All these agencies have this trait in common, that their damaging effect is often felt by the offspring as well as the parent, and, in most cases, in a far higher degree. The common doctrine of hereditary disease implies the actual transmission of a specific form of disease fully developed,—or, at least, of a tendency to it that may or may not be developed. The range within which it operates is supposed to be the narrow limits covered by a single specific affection. Daily experience, however, shows that the deviation from the primitive type is limited only by some conditions of structure. Any pathological result may be expected, not incompatible with the structure of the organ. And thus it is that the cerebral affection which fell upon the parent is represented in one child by insanity, in another by idiocy, in another by epilepsy, in another by gross eccentricity, in another by moral perversities, in another by ill-balanced intellect,—each and all implying a brain more or less vitiated by the parental infirmity. There is nothing strange in all this diversity of result. In the healthy state, organic action proceeds with wonderful regularity and uniformity; but when controlled by the pathological element, all this is changed, although the change has its limits. This diversity in the results of hereditary transmission is as strictly according to law as the similarity of features exhibited by parent and child. No presumption against the fact can be derived from this quarter, and therefore, if well-authenticated, it must be admitted. Many a man, however, who admits the general fact, refuses to make the application where it has not been usually made. When mania occurs in two or three successive generations, nobody overlooks the hereditary element; but when the mania of the parent is followed by great inequalities of character, or strange impulses to criminal acts, then the effects of disease are straightway ignored, and we think only of moral liberty and free-will. It may be difficult, sometimes, to make the proper distinction between the effects of hereditary physical vitiation and those of bad education and strong temptations; but the difficulty is of the kind which stands in the way of all successful inquiry, to be overcome by patient and profound study.Some light may be thrown on this deviation from the original type by considering the forces that are concerned in the hereditary act. The statement that like produces like is the expression of an obvious law. But we must bear in mind that the law is only so far observed as is necessary to maintain the characters of the species. Within that range there is every possible variety, and for a very obvious reason. Every individual represents immediately two others, and, indirectly, an indefinite number. This is done by uniting in himself qualities and features drawn from each parent, without any obvious principle or law of selection and combination. One parent may be, apparently, more fully represented than the other; the defects of the parent may be transmitted, rather than the excellences; the tendencies to health and strength may be outnumbered and overborne by the tendencies to disease. No individual, of course, can receive, entirely and completely, the features and attributes of both parents, for that would be a sort of practical absurdity; but in the process of selecting and combining, Nature exhibits the same inexhaustible variety that appears in all her operations. Even in the offspring of the same parents, however numerous, uniformity in this respect is seldom so obvious as diversity. This cerebral deterioration is subject to the same laws of descent as other traits, with a few exceptions without much bearing on the present question. We might as reasonably expect to see the nose or the eyes, the figure or the motions of either parent transmitted with the exactest likeness to all the offspring, as to suppose that an hereditary disease must necessarily be transmitted fully formed, with all the incidents and conditions which it possessed in the parent. And yet, in the case of mental disease, the current philosophy can recognize the evidence of transmission in no shape less demonstrative than delusion or raving. Contrary to all analogy, and contrary to all fact, it supposes that the hereditary affection must appear in the offspring in precisely the same degree of intensity which it had in the parent. If the son is stricken down with raving mania, like his father before him, then the relation of cause and effect is obvious enough; but if, on the contrary, the former exhibits only extraordinary outbreaks of passion, remarkable inequalities of spirit and disposition, irrelevant and inappropriate conduct, strange and unaccountable impulses, nothing of this kind is charged practically to the parental infirmity.The cerebral defect once established, the modes in which it may be manifested in subsequent generations present no uniformity whatever. Insanity in a parent may be followed by any possible form of mental irregularity in the descendant,—insanity, idiocy, epilepsy, drunkenness, criminal impulses, eccentricity. And so, too, eccentricity, even of the least prominent kind, may be followed by grosser eccentricity, or even overt insanity, in the descendant. The cerebral defect is not necessarily manifested in an uninterrupted series of generations, for it often skips over one, and appears with redoubled energy in the next; and thus, in looking for proof of hereditary disease or defect, we are not to stop at the next preceding generation. We are too little acquainted with the laws of hereditary transmission to explain these things. We know this, however, that, side by side with that law which decrees the transmission of defects as well as excellences, there exists another law which restrains deviations from the normal type, which extinguishes the errant traits, and reestablishes the primitive characters of the organism. The combined and alternate action of these two laws may produce some of the inscrutable phenomena of hereditary transmission.The transmission of the cerebral defect is often manifested in a manner exceedingly embarrassing to all who hold to the prevalent notions respecting sanity and insanity. It is sometimes confined to a very circumscribed range, beyond which the mind presents no material impairment. The sound and the unsound coexist, not in a state of fusion, but side by side, each independent of the other, and both derived from a common source. And the fact is no more anomalous than that often witnessed, of some striking feature of one parent associated in the child with one equally striking of the other. It is not the case exactly of partial insanity, or any mental defect, super-induced upon a mind otherwise sound,—for such defect is, in some degree, an accident, and may disappear; but here is a congenital conjunction of sanity and insanity, which no medical or moral appliances will ever remove. These persons may get on very well in their allotted part, and even achieve distinction, while the insane element is often cropping out in the shape of extravagances or irregularities in thought or action, which, according to the stand-point they are viewed from, are regarded either as gross eccentricity, or undisciplined powers, or downright insanity. For every manifestation of this kind they may show no lack of plausible reasons, calculated to mislead the superficial observer; but still the fact remains, that these traits, which are never witnessed in persons of well-balanced minds, are a part of their habitual character. When people of this description possess a high order of intellectual endowments, the unhealthy element seems to impart force and piquancy to their mental manifestations, and thus increase the embarrassment touching the true character of their mental constitution. When the defect appears in the reflective powers, it is often regarded as insanity, though not more correctly than if it were confined to the emotions and feelings. The man who goes through life creditably performing his part, but feeling, all the while, that everybody with whom he has any relations is endeavoring to oppose and annoy him, strays as clearly from the track of a healthy mind as if he believed in imaginary plots and conspiracies against his property or person. In neither case is he completely overcome by the force of the strange impression, but passes along, to all appearance, much like other men. Insane, in the popular acceptation, he certainly is not; but it is equally certain that his mind is not in a healthy condition. Lord Byron was one of this class, and the fact gives us a clew to the anomalies of his character. His mother was subject to violent outbreaks of passion, not unlike those often witnessed in the insane. On the paternal side his case was scarcely better. The loose principles, the wild and reckless conduct of his father procured for him the nickname of "Mad Jack Byron"; and his grand-uncle, who killed his neighbor in a duel, exhibited traits not very characteristic of a healthy mind. With such antecedents, it is not strange that he was subject to wild impulses, violent passions, baseless prejudices, uncompromising selfishness, irregular mental activity. The morbid element in his nervous system was also witnessed in the form of epilepsy, from which he suffered, more or less, during his whole life. The "vile melancholy" which Dr. Johnson inherited from his father, and which, to use his own expression, "made him mad all his life, at least not sober," never perverted nor hampered the exercise of his intellectual powers. He heard the voice of his distant mother calling "Sam"; he was bound to touch every post he passed in the streets; he astonished people by his extraordinary singularities, and much of his time was spent in the depths of mental distress; yet the march of his intellect, steady, uniform, and measured, gave no token of confusion or weakness.In common life, among an order of men unknown beyond the circle of their neighborhood, this sort of mental dualism witnessed with remarkable frequency, though generally regarded as anomalous and unaccountable, rather than the result of an organic law. In some, the morbid element, without affecting the keenness of the intellect, is more active, intruding itself on all occasions, characterizing the ways and manners, the demeanor and deportment. Under the influence of peculiarly adverse circumstances, they are liable to lose occasionally the unsteady balance between the antagonistic forces of their mental nature, to conduct as if unquestionably insane, and to be treated accordingly. Of such the remark is always made by the world, which sees no nice distinctions, "If he is insane now, he was always insane." According as the one or the other phasis of their mind is exclusively regarded, they are accounted by some as always crazy, by others as uncommonly shrewd and capable. The hereditary origin of this mental defect in some form of nervous affection will always be discovered, where the means of information are afforded.In some persons the morbid element appears in the shape of insensibility to nice moral distinctions. Their perception of them at all seems to be the result of imitation rather than instinct. With them, circumstances determine everything as to the moral complexion of their career in life. Whether they leave behind them a reputation for flagrant selfishness, meanness, and dishonesty, or for a commendable prudence and judicious regard for self,—whether they always keep within the precincts of a decent respectability, or run into disreputable courses,—depends mostly on chance and fortune. This intimate association of the saint and the sinner in the same individual, common as it is, is a stumbling-block to moralists and legislators. The abnormal element is entirely overlooked, or rather is confounded with that kind of moral depravity which comes from vicious training And, certainly, the distinction is not always very easily made; for, though sufficient light on this point may often be derived from the antecedents of the individual, yet it is impossible, occasionally, to remove the obscurity in which it is involved. However this may be, it is a warrantable inference from the results of modern inquiry, that the class of cases is not a small one, where the person commits a criminal act, or falls into vicious habits, with a full knowledge of the nature and consequences of his conduct, and prompted, perhaps, by the ordinary inducements to vice, who, nevertheless, would have been a shining example of virtue, had the morbid element in his cerebral organism been left out. In our rough estimates of responsibility this goes for nothing, like the untoward influences of education; and it could not well be otherwise, though it cannot be denied that one element of moral responsibility, namely, the wish and the power to pursue the right and avoid the wrong, is greatly defective.There is another phasis of cerebral defect not very unlike the last, which of late years has been occurring with increasing frequency, embarrassing our courts, confounding the wise and the simple, and overwhelming respectable families with shame and sorrow. With an intellect unwarped by the slightest excitement or delusion, and with many moral traits, it may be, calculated to please and to charm, its subjects are irresistibly impelled to some particular form of crime. With more or less effort they strive against it, and when they yield at last, their conduct is as much a mystery to themselves as to others. Ordinary criminals excite some touch of pity, on the score of bad education or untamed passions; but if, in the common estimation of the world, there is one criminal more reprehensible than another, it is he who sins against great light and under the smallest temptations,—and, of course, the hottest wrath of an incensed community is kindled against him.At the bar of yonder courtroom stands a youth with an aspect and manner indicative of culture and refinement far above those of the common herd of criminals. He was detected in the very act of committing a grave criminal offence. He has been educated under good moral influences, and possessed a patrimony that supplied every reasonable want. No looseness of living, no violent passion is alleged against him, and no adequate motive appears for the act. For a year or two past he has been unusually restless by day and by night, has slept poorly, and his countenance has worn an expression of distraction and anxiety. Various little details of conduct are related of him, which, though not morally censurable, were offensive to good taste and opposed to the ordinary observances of society. His friends are sure he is not the man he once was, but no expert ventures to pronounce him insane. Looking behind the scene, the mystery clears up, and we behold only a simple operation of cerebral dynamics. A glance at the family-history shows us a great-grandfather, an aunt, two second-cousins, and a brother unequivocally insane, the father and many other members widely noted for eccentricities and irregularities of a kind scarcely compatible with the idea of sanity. Considering that the brain does not spring out of the ground, but is the final product of all the influences which for generations have been working in the cerebral organism, it is not strange that the quality of his brain became so vitiated as to be incapable of some of its highest functions.