all are mad who have, as Socrates put it, "a divine release from the
common ways of men," may speak ludicrously, even when they speak the
truth.

All great acting has a certain strain of extravagance which the
imitators catch hold of and give us the eccentric body without the
sublime soul.

From the first I saw this extravagance, this bizarrerie in Henry
Irving's acting. I noticed, too, its infinite variety. In "Hamlet,"
during the first scene with Horatio, Marcellus and Bernardo, he began by
being very absent and distant. He exchanged greetings sweetly and
gently, but he was the visionary. His feet might be on the ground, but
his head was towards the stars "where the eternal are." Years later he
said to me of another actor in "Hamlet": "_He_ would never have seen the
ghost." Well, there was never any doubt that Henry Irving saw it, and
it was through his acting in the Horatio scene that he made us sure.

As a bad actor befogs Shakespeare's meaning, so a good actor illuminates
it. Bit by bit as Horatio talks, Hamlet comes back into the world. He is
still out of it when he says:

"My father! Methinks I see my father."

But the dreamer becomes attentive, sharp as a needle, with the words:

"For God's love, let me hear."

Irving's face, as he listened to Horatio's tale, blazed with
intelligence. He cross-examined the men with keenness and authority. His