e.
I wish that I could _see_ the new school of acting in Shakespeare.
Shakespeare must be kept up, or we shall become a third-rate nation!

[Footnote 1: Edward FitzGerald.]

Henry told me this story of Fanny Kemble's reading without a spark of
ill-nature, but with many a gleam of humor. He told me at the same time
of the wonderful effect that Adelaide Kemble (Mrs. Sartoris) used to
make when she recited Shelley's lines, beginning:

"Good-night--Ah, no, the hour is ill
Which severs those it should unite.
Let us remain together still--
Then it will be _good-night_!"

I have already said that I never could cope with Pauline Deschapelles,
and why Henry wanted to play Melnotte was a mystery. Claude Melnotte
after Hamlet! Oddly enough, Henry was always attracted by fustian. He
simply reveled in the big speeches. The play was beautifully staged; the
garden scene alone probably cost as much as the whole of "Hamlet." The
march past the window of the apparently unending army--that good old
trick which sends the supers flying round the back-cloth to cross the
stage again and again--created a superb effect. The curtain used to go
up and down as often as we liked and chose to keep the army marching!
The play ran some time, I suppose because even at our worst the public
found _something_ in our acting to like.

As Ruth Meadowes I had very little to do, but what there was, was worth
doing. The last act of "Eugene Aram," like the last act of "Ravenswood,"
gave me opportunity. It was staged with a great appreciation of grim and
poetic effect. Henry always thought that the dark, overhanging branch of
the cedar was like the cruel outstretched hand of Fate. He called it the
Fate Tree, and used it in "Hamlet," in "Eugene Aram," and in "Romeo and
Juliet."

In "Eugene Aram," the Fate Tree drooped low over the graves in the
churchyard. On one of them Henry used to be lying in a black cloak as
the curtain went up on the last act. Not until a moonbeam struck the
dark mass did you see that it was a man.

He played all such parts well. Melancholy and the horrors had a peculiar
fascination for him--especially in these early days. But his recitation
of the poem "Eugene Aram" was finer than anything in the
play--especially when he did it in a frock-coat. No one ever looked so
well in a frock-coat! He was always ready to recite it--used to do it
after supper, anywhere. We had a talk about it once, and I told him that
it w