—Looking a little farther back in our forensic experience, we behold a youth scarcely arrived at the age of legal majority, with a simple, verdant look, arraigned for trial on the charge of murder. He was the servant of a farmer, and his victim was an adopted daughter of the family, and some years younger than himself. One day they were left together to take care of the house, a little girl in the neighborhood having come in to keep them company. While engaged in the domestic services, quietly and pleasantly, he invited his companion to go with him into another room where he had something to show her, and there, within a few minutes, he cut her throat from ear to ear. He soon came down, told what he had done, and made no attempt to escape. They had always been on good terms; no provocation, no motive whatever for the act was shown or suspected. When questioned, he replied only,—"I loved her, no one could tell how much I loved her." He had been drinking cider during the morning, but his cool and collected manner, both before and after the act, showed that he was not intoxicated. His employers testified that they had always found him good-natured and correct, but considered his intellect somewhat below the average grade. A few months subsequently he died in jail of consumption. Regarded from the ordinary moral stand-points, this was a strange, an unaccountable, a monstrous act, and we are unable to take the first step towards a solution of the mystery. Looking, however, at the material conditions of his affections, his propensities, his impulses,—his cerebral dynamics,—we get a clew, at least, to the secret. His father was an habitual drunkard, and a frequent inmate of the poor-house. He had two children,—one an idiot, and the other the prisoner; and the mental deficiency of the former, and the senseless impulses to crime manifested by the latter, were equally legitimate effects of the father's vice.—Here, again, is one who might justly be regarded as a favored son of fortune. Fine talents, a college-education, high social position, an honorable and lucrative business in prospect were all his; but before leaving college he had made considerable proficiency in lying, drinking, forgery, and hypocrisy, besides evincing a remarkable ingenuity in concealing these traits. His vices only increased with years, notwithstanding the various parental expedients to effect reform,—a voyage to sea, establishment in business, confinement in a hospital for the insane, a residence in the country, a settlement in a new territory. All this time his intellect was cool and clear, except when under the influence of drink, and he was always ready with the most plausible explanations of his conduct. At last, however, delusions began to appear, and unquestionable and incurable insanity was established. The philosophy of our times utterly fails to account for a phenomenon like this. Had the hand of the law been laid upon him for his offences, he would have been regarded as one of those examples of depravity which deserve the severest possible punishment; and when the true nature of his case appeared at last, doctors only wondered how so much mental disorder could happen to one whose progenitors were singularly free from mental infirmities. In noticing the agencies calculated to vitiate the quality of the brain, we mentioned the neuropathies as among the most efficient, though their effect is chiefly witnessed in subsequent generations, and the present case is an illustration of the fact. His mother was a highly nervous woman, and for many years a confirmed invalid.This, then, being admitted, that a vitiated quality of the brain may be transmitted to the offspring with accumulating effect, let us see what are the general characteristics of this effect. We have no reason to suppose that the brain is exempt from the operation of the same organic laws which govern the rest of the animal economy. Observation abundantly shows that its working capacity is diminished, and its activity becomes irregular in one or more of the various degrees of irregularity, ranging from a little eccentricity up to raving mania. Occasionally, such defect is accompanied by remarkable manifestations of mental ability, but it is no part of our doctrine that such conjunctions are incompatible. Byron and Johnson accomplished great things; but who will deny that without that hereditary taint they would have done more and done it better? The latter, it is well known, was much dependent on moods, and spent long periods in mental inactivity. The labors of the other were fitful, and his views of life betray the influence of the same cerebral defect that led to so much domestic woe. The narrow-chested, round-shouldered person, whose lungs barely oxydize blood enough to maintain life, is not expected to walk a thousand miles in a thousand hours, or to excel as a performer on wind-instruments. We impute to him no fault for this sort of incompetence. We should rather charge him with consummate folly, if he undertook a line of exercises for which he is so clearly unfitted. We do not wonder, in fact, when this unfortunate pulmonary constitution sends its possessor to an early grave. Why not apply the same philosophy to the brain, which may partake of all the defects incident to organized matter? Why expect of one among whose progenitors insanity, idiocy, scrofula, rickets, and epilepsy have prevailed in an extraordinary degree all the moral and intellectual excellences displayed by those whose blood through a long line of ancestors has been untainted by any of these affections?It is chiefly, however, in abnormal activity that the presence of this cerebral depreciation is indicated. And here we find the same disposition to insist on positive and absolute conditions, overlooking those nicer shades of diversity which mark the movements of Nature. It is the common belief that between eccentricity and insanity a great gulf is fixed; and in courts of justice this notion is often used with great effect to overthrow the conclusions of the medical expert, who, while he admits their essential difference, finds it not very easy to avoid the trap which a quick-witted lawyer is sure to make of it. Let him recognize the fact that they are the results of a common agency, differing chiefly in degree, and then his path is clear, though it may not lead to popular confidence in his professional views.Neither is the cerebral depreciation confined to any particular portion of the organ; and therefore its effects may be witnessed in any of those manifestations which are known to depend upon it. The affective powers, meaning thereby the passions, affections, and emotions, are, like the intellectual, connected with the brain, and, like them too, are shaped, in a great degree, by the quality of that organ. It is curious, however, that, while this fact is admitted in general terms, there is a prevalent reluctance to make the legitimate practical application. It is denied that the moral powers and propensities can be affected by disease, though connected with a material organ. Everybody believes that a man who thinks his legs are made of glass is insane; but if his affections only are disordered,—love and kindness being replaced by jealousy and hate,—an habitual regard for every moral propriety, by unbounded looseness of life and conversation,—the practice of the strictest virtue, by unblushing indulgence of crime, and all without apparent cause or motive,—then the morbid element in the case is overlooked and stoutly repudiated. We admit that a man may be a fool without any fault of his own; but if he fall short of any of the requirements of the moral law, he is regarded as a sinner, and perhaps punished as a criminal. Before we utterly condemn him for failing to recognize all the sharp distinctions between right and wrong, for yielding to temptation, and walking in evil courses, we are bound in justice to inquire whether a higher grade of moral excellence has not been debarred him by the defective quality of his brain, the organ by which all moral graces are manifested,—whether it has not become deteriorated by morbid predispositions, transmitted with steadily accumulating force, to insanity, or other affections which are known to spread their noxious influence over the nervous system.A scientific fact is supposed to be entitled to credence, when accompanied by proper scientific proof; but, nevertheless, many worthy people cannot resist the conclusion, that, if a man's moral character is determined by the quality of the brain, then there is no such thing as responsibility. And so we are brought up all standing against the old problem of moral liberty, on which oceans of ink have been shed to little purpose. Heaven forbid that we should add another drop! for our object will be served by stating very briefly the scientific view of this phenomenon. Every creature is free, within the limits of the constitution which Nature has given him, to act and to think, each after his kind. The horse rejoices in the liberty of acting like a horse, and not like an ox; and man enjoys the privilege of acting the part of a man, and not of a disembodied spirit. If the limbs of the former are struck by an atrophy, we do not expect him to win the race. If the brain of the latter is blasted by disease or deterioration, we cannot expect the fruits of a sound and vigorous organism. When we say that a person with a brain vitiated by an accumulation of hereditary defects is incapable of that degree of moral excellence which is manifested by men of the soundest brains, we utter a truism as self-evident, apparently, as when we say that the ox is incapable of the fleetness of the horse or the ferocity of the tiger. It is immaterial whether the cerebral condition in question is one of original constitution or of acquired deficiency, because the relation between the physical and the moral must be the same in the one case as in the other. In the toiling masses, who, from childhood, are brought face to face with want and vice, we do not expect to find the moral graces of a Channing or a Cheverus; and we do not hold them to a very strict responsibility for the deficiency. But they are not utterly destitute of a moral sense, and what we have a right to expect is, that they improve, in a reasonable degree, the light and opportunities which have fallen to their lot. The principle is precisely the same as it regards those whose brains have been vitiated by some noxious agency. To make them morally responsible in an equal degree with men more happily endowed would be repugnant to every idea of right and justice. But within the range of their capacity, whatever it may be, they are free, and accountable for the use of their liberty. True, there is often difficulty in making these distinctions, even where the necessity for it is the greatest; but we dissent from the conclusion, that therefore the doctrine can have but little practical value. It is something to have the fact of the intimate connection between organic conditions and moral manifestations distinctly recognized. The advance of knowledge will be steadily widening the practical application of the fact. A judge might not be justified in favoring the acquittal of a criminal on the ground of his having inherited a brain of vitiated quality; but, surely, it would not be repugnant to the testimony of science, or the dictates of common sense and common justice, if he allowed this fact to operate in mitigation of sentence.A NEW SCULPTOR.Once to my Fancy's hall a stranger came,Of mien unwonted,And its pale shapes of glory without shameOr speech confronted.Fair was my hall,—a gallery of GodsSmoothly appointed;With Nymphs and Satyrs from the dewy sodsFreshly anointed.Great Jove sat throned in state, with Hermes near,And fiery Bacchus;Pallas and Pluto, and those powers of FearWhose visions rack us.Artemis wore her crescent free of stars,The hunt just scented;Glad Aphrodite met the warrior Mars,The myriad-tented.Rude was my visitant, of sturdy form,Draped in such clothingAs the world's great, whom luxury makes warm,Look on with loathing.And yet, methought, his service-badge of soilWith honor wearing;And in his dexter hand, embossed with toil,A hammer bearing.But while I waited till his eye should sink,O'ercome of beauty,With heart impatience brimming to the brinkOf courteous duty,—He smote my marbles many a murderous blow,His weapon poising;I, in my wrath and wonderment of woe,No comment voicing."Come, sweep this rubbish from the workman's way,Wreck of past ages,—Afford me here a lump of harmless clay,Ye grooms and pages!"Then, from that voidness of our mother Earth,A frame he buildedOf a new feature,—with the power of birthFashioned and welded.It had a might mine eyes had never seen,A mien, a stature,As if the centuries that rolled betweenHad greatened Nature.It breathed, it moved; above Jove's classic swayA place was won it:The rustic sculptor motioned; then "To-day"He wrote upon it."What man art thou?" I cried, "and what this wrongThat thou hast wrought me?My marbles lived on symmetry and song;Why hast thou brought me"A form of all necessities, that asksNurture and feeding?Not this the burthen of my maidhood's tasks,Nor my high breeding.""Behold," he said, "Life's great impersonate,Nourished by Labor!Thy Gods are gone with old-time faith and Fate;Here is thy Neighbor."PLAYS AND PLAY-ACTING.One evening, after seeing Booth in "Richard III.," three of us fell a-talking about the authorship of the play, and wondering how far Shakespeare was responsible for what we had heard. Everybody knows that ColleyCibberimproved upon the text of the old folios and quartos: for what was listened to with delight by BenJonsoncould not satisfy Congreve, and William III. needed better verses than those applauded by Queen Elizabeth. None of us knew how great or how many these improvements were. I doubt whether many of the audience that crowded the theatre that evening were wiser than we. The next day I got an acting copy of "Richard III.," and, with the help of Mrs. Clarke's Concordance,[1]arrived at the following astonishing results."Shakspeare'sHistorical Tragedy of Richard III., adapted to Representation by ColleyCibber," (I quote the full title for its matchless impudence,) makes a pamphlet of fifty-nine small pages. Of these,Cibberwas good enough to write twenty-six out of his own head. Then, modestly recognizing Shakespeare's superiority, he took twenty-sevenpages from him, (not all from this particular play, to be sure,)remodelledsix other pages of the original, and, mixing it all up together, produced a play, and called it Shakespeare.With Mrs. Clarke's touchstone it is easy to separate the base metal from the fine gold; though you have only to ring most ofCibber'scounterfeits to see how flat they are. Would any one take the following for genuine coin, and believe that Shakespeare could make a poor ghost talk thus?"PRINCE E. Richard, dream on, and see the wandering spiritsOf thy young nephews, murdered in the tower:Could not our youth, our innocence, persuadeThy cruel heart to spare our harmless lives?Who, but for thee, alas! might have enjoyedOur many promised years of happiness.No soul, save thine, but pities our misusage.Oh! 