nd the springs were out of order; how
some worked spasmodically up and down in the same place, and didn't get
along at all, as if they were legs which had struck for higher wages;
and how others dashed ahead, as if they did not intend to stop until
they had transported their bewildered proprietors out of sight of the
audience, as if they were machine legs, with the steam turned on, and
weights on the safety-valve; how some went on the stage and wouldn't go
off, and how others went off and wouldn't go on, until they were coaxed
on by their agonized owners, a long time after the cue came--to tell how
the red fire burned green, and the blue fire would not burn at all--how
the call-boy got tipsy, and was not forthcoming--how the property-man
fell over the sheet-iron thunder, and stuck his head into a pot of red
paint, which made him look like a modern edition of Charles the First
with his head cut off--how the grave-diggers got into the grave and
couldn't get out--how _Hamlet_ and _Laertes_ could hardly get in at
all; and how, when they did get in, they made the gravel fly--how the
wrong men came on at the wrong time, and how, as a general thing, the
right men didn't ever come on--how _Guildenstern_ spoke _Ophelia's_
lines, how _Horatio_ tried to speak one of Hamlet's speeches, and danced
a frantic hornpipe with rage because he couldn't think how it began, and
how _Polonius_ couldn't speak at all, and so went home--how nobody could
remember what Shakspeare said, and so everybody said what Shakspeare
didn't say, and hadn't said, and wouldn't have said, under any
circumstances--how some of the men swore, and some of the women wanted
to, but postponed it, and how the butchery proceeded, with many mishaps
and multitudinous mistakes, and how the audience applauded, and cheered,
and laughed at the dismal tragedy, evidently considering it the
liveliest farce of the season, are facts, falsehoods, and circumstances,
both real and supposititious, which could not be compressed within the
limits of a single volume.

Hamlet was personated by an aspiring youth, whose physical dimensions
were not up to the army standard, and who couldn't have gathered fruit
from a currant-bush without high-heeled boots on; while the lady who
represented his mother would have been compelled to stoop in order to
pick pippins from the tallest apple-tree that ever grew. By the side of
her illustrious son, she looked perfectly capable of taking him up in
her a