that it was not remarkable in itself, but merely a contribution to the
general excited anticipation, the Prince of Denmark came on to the
stage. I understood later on at the Lyceum what days of patient work had
gone to the making of that procession.

At its tail, when the excitement was at fever heat, came the solitary
figure of Hamlet, looking extraordinarily tall and thin. The lights
were turned down--another stage trick--to help the effect that the
figure was spirit rather than man.

He was weary--his cloak trailed on the ground. He did _not_ wear the
miniature of his father obtrusively round his neck! His attitude was one
which I have seen in a common little illumination to the "Reciter,"
compiled by Dr. Pinches (Henry Irving's old schoolmaster). Yet how right
to have taken it, to have been indifferent to its humble origin! Nothing
could have been better when translated into life by Irving's genius.

The hair looked blue-black, like the plumage of a crow, the eyes
burning--two fires veiled as yet by melancholy. But the appearance of
the man was not single, straight or obvious, as it is when I describe
it--any more than his passions throughout the play were. I only remember
one moment when his intensity concentrated itself in a straightforward,
unmistakable emotion, without side-current or back-water. It was when he
said:

"The play's the thing
With which to catch the conscience of the King."

and, as the curtain came down, was seen to be writing madly on his
tablets against one of the pillars.