'twas a cruel deed! therefore alone,Unpitying, unpitied shalt thou fall."Or thus:—"K. HENRY. The morning's dawn has summoned me away;And let that wild despair, which now does preyUpon thy mangled thoughts, alarm the world.Awake, Richard, awake! to guilty mindsA terrible example!"No wonder that Gloucester finds it quite hopeless to reply to such ghosts in the words Shakespeare put into his mouth, and so has recourse toCibber. We are not told what (Cibber's) ghosts say to Richmond; but he declares,—"If dreams should animate a soul resolved,I'm more than pleased with those I've had to-night."Just after this, it is rather confusing to find him straying off into "Henry V." Still, "In peace there's nothing so becomes a man," seems to promise Shakespeare at least,—so compose yourself to listen and enjoy:—"In peace there's nothing so becomes a manAsmild behaviorand humility;But when the blast of war blows in our ears,Let us be tigers in our fierce deportment."After this outrage, I defy you to help hoping that the comparatively innocent Richard will chop off Richmond's head,—in spite of history and Shakespeare.It does not follow that all change or omission is unlawful in placing Shakespeare's plays on the stage. Though in the pit or parquet we sit (more or less) at our ease, instead of standing as the groundlings did in old days, yet a tragedy five hours and a half long would be rather too much of a good thing for us. There must have been a real love of the drama in those times. Fancy a fine gentleman, able to pay his shilling and sit with the wits upon the rush-strewn stage, listening for such a length of time to "Hamlet," with no change of scenes to help the illusion or break the monotony, beyond a curtain or two hung across the stage, a wooden gallery at the back whence the court of Denmark might view "The Mouse-Trap," and, perhaps, a wooden tomb pushed on or "discovered" in the graveyard-scene by pulling aside one of these curtains or "traverses." No pretty women, either, dressed in becoming robes, and invested with the mysterious halo of interest which an actress seems to bring with her from the side-scenes. No women at all. Poor Ophelia presented by a great lubberly boy, and the part of the Queen very likely intrusted to him who was last year the "jeunepremière," and whose voice is now somewhat cracked within the ring. To be sure, in those days every gentleman took his pipe with him; and the fragrant clouds would be some consolation in the eyes, or rather in the noses, of some of us. But still,—almost six hours of tragedy! It is too much of a good thing for these degenerate days; and we must allow the prompter to use his pencil on the actors' copy of "Hamlet," though he strike out page upon page of immortal philosophy.But there are certain parts of this play omitted whose loss makes one grieve. Why do the actors leave out the strange half-crazed exclamations wrung from Hamlet by his father's voice repeating "Swear" from beneath his feet?"HAM. Indeed, upon my sword, indeed.GHOST [beneath]. Swear.HAM. Ah, ha, boy! say'st thou so? art thou there, true-penny?—Come on,—you hear this fellow in the cellarage—* * * * *Swear by my sword.GHOST [beneath]. Swear.HAM.Hic etubique? then we'll shift our ground.—Come hither, gentlemen,And lay your hands again upon my sword:Never to speak of this that you have heard,Swear by my sword.GHOST [beneath]. Swear.HAM. Well said, old mole! Canst worki' the ground so fast?A worthy pioneer I....... This not to do,So grace and mercy at your most need help you, swear.GHOST [beneath]. Swear.HAM. Rest, rest, perturbed spirit!"The sensitive organization which makes Hamlet what he is has been too rudely handled: the machine, too delicate for the rough work of every-day life, breaks down, under the strain. The horror of the time—beginning with Horatio's story of the apparition, and growing more fearful with every moment of reflection, until Hamlet longs for the coming of the dread hour—reaches a point beyond which human nature has no power to endure. If he could share his burden with his friend Horatio,—but Marcellus thrusts himself forward, and he checks the half-uttered confidence, and struggles to put aside their curiosity with trifling words. Anything, to be alone and free to think on what he has heard and what he has to do. And then,—as he is swearing them to secrecy before escaping from them,—there, from under their feet and out of the solid earth, comes the voice whose adieu is yet ringing in his ears. In terror they hurry to another spot; but the awful voice follows their steps, and its tones shake the ground under them. What wonder, if, broken down by all this, Hamlet utters words which would be irreverent in their levity, were they not terrible in their wildness? Have you never marked what pathos there is in a very trivial phrase used by one so crushed down by grief that he acts and speaks like a little child?It is wonderful that a great actor should neglect a passage that paints with one touch Hamlet's half-hysterical state. Given as it might be given, it would curdle the blood in your veins. I asked the best Hamlet it has been my fortune to see, why he left out these lines. "I have often thought I would speak them; but I don't know how." That was his answer, and a very honest one it was. But such a reason is not worthy of any man who dares to play Hamlet,—much less of one who plays it as —— does.It is curious to observe how persistently the players, in making up the stage-travesties of Shakespeare's plays, have followed the uncertain lead of the quartos, where they and the folio differ. It almost seems as if the stage-editors found something more congenial in a text made up from the actors' recollections, plentifully adorned with what we now call "gag." They appear to forget one capital fact: that Shakespeare was at once actor, author, and manager,—that he wrote for the stage exclusively, producing plays for the immediate use of his own company,—and that his plays may therefore be reasonably supposed to be "adapted to representation" in their original state. Does Mr. Crummles know better than Master Shakespeare knew how "Romeo and Juliet" should be ended with the best effect,—not only to the ear in the closet, but theatrically on the stage? The story was not a new one; and the dramatist deliberately followed one of two existing versions rather than the other. InBoisteau'stranslation ofBandello'snovel, Juliet wakes from her trance before Romeo's death; in Brooke's poem, which the great master chose to adopt as his authority, all is over, and she wakes to find her lover dead.Garrickmust needs know better than Shakespeare, the actor-author; and no stage Romeo has the grace to die until he has, in elegant phrase, "piled up the agony" with lines like these:—"JULIET. ... Death's in thy face.ROM.It is indeed. I struggle with him now:The transports that I felt,To hear thee speak, and see thy opening eyes,Stopped, for a moment, his impetuous course,And all my mind was happiness and thee:—But now," etc.,"My powers are blasted;'Twist death and love I'm torn, I am distracted;But death is strongest."And then, to give a chance for themanoeuvrebeloved by dying actors,—that getting up and falling back into the arms of the actress kneeling by him, with a proper amount of gasping and eyes rolling in delirium,—the stage Romeo adds:—"ROM. She is my wife,—our hearts are twined together:—Capulet, forbear:—Paris, loose your hold:—Pull not our heart-strings thus;—they crack,—they break:—Oh, Juliet, Juliet!"[Dies. Juliet faints on his body.Is thisGarrickorOtway? (for I believeGarrickborrowed some of his improvements fromOtway's"Caius Marius.") I don't know, and don't care. It is not Shakespeare. It may "show something of the skill of kindred genius," as the preface to the acting edition says it does. I confess I do not see it. I would have such bombast delivered with the traditional accompaniment of red fire; and the curtain should descend majestically to the sound of slow music. That would be consistent and appropriate.* * * * *It has always been a consoling thought to Englishmen that Shakespeare exists for them alone,—or that a Frenchman's nature, at least, makes it hopeless for him to try to understand the great dramatist. They confess that their neighbors know how to construct the plot of a comedy, and prove the honesty of their approval by "borrowing" whatever they can make useful. French tragedies they despise—(though a century ago the new English tragedies were generallyCorneilleor Racine in disguise). As to Shakespeare, it has time out of mind been an article of faith with the insolent insulars that he is quite above any Frenchman's reach. One by one they are driven from their foolish prejudices, and made to confess that Frenchmenmayequal them in some serious things, as well as beat them in all the lighter accomplishments. French iron-clad steamers have been followed by the curious spectacle of a French actor teaching an English audience how Shakespeare should be acted. I would give a good deal to see M. Fechter in Hamlet, Othello, or Iago,—the only parts he has yet attempted; the rather, because the low condition of the stage in England, where Mr. Macready and Mr. CharlesKeanare called great actors, makes the English newspaper-criticisms of little value. In default of this, I have been reading M.Fechter'sacting edition of "Othello," which a friend kindly sent me from London. It is a curiosity,—not the text, which is incorrect, full of arbitrary changes, and punctuated in a way almost unintelligible to an English eye: colons being scattered about with truly French profusion. The stage-directions are the interest of the book. They are so many and so minute that it seems a wonder why they were printed, if M. Fechter is sincere in declaring that he has no desire to force others to follow in his exact footsteps in this part. But they are generally so judicious, as well as original, that actors born with English tongues in their heads may well be ashamed that a foreigner could find so many new and effective resources on their own ground. For example: when Othello and Iago are first met by the enraged Brabantio, the Moor is standing on the threshold of his house, having just opened the door with a key taken from his girdle. He is going in, when he sees the lightsborneby the other party. Observe how Othello's honest frankness is shown by the action:—"OTH. But look: what lights come yonder?IAGO. These are the raised father and his friends.[Othello shuts the door quickly and takes the key.You were best go in.OTH. [coming forward], Not I: I must be found!"Again, at the end of this scene, see how thoroughly the editor has studied the legitimate dramatic effect of the situations, preserving to each person his due place and characteristic manner:—"BRAB. [To his followers]. Bring him away![They advance to take Othello, who puts them back with a look.Mine's not an idle cause:[Passes before Othello, who bows to him with respect.The Duke himself," etc.[Exit, preceded by the servants of the Senate. His followers are about to pass; Othello stays them, beckons to Cassio, and exit with him. The rest follow, humbly.The scene wherein Iago first begins to poison the Moor's mind is admirable in the situations and movements of the actors. A great variety is given to the dialogue by the minute directions set down for the guidance of the players. It would be tedious to give them in detail; but I must point out the truth of one action, near the end. The poison is working; but as yet Othello cannot believe he is so wronged,—he is only "perplexed in the extreme,"—not yet transformed quite out of his noble nature."OTH. [dismissing Iago with a gesture]. Farewell! farewell![Stopping him, as he goes to the door on the right.If more thou dost perceive, let me know more:Set on thy wife to observe——[He stops, suffused with shame, and crosses before Iago, without looking at him.Leave me, Iago.IAGO. My lord, I take my leave."This is an idea worthy of a great actor; and of M.Fechter'sacting here an English critic says,—"Delicate in its conception andmarvellousin its close adherence to Nature is the expression that accompanies the words. The actor's face is literally suffused with a burning blush; and, as he buries his face in his hands, we almost fancy we see the scalding tears force their way through the trembling fingers and adorn the shame-reddened cheeks." The same writer goes on to praise "the ingenuity and novelty of the glance at the reflection of his dark face in the mirror, which suggests the words, 'Haply for I am black.'" I cannot agree. Othello had been too often reproached with his swarthy skin and likened to the Devil by Desdemona's father to need any such commonplace reminder of his defects, in his agony of doubt. It is, however, a fair ground for difference of opinion. But when the same artifice is resorted to in the last act to explain the words, "It is the cause, it is the cause, my soul!!"