“It might be in Sanskrit for all he understands of it. He loves Mr. Irving for himself alone. He has got no idea of art.”
Later in the night the conversation turned upon the difference between the elocutionary modes of expression of the past and the present day. In illustration of a point associated with the question of effect, Mr. Irving gave me at least a thrill such as I had never before experienced through the medium of his art, by repeating,—
“To be or not to be: that is the question.”
Before he had reached the words,—
“To die: to sleep:
No more,”
I felt that I had suddenly had a revelation made to me of the utmost limits of art; that I had been permitted a glimpse behind the veil, if I may be allowed the expression; that I had been permitted to take a single glance into a world whose very name is a mystery to the sons of men.
Every one present seemed spellbound. A commonplace man who sat next to me, drew a long breath—it was almost a gasp—and said,—
“That is too much altogether for such people us we are. My God! I don’t know what I saw—I don’t know how I come to be here.”
He could not have expressed better what my feeling was; and yet I had seen Mr. Irving’s Hamlet seventeen times, so that I might have been looked upon as unsusceptible to any further revelation on a point in connection with the soliloquy.