I understood his despair at dying before he had given expression to that side of his genius which perished unknown within him and with him. The present generation will not understand what I am saying; for its childish studies have made it as familiar with Walter Scott as with Lesage, with Shakespeare as with Molière. Our century, which has become pre-eminently a century of appreciation, smiles incredulously when it hears that a comedian could be hissed because he was an Englishman, or a play hooted because it was by Shakespeare.
These representations continued with increasing popularity. After _Hamlet_ came _Romeo and Juliet_, then _Othello_; then, finally, one after the other, all the masterpieces of the English stage. To Kemble and Miss Smithson belonged all the honours of these representations. It is impossible to describe the scene of Ophelia's madness, the balcony scene in _Juliet_, the poisoning scene in the vault among the dead, Othello's jealousy and the death of Desdemona, as played by those two great artistes. Abbott, also, showed himself a graceful comedian in the parts he played. His Mercutio, among the rest, was a real masterpiece of delightful acting.