—and Othello is made to take up a toilet-glass which has fallen from Desdemona's hand,—it becomes a vile conceit, unworthy of the situation or of an actor like Fechter. A man does not look in the glass, and talk about his complexion, when he is going to kill what he loves best in life; and if the words are broken and unintelligible, they are all the truer to Nature. The whole of the last act, as arranged by Fechter, is bad. There is no propriety in directing Desdemona to leave her bed and walk about,—to say nothing of the scramble that must ensue when Othello "in mad fury throws her onto the bed" again. But what shall we say of this?"OTH. What noise is this?[He turns to the side whence the noise comes, and raises the pillow, but, as Desdemona stirs, replaces it abruptly.Not dead! Not yet quite dead!I, that am cruel, am yet merciful;I would not have thee linger in thy pain.[Passing hispoignardunder the pillow, and turning away his eyes,So,—so."What, but that it is utterly vile and melodramatic, contrary to Othello's expressed resolve, and quite unnecessary?—for a better effect would be produced, if the actor averted his head and with both hands pressed hard upon the pillow, trembling in every limb at the horrible deed he is forced, in mercy, to bring to a quick end. This idea of stabbing Desdemona at last is not original with Fechter,—who here, and in several other places, has consented to follow our stage-traditions, and has been led astray.* * * * *Shakespeare on the stage is a sad falling off from Shakespeare in the closet. (I do not mean on the American stage only: the theatre in England is, if possible, lower than with us.) To a great extent this is unavoidable. Our imaginations are not kept in check by the pitiless limits that make themselves felt in the theatre. An army, when we read of it, seems something far grander than all that can be effected by the best-appointed company of actors. The forest of Ardennes has for us life and motion beyond the reach of the scene-painter's skill. But these necessary shortcomings are no excuse for making no attempt to imitate Nature. Yet hardly any serious effort is made to reach this purpose of playing. The ordinary arrangement of our stage is as bad as bad can be, for it fails to look like the places where the action is supposed tolie. Two rows of narrow screens stretching down from the ends of a broad screen at the back never can be made to look like a room, still less like a grove. Such an arrangement may be convenient for the carpenters or scene-shifters, and is very likely cheaper than a properly designed interior. But it does not look like what it pretends to be, and has been superseded on every stage but ours and the English by properly constructed scenery. Who ever went into a French theatre for the first time without being charmed by therealityof the scene? They take the trouble to build a room, when a room is wanted, with side-walls and doors, and often a ceiling. The consequence is, you can fancy yourself present at a scene taken from real life. The theatre goes no farther than the proscenium. Beyond that, you have a parlor, with one wall removed for your better view. It isAsmodeus'sshow improved. I went to a Paris theatre with a friend. The play began with half a dozen milliners chattering and sewing round a table. After a few moments, my friend gave a prodigious yawn, and declared he was going home, "for you might as well sit down and see a parcel of real milliners at work as this play." Tastes differ; and I did not find this an objection. But what a compliment that was to the whole corps,—actors, actresses, and scene-painter!—and how impossible it would be to make the same complaint of an English play!"But," I have been told by theatrical people, "such an arrangement is all very well in French vaudevilles, where one scene lasts through an act; but it will not do for English plays, with their constant scene-shifting." I grant it is less convenient to the stage-manager than the present wretched assembly of screens; but it is not impracticable in any play. Witness the melodramas which are the delight of the patrons of the minor Paris theatres,—piècesàspectacle en 4acteset 24 tableaux, that is, twenty-four changes of scene. I remember sitting through one which was so deadly stupid that nothing but the ingenuity of the stage-arrangements made it endurable. Side-scenes dropped down into their places,—"flats" fell through the stage or were drawn up out of sight,—trees and rocks rose out of the earth,—in a word, scenery that looked like reality, and not like canvas, was disposed and cleared away with suchmarvellousrapidity that I forgot to yawn over the play. Attention to these matters is almost unknown with us: perhaps, in strict justice, I ought to say was unknown until very lately. Within a few years, one or two of our theatres have profited by the example set by stage-managers abroad. AtWallack's, in New York,roomshave to a great extent taken the place of the oldscreens; and only the other night at the Boston Museum I saw an arrangement of scenery which really helped the illusion.Let us hope there may be a speedy reform in the matter of the costume of the players,—at least in plays where the dresses are of our own time. You may count on your fingers the actresses in America who dress on the stage asladiesdress in polite society. And as for the actors, I am afraid one hand has too many fingers for the tally. Because people go to the President's Ball in frock-coats is no reason why actors who undertake to look like fashionable gentlemen should outrage all conventional rules. I once saw a play in which a gentleman came to make an informal morning-visit to a lady in the country, in that dress which has received the bitterly ironical name of "full American uniform," that is to say, black dress-coat and trousers and black satin waistcoat; and the costume was made even more complete by a black satintie, of many plaits, with a huge dull diamond pin in it, and a long steel watch-chain dangling upon the wretched man's stomach. He might have played his part to perfection,—which he did not, but murdered it in cold blood,—but hemighthave done so in vain; nothing would or could absolve him from such a crime against the god of fashion or propriety. "Little things, these," the critic may say: and so our actors seem to think. But life is made up of little things; and if you would paint life, you must attend to them. Ask any one who has spent (wasted?) evening after evening at the Paris theatres about them; and, ten to one, he begins by praising the details, which, in their sum, conveyed the impression of perfection he brought away with him.Unless you are a little cracked on the subject of the stage, (as I confess I am,) and have talked with a French actor about it, you have no idea how systematically they train their young actors. I will tell you a few of the odd facts I picked up in long talks with my friend Monsieur D——. of theThéâtreFrançais.The Conservatoire, their great school for actors, is, like almost everything else in Paris, more or less under Government control,—the Minister of State being charged with its superintendence. He appoints the professors, who are actors of theFrançais, and receive a salary of two thousand francs. The first order a pupil receives, on presenting himself for instruction, is this: "Sayrose." Now your Parisian rather prides himself on a peculiar pronunciation of the letterr. He neither rolls it like an Italian, nor does he make anything like the noise standing forrin our conversational English,—something likeuhr-ose,—a sound said to be peculiar to our language. A Parisian rolls his r, by making hisuvulavibrate, keeping the tongue quite still: producing a peculiar gurgling sound. This is an abomination in the ears of the Conservatoire. "Negrasseyezdonc pas, Monsieur," or "Mademoiselle," says the professor, fiercely,—this peculiar way of sayingrbeing calledgrasseyement. The pupil tries again, using the tip of his tongue this time. "Ah! I thought so. Yourris pasty (empâté). Saytuddah!" (I spell this soundàl'Anglaise.) "Tuddah" repeats the wondering candidate. "Thuddah?" the professor repeats, with great disgust: "I did not ask you to saythuddah, buttuddah." The victim tries again and again, and thinks he succeeds; but the master does not agree with him. His delicate ear detects a certain thickness of enunciation,—which ourthvery imperfectly represents,—a want of crispness, as it were. The tip of the tongue does not strike the front teeth with a singletick, as sharp as a needle-point; and until he can do this, the pupil can do nothing. He is dismissed with the advice to say "tuddah, tuddah, tuddah," as many hours a day as he can without losing his mind. D—— told me he often met young men walking about the streets in all the agonies of this first step in the art of learning to act, and astonishing the passers-by with this mysterious jargon. A pupil of average quickness and nicety of ear learns to say tuddah in about a month. Then he is told to sayroseonce more. The training his tongue has received enables him to use only its very tip. A great point is gained: he can pronounce ther. Any other defects in pronunciation which he has are next attacked and corrected. Then he is drilled in moving, standing, and carriage. And finally, "a quantity of practice truly prodigious" is given to theancienrépertoire,—the classic models of French dramatic literature,Corneille, Racine,Molière,Beaumarchais, etc. The first scholar of each year has the right to appear at once at theThéâtreFrançais,—a right rarely claimed, as most young actors prefer to go through a novitiate elsewhere to braving the most critical audience in the world before they have acquired the confidence that comes only with habit and success. After he has gained a foothold at this classic theatre, an actor still sees prizes held out to stimulate his ambition. If he keeps the promise of his youth, he may hope to be chosen a stockholder (sociétaire), and thus obtain a share both in the direction of affairs and in the profits, besides a retiring pension, depending in, amount upon his term of service.Panem, etcircensesis the demand of modern Paris, as it was of old Rome,—and the people expect the Government to see that neither supply fails. While the Opera receives large sums to pay for gorgeous scenery and dresses, theFrançaisis paid for devoting three nights in the week to the classical school: a real loss to the theatre at times when the fickle public would gladly crowd the house to applaud the success of the hour. The Minister of State interferes as seldom as possible with the management; but when he speaks, his word is law. This was queerly shown in a dispute about Rachel'scongés. At first she played during nine months of the year three times a week; later her duties were reduced to six months in the year, playing only twice a week, at a salary of forty thousand francs, with five hundred francs for every extra performance. Spoiled by indulgence, she demanded leave of absence just when the Queen of England was coming to Paris. The manager indignantly refused. The next day the Minister of State politely requested that Mlle. Rachel might have a shortcongé. "It is not reasonable," said the poor manager. "We have cut down her duties and raised her salary; now the Queen is coming, Paris will be full of English, and they are always crazy after Mlle. Rachel. It is really out of the question,Monsieur leMinistre." The Minister was very sorry, but hoped there would be no real difficulty. The manager was equally sorry, but really he could not think of it. "Monsieur," said the Minister, rising and dismissing the manager, "illefaut," "Oh,illefaut?Then itmust;—only you might as well have begun with that." And so Rachel got her leave of absence.(I must insert here from my note-book a criticism on Rachel,—valuable as coming from a man of talent in her own profession who had worked with her for years, and deserving additional weight, as it was, no doubt, rather the collective judgment of her fellow-actors than the opinion of the speaker alone.)"Rachel," said M. D——, "was a great genius,—but a genius that ever needed the hand of a master to guide its efforts. Without this, she could do nothing: and Samson was forever behind her, directing her steps. Mme. Allan, who weighed almost three hundred pounds and had an abominable voice, was infinitely her superior in the power of creating a part. But Rachel had the voice of an angel. In the expression of disdain or terror she was unapproachable. In the softer passions she was feeble. We all looked upon herLady Tartuffeas a failure."* * * * *Such a school of acting as the Conservatoire and theFrançaisform could of course never be seen in America. The idea of our popular practical Government undertaking to direct the amusements of the people is quite ludicrous. In France, the Government does all it can for the people. With us, the people are left to do everything for themselves, with the least possible amount of Government interference. Our play-writers and play-actors could do a great deal to raise the standard of stage-literature and of acting, if they would but try. But they do not try. I went the other evening to see that relic of the Dark Ages, a sterling English comedy. If any one thinks I go too far in saying that there is no attempt on our stage to imitate Nature, and that the writing and acting of English plays are like the landscape-painting of the Chinese,—a wonderfully good copy of the absurdities handed down through generations of artists,—let him go and look at one of these plays. He will see the choleric East-India uncle, with a red face, and a Malacca cane held by the middle, stumping about, and bullying his nephew,—"a young rascal,"—or his niece,—"you baggage, you." When this young person wishes to have a good talk with a friend, they stand up behind the footlights to do it; and the audience is let into secrets essential to the plot by means of long "asides" delivered by one, while the other does nothing and pretends not to hear what is spoken within three feet of him. The waiting-maid behaves in a way that would get her turned out of any respectable house, and is chased off the stage by the old gentleman in a manner that no gentleman ever chases his servants. Something is the matter with the men's legs: they all move by two steps and a hitch. They all speak with an intonation as unlike the English of real life as if they talked Greek. The young people make fools of the old people in a way they would never dream of in life,—and the old people are preternaturally stupid in submitting to be made fools of. After seeing one of these classics, let the spectator sit down and honestly ask himself if this is an attempt to hold the mirror up to Nature, or an effort to reflect the traditional manners and customs of the stage.If he thinks he has ever seen anything of the sort in real life, we will agree to differ.
All these agencies have this trait in common, that their damaging effect is often felt by the offspring as well as the parent, and, in most cases, in a far higher degree. The common doctrine of hereditary disease implies the actual transmission of a specific form of disease fully developed,—or, at least, of a tendency to it that may or may not be developed. The range within which it operates is supposed to be the narrow limits covered by a single specific affection. Daily experience, however, shows that the deviation from the primitive type is limited only by some conditions of structure. Any pathological result may be expected, not incompatible with the structure of the organ. And thus it is that the cerebral affection which fell upon the parent is represented in one child by insanity, in another by idiocy, in another by epilepsy, in another by gross eccentricity, in another by moral perversities, in another by ill-balanced intellect,—each and all implying a brain more or less vitiated by the parental infirmity. There is nothing strange in all this diversity of result. In the healthy state, organic action proceeds with wonderful regularity and uniformity; but when controlled by the pathological element, all this is changed, although the change has its limits. This diversity in the results of hereditary transmission is as strictly according to law as the similarity of features exhibited by parent and child. No presumption against the fact can be derived from this quarter, and therefore, if well-authenticated, it must be admitted. Many a man, however, who admits the general fact, refuses to make the application where it has not been usually made. When mania occurs in two or three successive generations, nobody overlooks the hereditary element; but when the mania of the parent is followed by great inequalities of character, or strange impulses to criminal acts, then the effects of disease are straightway ignored, and we think only of moral liberty and free-will. It may be difficult, sometimes, to make the proper distinction between the effects of hereditary physical vitiation and those of bad education and strong temptations; but the difficulty is of the kind which stands in the way of all successful inquiry, to be overcome by patient and profound study.
Some light may be thrown on this deviation from the original type by considering the forces that are concerned in the hereditary act. The statement that like produces like is the expression of an obvious law. But we must bear in mind that the law is only so far observed as is necessary to maintain the characters of the species. Within that range there is every possible variety, and for a very obvious reason. Every individual represents immediately two others, and, indirectly, an indefinite number. This is done by uniting in himself qualities and features drawn from each parent, without any obvious principle or law of selection and combination. One parent may be, apparently, more fully represented than the other; the defects of the parent may be transmitted, rather than the excellences; the tendencies to health and strength may be outnumbered and overborne by the tendencies to disease. No individual, of course, can receive, entirely and completely, the features and attributes of both parents, for that would be a sort of practical absurdity; but in the process of selecting and combining, Nature exhibits the same inexhaustible variety that appears in all her operations. Even in the offspring of the same parents, however numerous, uniformity in this respect is seldom so obvious as diversity. This cerebral deterioration is subject to the same laws of descent as other traits, with a few exceptions without much bearing on the present question. We might as reasonably expect to see the nose or the eyes, the figure or the motions of either parent transmitted with the exactest likeness to all the offspring, as to suppose that an hereditary disease must necessarily be transmitted fully formed, with all the incidents and conditions which it possessed in the parent. And yet, in the case of mental disease, the current philosophy can recognize the evidence of transmission in no shape less demonstrative than delusion or raving. Contrary to all analogy, and contrary to all fact, it supposes that the hereditary affection must appear in the offspring in precisely the same degree of intensity which it had in the parent. If the son is stricken down with raving mania, like his father before him, then the relation of cause and effect is obvious enough; but if, on the contrary, the former exhibits only extraordinary outbreaks of passion, remarkable inequalities of spirit and disposition, irrelevant and inappropriate conduct, strange and unaccountable impulses, nothing of this kind is charged practically to the parental infirmity.
The cerebral defect once established, the modes in which it may be manifested in subsequent generations present no uniformity whatever. Insanity in a parent may be followed by any possible form of mental irregularity in the descendant,—insanity, idiocy, epilepsy, drunkenness, criminal impulses, eccentricity. And so, too, eccentricity, even of the least prominent kind, may be followed by grosser eccentricity, or even overt insanity, in the descendant. The cerebral defect is not necessarily manifested in an uninterrupted series of generations, for it often skips over one, and appears with redoubled energy in the next; and thus, in looking for proof of hereditary disease or defect, we are not to stop at the next preceding generation. We are too little acquainted with the laws of hereditary transmission to explain these things. We know this, however, that, side by side with that law which decrees the transmission of defects as well as excellences, there exists another law which restrains deviations from the normal type, which extinguishes the errant traits, and reestablishes the primitive characters of the organism. The combined and alternate action of these two laws may produce some of the inscrutable phenomena of hereditary transmission.
The transmission of the cerebral defect is often manifested in a manner exceedingly embarrassing to all who hold to the prevalent notions respecting sanity and insanity. It is sometimes confined to a very circumscribed range, beyond which the mind presents no material impairment. The sound and the unsound coexist, not in a state of fusion, but side by side, each independent of the other, and both derived from a common source. And the fact is no more anomalous than that often witnessed, of some striking feature of one parent associated in the child with one equally striking of the other. It is not the case exactly of partial insanity, or any mental defect, super-induced upon a mind otherwise sound,—for such defect is, in some degree, an accident, and may disappear; but here is a congenital conjunction of sanity and insanity, which no medical or moral appliances will ever remove. These persons may get on very well in their allotted part, and even achieve distinction, while the insane element is often cropping out in the shape of extravagances or irregularities in thought or action, which, according to the stand-point they are viewed from, are regarded either as gross eccentricity, or undisciplined powers, or downright insanity. For every manifestation of this kind they may show no lack of plausible reasons, calculated to mislead the superficial observer; but still the fact remains, that these traits, which are never witnessed in persons of well-balanced minds, are a part of their habitual character. When people of this description possess a high order of intellectual endowments, the unhealthy element seems to impart force and piquancy to their mental manifestations, and thus increase the embarrassment touching the true character of their mental constitution. When the defect appears in the reflective powers, it is often regarded as insanity, though not more correctly than if it were confined to the emotions and feelings. The man who goes through life creditably performing his part, but feeling, all the while, that everybody with whom he has any relations is endeavoring to oppose and annoy him, strays as clearly from the track of a healthy mind as if he believed in imaginary plots and conspiracies against his property or person. In neither case is he completely overcome by the force of the strange impression, but passes along, to all appearance, much like other men. Insane, in the popular acceptation, he certainly is not; but it is equally certain that his mind is not in a healthy condition. Lord Byron was one of this class, and the fact gives us a clew to the anomalies of his character. His mother was subject to violent outbreaks of passion, not unlike those often witnessed in the insane. On the paternal side his case was scarcely better. The loose principles, the wild and reckless conduct of his father procured for him the nickname of "Mad Jack Byron"; and his grand-uncle, who killed his neighbor in a duel, exhibited traits not very characteristic of a healthy mind. With such antecedents, it is not strange that he was subject to wild impulses, violent passions, baseless prejudices, uncompromising selfishness, irregular mental activity. The morbid element in his nervous system was also witnessed in the form of epilepsy, from which he suffered, more or less, during his whole life. The "vile melancholy" which Dr. Johnson inherited from his father, and which, to use his own expression, "made him mad all his life, at least not sober," never perverted nor hampered the exercise of his intellectual powers. He heard the voice of his distant mother calling "Sam"; he was bound to touch every post he passed in the streets; he astonished people by his extraordinary singularities, and much of his time was spent in the depths of mental distress; yet the march of his intellect, steady, uniform, and measured, gave no token of confusion or weakness.
In common life, among an order of men unknown beyond the circle of their neighborhood, this sort of mental dualism witnessed with remarkable frequency, though generally regarded as anomalous and unaccountable, rather than the result of an organic law. In some, the morbid element, without affecting the keenness of the intellect, is more active, intruding itself on all occasions, characterizing the ways and manners, the demeanor and deportment. Under the influence of peculiarly adverse circumstances, they are liable to lose occasionally the unsteady balance between the antagonistic forces of their mental nature, to conduct as if unquestionably insane, and to be treated accordingly. Of such the remark is always made by the world, which sees no nice distinctions, "If he is insane now, he was always insane." According as the one or the other phasis of their mind is exclusively regarded, they are accounted by some as always crazy, by others as uncommonly shrewd and capable. The hereditary origin of this mental defect in some form of nervous affection will always be discovered, where the means of information are afforded.
In some persons the morbid element appears in the shape of insensibility to nice moral distinctions. Their perception of them at all seems to be the result of imitation rather than instinct. With them, circumstances determine everything as to the moral complexion of their career in life. Whether they leave behind them a reputation for flagrant selfishness, meanness, and dishonesty, or for a commendable prudence and judicious regard for self,—whether they always keep within the precincts of a decent respectability, or run into disreputable courses,—depends mostly on chance and fortune. This intimate association of the saint and the sinner in the same individual, common as it is, is a stumbling-block to moralists and legislators. The abnormal element is entirely overlooked, or rather is confounded with that kind of moral depravity which comes from vicious training And, certainly, the distinction is not always very easily made; for, though sufficient light on this point may often be derived from the antecedents of the individual, yet it is impossible, occasionally, to remove the obscurity in which it is involved. However this may be, it is a warrantable inference from the results of modern inquiry, that the class of cases is not a small one, where the person commits a criminal act, or falls into vicious habits, with a full knowledge of the nature and consequences of his conduct, and prompted, perhaps, by the ordinary inducements to vice, who, nevertheless, would have been a shining example of virtue, had the morbid element in his cerebral organism been left out. In our rough estimates of responsibility this goes for nothing, like the untoward influences of education; and it could not well be otherwise, though it cannot be denied that one element of moral responsibility, namely, the wish and the power to pursue the right and avoid the wrong, is greatly defective.
There is another phasis of cerebral defect not very unlike the last, which of late years has been occurring with increasing frequency, embarrassing our courts, confounding the wise and the simple, and overwhelming respectable families with shame and sorrow. With an intellect unwarped by the slightest excitement or delusion, and with many moral traits, it may be, calculated to please and to charm, its subjects are irresistibly impelled to some particular form of crime. With more or less effort they strive against it, and when they yield at last, their conduct is as much a mystery to themselves as to others. Ordinary criminals excite some touch of pity, on the score of bad education or untamed passions; but if, in the common estimation of the world, there is one criminal more reprehensible than another, it is he who sins against great light and under the smallest temptations,—and, of course, the hottest wrath of an incensed community is kindled against him.
At the bar of yonder courtroom stands a youth with an aspect and manner indicative of culture and refinement far above those of the common herd of criminals. He was detected in the very act of committing a grave criminal offence. He has been educated under good moral influences, and possessed a patrimony that supplied every reasonable want. No looseness of living, no violent passion is alleged against him, and no adequate motive appears for the act. For a year or two past he has been unusually restless by day and by night, has slept poorly, and his countenance has worn an expression of distraction and anxiety. Various little details of conduct are related of him, which, though not morally censurable, were offensive to good taste and opposed to the ordinary observances of society. His friends are sure he is not the man he once was, but no expert ventures to pronounce him insane. Looking behind the scene, the mystery clears up, and we behold only a simple operation of cerebral dynamics. A glance at the family-history shows us a great-grandfather, an aunt, two second-cousins, and a brother unequivocally insane, the father and many other members widely noted for eccentricities and irregularities of a kind scarcely compatible with the idea of sanity. Considering that the brain does not spring out of the ground, but is the final product of all the influences which for generations have been working in the cerebral organism, it is not strange that the quality of his brain became so vitiated as to be incapable of some of its highest functions.—Looking a little farther back in our forensic experience, we behold a youth scarcely arrived at the age of legal majority, with a simple, verdant look, arraigned for trial on the charge of murder. He was the servant of a farmer, and his victim was an adopted daughter of the family, and some years younger than himself. One day they were left together to take care of the house, a little girl in the neighborhood having come in to keep them company. While engaged in the domestic services, quietly and pleasantly, he invited his companion to go with him into another room where he had something to show her, and there, within a few minutes, he cut her throat from ear to ear. He soon came down, told what he had done, and made no attempt to escape. They had always been on good terms; no provocation, no motive whatever for the act was shown or suspected. When questioned, he replied only,—"I loved her, no one could tell how much I loved her." He had been drinking cider during the morning, but his cool and collected manner, both before and after the act, showed that he was not intoxicated. His employers testified that they had always found him good-natured and correct, but considered his intellect somewhat below the average grade. A few months subsequently he died in jail of consumption. Regarded from the ordinary moral stand-points, this was a strange, an unaccountable, a monstrous act, and we are unable to take the first step towards a solution of the mystery. Looking, however, at the material conditions of his affections, his propensities, his impulses,—his cerebral dynamics,—we get a clew, at least, to the secret. His father was an habitual drunkard, and a frequent inmate of the poor-house. He had two children,—one an idiot, and the other the prisoner; and the mental deficiency of the former, and the senseless impulses to crime manifested by the latter, were equally legitimate effects of the father's vice.—Here, again, is one who might justly be regarded as a favored son of fortune. Fine talents, a college-education, high social position, an honorable and lucrative business in prospect were all his; but before leaving college he had made considerable proficiency in lying, drinking, forgery, and hypocrisy, besides evincing a remarkable ingenuity in concealing these traits. His vices only increased with years, notwithstanding the various parental expedients to effect reform,—a voyage to sea, establishment in business, confinement in a hospital for the insane, a residence in the country, a settlement in a new territory. All this time his intellect was cool and clear, except when under the influence of drink, and he was always ready with the most plausible explanations of his conduct. At last, however, delusions began to appear, and unquestionable and incurable insanity was established. The philosophy of our times utterly fails to account for a phenomenon like this. Had the hand of the law been laid upon him for his offences, he would have been regarded as one of those examples of depravity which deserve the severest possible punishment; and when the true nature of his case appeared at last, doctors only wondered how so much mental disorder could happen to one whose progenitors were singularly free from mental infirmities. In noticing the agencies calculated to vitiate the quality of the brain, we mentioned the neuropathies as among the most efficient, though their effect is chiefly witnessed in subsequent generations, and the present case is an illustration of the fact. His mother was a highly nervous woman, and for many years a confirmed invalid.
This, then, being admitted, that a vitiated quality of the brain may be transmitted to the offspring with accumulating effect, let us see what are the general characteristics of this effect. We have no reason to suppose that the brain is exempt from the operation of the same organic laws which govern the rest of the animal economy. Observation abundantly shows that its working capacity is diminished, and its activity becomes irregular in one or more of the various degrees of irregularity, ranging from a little eccentricity up to raving mania. Occasionally, such defect is accompanied by remarkable manifestations of mental ability, but it is no part of our doctrine that such conjunctions are incompatible. Byron and Johnson accomplished great things; but who will deny that without that hereditary taint they would have done more and done it better? The latter, it is well known, was much dependent on moods, and spent long periods in mental inactivity. The labors of the other were fitful, and his views of life betray the influence of the same cerebral defect that led to so much domestic woe. The narrow-chested, round-shouldered person, whose lungs barely oxydize blood enough to maintain life, is not expected to walk a thousand miles in a thousand hours, or to excel as a performer on wind-instruments. We impute to him no fault for this sort of incompetence. We should rather charge him with consummate folly, if he undertook a line of exercises for which he is so clearly unfitted. We do not wonder, in fact, when this unfortunate pulmonary constitution sends its possessor to an early grave. Why not apply the same philosophy to the brain, which may partake of all the defects incident to organized matter? Why expect of one among whose progenitors insanity, idiocy, scrofula, rickets, and epilepsy have prevailed in an extraordinary degree all the moral and intellectual excellences displayed by those whose blood through a long line of ancestors has been untainted by any of these affections?
It is chiefly, however, in abnormal activity that the presence of this cerebral depreciation is indicated. And here we find the same disposition to insist on positive and absolute conditions, overlooking those nicer shades of diversity which mark the movements of Nature. It is the common belief that between eccentricity and insanity a great gulf is fixed; and in courts of justice this notion is often used with great effect to overthrow the conclusions of the medical expert, who, while he admits their essential difference, finds it not very easy to avoid the trap which a quick-witted lawyer is sure to make of it. Let him recognize the fact that they are the results of a common agency, differing chiefly in degree, and then his path is clear, though it may not lead to popular confidence in his professional views.
Neither is the cerebral depreciation confined to any particular portion of the organ; and therefore its effects may be witnessed in any of those manifestations which are known to depend upon it. The affective powers, meaning thereby the passions, affections, and emotions, are, like the intellectual, connected with the brain, and, like them too, are shaped, in a great degree, by the quality of that organ. It is curious, however, that, while this fact is admitted in general terms, there is a prevalent reluctance to make the legitimate practical application. It is denied that the moral powers and propensities can be affected by disease, though connected with a material organ. Everybody believes that a man who thinks his legs are made of glass is insane; but if his affections only are disordered,—love and kindness being replaced by jealousy and hate,—an habitual regard for every moral propriety, by unbounded looseness of life and conversation,—the practice of the strictest virtue, by unblushing indulgence of crime, and all without apparent cause or motive,—then the morbid element in the case is overlooked and stoutly repudiated. We admit that a man may be a fool without any fault of his own; but if he fall short of any of the requirements of the moral law, he is regarded as a sinner, and perhaps punished as a criminal. Before we utterly condemn him for failing to recognize all the sharp distinctions between right and wrong, for yielding to temptation, and walking in evil courses, we are bound in justice to inquire whether a higher grade of moral excellence has not been debarred him by the defective quality of his brain, the organ by which all moral graces are manifested,—whether it has not become deteriorated by morbid predispositions, transmitted with steadily accumulating force, to insanity, or other affections which are known to spread their noxious influence over the nervous system.
A scientific fact is supposed to be entitled to credence, when accompanied by proper scientific proof; but, nevertheless, many worthy people cannot resist the conclusion, that, if a man's moral character is determined by the quality of the brain, then there is no such thing as responsibility. And so we are brought up all standing against the old problem of moral liberty, on which oceans of ink have been shed to little purpose. Heaven forbid that we should add another drop! for our object will be served by stating very briefly the scientific view of this phenomenon. Every creature is free, within the limits of the constitution which Nature has given him, to act and to think, each after his kind. The horse rejoices in the liberty of acting like a horse, and not like an ox; and man enjoys the privilege of acting the part of a man, and not of a disembodied spirit. If the limbs of the former are struck by an atrophy, we do not expect him to win the race. If the brain of the latter is blasted by disease or deterioration, we cannot expect the fruits of a sound and vigorous organism. When we say that a person with a brain vitiated by an accumulation of hereditary defects is incapable of that degree of moral excellence which is manifested by men of the soundest brains, we utter a truism as self-evident, apparently, as when we say that the ox is incapable of the fleetness of the horse or the ferocity of the tiger. It is immaterial whether the cerebral condition in question is one of original constitution or of acquired deficiency, because the relation between the physical and the moral must be the same in the one case as in the other. In the toiling masses, who, from childhood, are brought face to face with want and vice, we do not expect to find the moral graces of a Channing or a Cheverus; and we do not hold them to a very strict responsibility for the deficiency. But they are not utterly destitute of a moral sense, and what we have a right to expect is, that they improve, in a reasonable degree, the light and opportunities which have fallen to their lot. The principle is precisely the same as it regards those whose brains have been vitiated by some noxious agency. To make them morally responsible in an equal degree with men more happily endowed would be repugnant to every idea of right and justice. But within the range of their capacity, whatever it may be, they are free, and accountable for the use of their liberty. True, there is often difficulty in making these distinctions, even where the necessity for it is the greatest; but we dissent from the conclusion, that therefore the doctrine can have but little practical value. It is something to have the fact of the intimate connection between organic conditions and moral manifestations distinctly recognized. The advance of knowledge will be steadily widening the practical application of the fact. A judge might not be justified in favoring the acquittal of a criminal on the ground of his having inherited a brain of vitiated quality; but, surely, it would not be repugnant to the testimony of science, or the dictates of common sense and common justice, if he allowed this fact to operate in mitigation of sentence.
A NEW SCULPTOR.
Once to my Fancy's hall a stranger came,
Of mien unwonted,
And its pale shapes of glory without shame
Or speech confronted.
Fair was my hall,—a gallery of Gods
Smoothly appointed;
With Nymphs and Satyrs from the dewy sods
Freshly anointed.
Great Jove sat throned in state, with Hermes near,
And fiery Bacchus;
Pallas and Pluto, and those powers of Fear
Whose visions rack us.
Artemis wore her crescent free of stars,
The hunt just scented;
Glad Aphrodite met the warrior Mars,
The myriad-tented.
Rude was my visitant, of sturdy form,
Draped in such clothing
As the world's great, whom luxury makes warm,
Look on with loathing.
And yet, methought, his service-badge of soil
With honor wearing;
And in his dexter hand, embossed with toil,
A hammer bearing.
But while I waited till his eye should sink,
O'ercome of beauty,
With heart impatience brimming to the brink
Of courteous duty,—
He smote my marbles many a murderous blow,
His weapon poising;
I, in my wrath and wonderment of woe,
No comment voicing.
"Come, sweep this rubbish from the workman's way,
Wreck of past ages,—
Afford me here a lump of harmless clay,
Ye grooms and pages!"
Then, from that voidness of our mother Earth,
A frame he builded
Of a new feature,—with the power of birth
Fashioned and welded.
It had a might mine eyes had never seen,
A mien, a stature,
As if the centuries that rolled between
Had greatened Nature.
It breathed, it moved; above Jove's classic sway
A place was won it:
The rustic sculptor motioned; then "To-day"
He wrote upon it.
"What man art thou?" I cried, "and what this wrong
That thou hast wrought me?
My marbles lived on symmetry and song;
Why hast thou brought me
"A form of all necessities, that asks
Nurture and feeding?
Not this the burthen of my maidhood's tasks,
Nor my high breeding."
"Behold," he said, "Life's great impersonate,
Nourished by Labor!
Thy Gods are gone with old-time faith and Fate;
Here is thy Neighbor."
PLAYS AND PLAY-ACTING.
One evening, after seeing Booth in "Richard III.," three of us fell a-talking about the authorship of the play, and wondering how far Shakespeare was responsible for what we had heard. Everybody knows that ColleyCibberimproved upon the text of the old folios and quartos: for what was listened to with delight by BenJonsoncould not satisfy Congreve, and William III. needed better verses than those applauded by Queen Elizabeth. None of us knew how great or how many these improvements were. I doubt whether many of the audience that crowded the theatre that evening were wiser than we. The next day I got an acting copy of "Richard III.," and, with the help of Mrs. Clarke's Concordance,[1]arrived at the following astonishing results.
"Shakspeare'sHistorical Tragedy of Richard III., adapted to Representation by ColleyCibber," (I quote the full title for its matchless impudence,) makes a pamphlet of fifty-nine small pages. Of these,Cibberwas good enough to write twenty-six out of his own head. Then, modestly recognizing Shakespeare's superiority, he took twenty-sevenpages from him, (not all from this particular play, to be sure,)remodelledsix other pages of the original, and, mixing it all up together, produced a play, and called it Shakespeare.
With Mrs. Clarke's touchstone it is easy to separate the base metal from the fine gold; though you have only to ring most ofCibber'scounterfeits to see how flat they are. Would any one take the following for genuine coin, and believe that Shakespeare could make a poor ghost talk thus?
"PRINCE E. Richard, dream on, and see the wandering spirits
Of thy young nephews, murdered in the tower:
Could not our youth, our innocence, persuade
Thy cruel heart to spare our harmless lives?
Who, but for thee, alas! might have enjoyed
Our many promised years of happiness.
No soul, save thine, but pities our misusage.
Oh! 'twas a cruel deed! therefore alone,
Unpitying, unpitied shalt thou fall."
Or thus:—
"K. HENRY. The morning's dawn has summoned me away;
And let that wild despair, which now does prey
Upon thy mangled thoughts, alarm the world.
Awake, Richard, awake! to guilty minds
A terrible example!"
No wonder that Gloucester finds it quite hopeless to reply to such ghosts in the words Shakespeare put into his mouth, and so has recourse toCibber. We are not told what (Cibber's) ghosts say to Richmond; but he declares,—
"If dreams should animate a soul resolved,
I'm more than pleased with those I've had to-night."
Just after this, it is rather confusing to find him straying off into "Henry V." Still, "In peace there's nothing so becomes a man," seems to promise Shakespeare at least,—so compose yourself to listen and enjoy:—
"In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
Asmild behaviorand humility;
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Let us be tigers in our fierce deportment."
After this outrage, I defy you to help hoping that the comparatively innocent Richard will chop off Richmond's head,—in spite of history and Shakespeare.
It does not follow that all change or omission is unlawful in placing Shakespeare's plays on the stage. Though in the pit or parquet we sit (more or less) at our ease, instead of standing as the groundlings did in old days, yet a tragedy five hours and a half long would be rather too much of a good thing for us. There must have been a real love of the drama in those times. Fancy a fine gentleman, able to pay his shilling and sit with the wits upon the rush-strewn stage, listening for such a length of time to "Hamlet," with no change of scenes to help the illusion or break the monotony, beyond a curtain or two hung across the stage, a wooden gallery at the back whence the court of Denmark might view "The Mouse-Trap," and, perhaps, a wooden tomb pushed on or "discovered" in the graveyard-scene by pulling aside one of these curtains or "traverses." No pretty women, either, dressed in becoming robes, and invested with the mysterious halo of interest which an actress seems to bring with her from the side-scenes. No women at all. Poor Ophelia presented by a great lubberly boy, and the part of the Queen very likely intrusted to him who was last year the "jeunepremière," and whose voice is now somewhat cracked within the ring. To be sure, in those days every gentleman took his pipe with him; and the fragrant clouds would be some consolation in the eyes, or rather in the noses, of some of us. But still,—almost six hours of tragedy! It is too much of a good thing for these degenerate days; and we must allow the prompter to use his pencil on the actors' copy of "Hamlet," though he strike out page upon page of immortal philosophy.
But there are certain parts of this play omitted whose loss makes one grieve. Why do the actors leave out the strange half-crazed exclamations wrung from Hamlet by his father's voice repeating "Swear" from beneath his feet?
"HAM. Indeed, upon my sword, indeed.
GHOST [beneath]. Swear.
HAM. Ah, ha, boy! say'st thou so? art thou there, true-penny?—
Come on,—you hear this fellow in the cellarage—
* * * * *
Swear by my sword.
GHOST [beneath]. Swear.
HAM.Hic etubique? then we'll shift our ground.—
Come hither, gentlemen,
And lay your hands again upon my sword:
Never to speak of this that you have heard,
Swear by my sword.
GHOST [beneath]. Swear.
HAM. Well said, old mole! Canst worki' the ground so fast?
A worthy pioneer I....
... This not to do,
So grace and mercy at your most need help you, swear.
GHOST [beneath]. Swear.
HAM. Rest, rest, perturbed spirit!"
The sensitive organization which makes Hamlet what he is has been too rudely handled: the machine, too delicate for the rough work of every-day life, breaks down, under the strain. The horror of the time—beginning with Horatio's story of the apparition, and growing more fearful with every moment of reflection, until Hamlet longs for the coming of the dread hour—reaches a point beyond which human nature has no power to endure. If he could share his burden with his friend Horatio,—but Marcellus thrusts himself forward, and he checks the half-uttered confidence, and struggles to put aside their curiosity with trifling words. Anything, to be alone and free to think on what he has heard and what he has to do. And then,—as he is swearing them to secrecy before escaping from them,—there, from under their feet and out of the solid earth, comes the voice whose adieu is yet ringing in his ears. In terror they hurry to another spot; but the awful voice follows their steps, and its tones shake the ground under them. What wonder, if, broken down by all this, Hamlet utters words which would be irreverent in their levity, were they not terrible in their wildness? Have you never marked what pathos there is in a very trivial phrase used by one so crushed down by grief that he acts and speaks like a little child?
It is wonderful that a great actor should neglect a passage that paints with one touch Hamlet's half-hysterical state. Given as it might be given, it would curdle the blood in your veins. I asked the best Hamlet it has been my fortune to see, why he left out these lines. "I have often thought I would speak them; but I don't know how." That was his answer, and a very honest one it was. But such a reason is not worthy of any man who dares to play Hamlet,—much less of one who plays it as —— does.
It is curious to observe how persistently the players, in making up the stage-travesties of Shakespeare's plays, have followed the uncertain lead of the quartos, where they and the folio differ. It almost seems as if the stage-editors found something more congenial in a text made up from the actors' recollections, plentifully adorned with what we now call "gag." They appear to forget one capital fact: that Shakespeare was at once actor, author, and manager,—that he wrote for the stage exclusively, producing plays for the immediate use of his own company,—and that his plays may therefore be reasonably supposed to be "adapted to representation" in their original state. Does Mr. Crummles know better than Master Shakespeare knew how "Romeo and Juliet" should be ended with the best effect,—not only to the ear in the closet, but theatrically on the stage? The story was not a new one; and the dramatist deliberately followed one of two existing versions rather than the other. InBoisteau'stranslation ofBandello'snovel, Juliet wakes from her trance before Romeo's death; in Brooke's poem, which the great master chose to adopt as his authority, all is over, and she wakes to find her lover dead.Garrickmust needs know better than Shakespeare, the actor-author; and no stage Romeo has the grace to die until he has, in elegant phrase, "piled up the agony" with lines like these:—
"JULIET. ... Death's in thy face.
ROM.It is indeed. I struggle with him now:
The transports that I felt,
To hear thee speak, and see thy opening eyes,
Stopped, for a moment, his impetuous course,
And all my mind was happiness and thee:—
But now," etc.,
"My powers are blasted;
'Twist death and love I'm torn, I am distracted;
But death is strongest."
And then, to give a chance for themanoeuvrebeloved by dying actors,—that getting up and falling back into the arms of the actress kneeling by him, with a proper amount of gasping and eyes rolling in delirium,—the stage Romeo adds:—
"ROM. She is my wife,—our hearts are twined together:—
Capulet, forbear:—Paris, loose your hold:—
Pull not our heart-strings thus;—they crack,—they break:—
Oh, Juliet, Juliet!"
[Dies. Juliet faints on his body.
Is thisGarrickorOtway? (for I believeGarrickborrowed some of his improvements fromOtway's"Caius Marius.") I don't know, and don't care. It is not Shakespeare. It may "show something of the skill of kindred genius," as the preface to the acting edition says it does. I confess I do not see it. I would have such bombast delivered with the traditional accompaniment of red fire; and the curtain should descend majestically to the sound of slow music. That would be consistent and appropriate.
* * * * *
It has always been a consoling thought to Englishmen that Shakespeare exists for them alone,—or that a Frenchman's nature, at least, makes it hopeless for him to try to understand the great dramatist. They confess that their neighbors know how to construct the plot of a comedy, and prove the honesty of their approval by "borrowing" whatever they can make useful. French tragedies they despise—(though a century ago the new English tragedies were generallyCorneilleor Racine in disguise). As to Shakespeare, it has time out of mind been an article of faith with the insolent insulars that he is quite above any Frenchman's reach. One by one they are driven from their foolish prejudices, and made to confess that Frenchmenmayequal them in some serious things, as well as beat them in all the lighter accomplishments. French iron-clad steamers have been followed by the curious spectacle of a French actor teaching an English audience how Shakespeare should be acted. I would give a good deal to see M. Fechter in Hamlet, Othello, or Iago,—the only parts he has yet attempted; the rather, because the low condition of the stage in England, where Mr. Macready and Mr. CharlesKeanare called great actors, makes the English newspaper-criticisms of little value. In default of this, I have been reading M.Fechter'sacting edition of "Othello," which a friend kindly sent me from London. It is a curiosity,—not the text, which is incorrect, full of arbitrary changes, and punctuated in a way almost unintelligible to an English eye: colons being scattered about with truly French profusion. The stage-directions are the interest of the book. They are so many and so minute that it seems a wonder why they were printed, if M. Fechter is sincere in declaring that he has no desire to force others to follow in his exact footsteps in this part. But they are generally so judicious, as well as original, that actors born with English tongues in their heads may well be ashamed that a foreigner could find so many new and effective resources on their own ground. For example: when Othello and Iago are first met by the enraged Brabantio, the Moor is standing on the threshold of his house, having just opened the door with a key taken from his girdle. He is going in, when he sees the lightsborneby the other party. Observe how Othello's honest frankness is shown by the action:—
"OTH. But look: what lights come yonder?
IAGO. These are the raised father and his friends.
[Othello shuts the door quickly and takes the key.
You were best go in.
OTH. [coming forward], Not I: I must be found!"
Again, at the end of this scene, see how thoroughly the editor has studied the legitimate dramatic effect of the situations, preserving to each person his due place and characteristic manner:—
"BRAB. [To his followers]. Bring him away!
[They advance to take Othello, who puts them back with a look.
Mine's not an idle cause:
[Passes before Othello, who bows to him with respect.
The Duke himself," etc.
[Exit, preceded by the servants of the Senate. His followers are about to pass; Othello stays them, beckons to Cassio, and exit with him. The rest follow, humbly.
The scene wherein Iago first begins to poison the Moor's mind is admirable in the situations and movements of the actors. A great variety is given to the dialogue by the minute directions set down for the guidance of the players. It would be tedious to give them in detail; but I must point out the truth of one action, near the end. The poison is working; but as yet Othello cannot believe he is so wronged,—he is only "perplexed in the extreme,"—not yet transformed quite out of his noble nature.
"OTH. [dismissing Iago with a gesture]. Farewell! farewell!
[Stopping him, as he goes to the door on the right.
If more thou dost perceive, let me know more:
Set on thy wife to observe——
[He stops, suffused with shame, and crosses before Iago, without looking at him.
Leave me, Iago.
IAGO. My lord, I take my leave."
This is an idea worthy of a great actor; and of M.Fechter'sacting here an English critic says,—"Delicate in its conception andmarvellousin its close adherence to Nature is the expression that accompanies the words. The actor's face is literally suffused with a burning blush; and, as he buries his face in his hands, we almost fancy we see the scalding tears force their way through the trembling fingers and adorn the shame-reddened cheeks." The same writer goes on to praise "the ingenuity and novelty of the glance at the reflection of his dark face in the mirror, which suggests the words, 'Haply for I am black.'" I cannot agree. Othello had been too often reproached with his swarthy skin and likened to the Devil by Desdemona's father to need any such commonplace reminder of his defects, in his agony of doubt. It is, however, a fair ground for difference of opinion. But when the same artifice is resorted to in the last act to explain the words, "It is the cause, it is the cause, my soul!!"—and Othello is made to take up a toilet-glass which has fallen from Desdemona's hand,—it becomes a vile conceit, unworthy of the situation or of an actor like Fechter. A man does not look in the glass, and talk about his complexion, when he is going to kill what he loves best in life; and if the words are broken and unintelligible, they are all the truer to Nature. The whole of the last act, as arranged by Fechter, is bad. There is no propriety in directing Desdemona to leave her bed and walk about,—to say nothing of the scramble that must ensue when Othello "in mad fury throws her onto the bed" again. But what shall we say of this?
"OTH. What noise is this?
[He turns to the side whence the noise comes, and raises the pillow, but, as Desdemona stirs, replaces it abruptly.
Not dead! Not yet quite dead!
I, that am cruel, am yet merciful;
I would not have thee linger in thy pain.
[Passing hispoignardunder the pillow, and turning away his eyes,
So,—so."
What, but that it is utterly vile and melodramatic, contrary to Othello's expressed resolve, and quite unnecessary?—for a better effect would be produced, if the actor averted his head and with both hands pressed hard upon the pillow, trembling in every limb at the horrible deed he is forced, in mercy, to bring to a quick end. This idea of stabbing Desdemona at last is not original with Fechter,—who here, and in several other places, has consented to follow our stage-traditions, and has been led astray.
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Shakespeare on the stage is a sad falling off from Shakespeare in the closet. (I do not mean on the American stage only: the theatre in England is, if possible, lower than with us.) To a great extent this is unavoidable. Our imaginations are not kept in check by the pitiless limits that make themselves felt in the theatre. An army, when we read of it, seems something far grander than all that can be effected by the best-appointed company of actors. The forest of Ardennes has for us life and motion beyond the reach of the scene-painter's skill. But these necessary shortcomings are no excuse for making no attempt to imitate Nature. Yet hardly any serious effort is made to reach this purpose of playing. The ordinary arrangement of our stage is as bad as bad can be, for it fails to look like the places where the action is supposed tolie. Two rows of narrow screens stretching down from the ends of a broad screen at the back never can be made to look like a room, still less like a grove. Such an arrangement may be convenient for the carpenters or scene-shifters, and is very likely cheaper than a properly designed interior. But it does not look like what it pretends to be, and has been superseded on every stage but ours and the English by properly constructed scenery. Who ever went into a French theatre for the first time without being charmed by therealityof the scene? They take the trouble to build a room, when a room is wanted, with side-walls and doors, and often a ceiling. The consequence is, you can fancy yourself present at a scene taken from real life. The theatre goes no farther than the proscenium. Beyond that, you have a parlor, with one wall removed for your better view. It isAsmodeus'sshow improved. I went to a Paris theatre with a friend. The play began with half a dozen milliners chattering and sewing round a table. After a few moments, my friend gave a prodigious yawn, and declared he was going home, "for you might as well sit down and see a parcel of real milliners at work as this play." Tastes differ; and I did not find this an objection. But what a compliment that was to the whole corps,—actors, actresses, and scene-painter!—and how impossible it would be to make the same complaint of an English play!
"But," I have been told by theatrical people, "such an arrangement is all very well in French vaudevilles, where one scene lasts through an act; but it will not do for English plays, with their constant scene-shifting." I grant it is less convenient to the stage-manager than the present wretched assembly of screens; but it is not impracticable in any play. Witness the melodramas which are the delight of the patrons of the minor Paris theatres,—piècesàspectacle en 4acteset 24 tableaux, that is, twenty-four changes of scene. I remember sitting through one which was so deadly stupid that nothing but the ingenuity of the stage-arrangements made it endurable. Side-scenes dropped down into their places,—"flats" fell through the stage or were drawn up out of sight,—trees and rocks rose out of the earth,—in a word, scenery that looked like reality, and not like canvas, was disposed and cleared away with suchmarvellousrapidity that I forgot to yawn over the play. Attention to these matters is almost unknown with us: perhaps, in strict justice, I ought to say was unknown until very lately. Within a few years, one or two of our theatres have profited by the example set by stage-managers abroad. AtWallack's, in New York,roomshave to a great extent taken the place of the oldscreens; and only the other night at the Boston Museum I saw an arrangement of scenery which really helped the illusion.
Let us hope there may be a speedy reform in the matter of the costume of the players,—at least in plays where the dresses are of our own time. You may count on your fingers the actresses in America who dress on the stage asladiesdress in polite society. And as for the actors, I am afraid one hand has too many fingers for the tally. Because people go to the President's Ball in frock-coats is no reason why actors who undertake to look like fashionable gentlemen should outrage all conventional rules. I once saw a play in which a gentleman came to make an informal morning-visit to a lady in the country, in that dress which has received the bitterly ironical name of "full American uniform," that is to say, black dress-coat and trousers and black satin waistcoat; and the costume was made even more complete by a black satintie, of many plaits, with a huge dull diamond pin in it, and a long steel watch-chain dangling upon the wretched man's stomach. He might have played his part to perfection,—which he did not, but murdered it in cold blood,—but hemighthave done so in vain; nothing would or could absolve him from such a crime against the god of fashion or propriety. "Little things, these," the critic may say: and so our actors seem to think. But life is made up of little things; and if you would paint life, you must attend to them. Ask any one who has spent (wasted?) evening after evening at the Paris theatres about them; and, ten to one, he begins by praising the details, which, in their sum, conveyed the impression of perfection he brought away with him.
Unless you are a little cracked on the subject of the stage, (as I confess I am,) and have talked with a French actor about it, you have no idea how systematically they train their young actors. I will tell you a few of the odd facts I picked up in long talks with my friend Monsieur D——. of theThéâtreFrançais.
The Conservatoire, their great school for actors, is, like almost everything else in Paris, more or less under Government control,—the Minister of State being charged with its superintendence. He appoints the professors, who are actors of theFrançais, and receive a salary of two thousand francs. The first order a pupil receives, on presenting himself for instruction, is this: "Sayrose." Now your Parisian rather prides himself on a peculiar pronunciation of the letterr. He neither rolls it like an Italian, nor does he make anything like the noise standing forrin our conversational English,—something likeuhr-ose,—a sound said to be peculiar to our language. A Parisian rolls his r, by making hisuvulavibrate, keeping the tongue quite still: producing a peculiar gurgling sound. This is an abomination in the ears of the Conservatoire. "Negrasseyezdonc pas, Monsieur," or "Mademoiselle," says the professor, fiercely,—this peculiar way of sayingrbeing calledgrasseyement. The pupil tries again, using the tip of his tongue this time. "Ah! I thought so. Yourris pasty (empâté). Saytuddah!" (I spell this soundàl'Anglaise.) "Tuddah" repeats the wondering candidate. "Thuddah?" the professor repeats, with great disgust: "I did not ask you to saythuddah, buttuddah." The victim tries again and again, and thinks he succeeds; but the master does not agree with him. His delicate ear detects a certain thickness of enunciation,—which ourthvery imperfectly represents,—a want of crispness, as it were. The tip of the tongue does not strike the front teeth with a singletick, as sharp as a needle-point; and until he can do this, the pupil can do nothing. He is dismissed with the advice to say "tuddah, tuddah, tuddah," as many hours a day as he can without losing his mind. D—— told me he often met young men walking about the streets in all the agonies of this first step in the art of learning to act, and astonishing the passers-by with this mysterious jargon. A pupil of average quickness and nicety of ear learns to say tuddah in about a month. Then he is told to sayroseonce more. The training his tongue has received enables him to use only its very tip. A great point is gained: he can pronounce ther. Any other defects in pronunciation which he has are next attacked and corrected. Then he is drilled in moving, standing, and carriage. And finally, "a quantity of practice truly prodigious" is given to theancienrépertoire,—the classic models of French dramatic literature,Corneille, Racine,Molière,Beaumarchais, etc. The first scholar of each year has the right to appear at once at theThéâtreFrançais,—a right rarely claimed, as most young actors prefer to go through a novitiate elsewhere to braving the most critical audience in the world before they have acquired the confidence that comes only with habit and success. After he has gained a foothold at this classic theatre, an actor still sees prizes held out to stimulate his ambition. If he keeps the promise of his youth, he may hope to be chosen a stockholder (sociétaire), and thus obtain a share both in the direction of affairs and in the profits, besides a retiring pension, depending in, amount upon his term of service.
Panem, etcircensesis the demand of modern Paris, as it was of old Rome,—and the people expect the Government to see that neither supply fails. While the Opera receives large sums to pay for gorgeous scenery and dresses, theFrançaisis paid for devoting three nights in the week to the classical school: a real loss to the theatre at times when the fickle public would gladly crowd the house to applaud the success of the hour. The Minister of State interferes as seldom as possible with the management; but when he speaks, his word is law. This was queerly shown in a dispute about Rachel'scongés. At first she played during nine months of the year three times a week; later her duties were reduced to six months in the year, playing only twice a week, at a salary of forty thousand francs, with five hundred francs for every extra performance. Spoiled by indulgence, she demanded leave of absence just when the Queen of England was coming to Paris. The manager indignantly refused. The next day the Minister of State politely requested that Mlle. Rachel might have a shortcongé. "It is not reasonable," said the poor manager. "We have cut down her duties and raised her salary; now the Queen is coming, Paris will be full of English, and they are always crazy after Mlle. Rachel. It is really out of the question,Monsieur leMinistre." The Minister was very sorry, but hoped there would be no real difficulty. The manager was equally sorry, but really he could not think of it. "Monsieur," said the Minister, rising and dismissing the manager, "illefaut," "Oh,illefaut?Then itmust;—only you might as well have begun with that." And so Rachel got her leave of absence.
(I must insert here from my note-book a criticism on Rachel,—valuable as coming from a man of talent in her own profession who had worked with her for years, and deserving additional weight, as it was, no doubt, rather the collective judgment of her fellow-actors than the opinion of the speaker alone.)
"Rachel," said M. D——, "was a great genius,—but a genius that ever needed the hand of a master to guide its efforts. Without this, she could do nothing: and Samson was forever behind her, directing her steps. Mme. Allan, who weighed almost three hundred pounds and had an abominable voice, was infinitely her superior in the power of creating a part. But Rachel had the voice of an angel. In the expression of disdain or terror she was unapproachable. In the softer passions she was feeble. We all looked upon herLady Tartuffeas a failure."
* * * * *
Such a school of acting as the Conservatoire and theFrançaisform could of course never be seen in America. The idea of our popular practical Government undertaking to direct the amusements of the people is quite ludicrous. In France, the Government does all it can for the people. With us, the people are left to do everything for themselves, with the least possible amount of Government interference. Our play-writers and play-actors could do a great deal to raise the standard of stage-literature and of acting, if they would but try. But they do not try. I went the other evening to see that relic of the Dark Ages, a sterling English comedy. If any one thinks I go too far in saying that there is no attempt on our stage to imitate Nature, and that the writing and acting of English plays are like the landscape-painting of the Chinese,—a wonderfully good copy of the absurdities handed down through generations of artists,—let him go and look at one of these plays. He will see the choleric East-India uncle, with a red face, and a Malacca cane held by the middle, stumping about, and bullying his nephew,—"a young rascal,"—or his niece,—"you baggage, you." When this young person wishes to have a good talk with a friend, they stand up behind the footlights to do it; and the audience is let into secrets essential to the plot by means of long "asides" delivered by one, while the other does nothing and pretends not to hear what is spoken within three feet of him. The waiting-maid behaves in a way that would get her turned out of any respectable house, and is chased off the stage by the old gentleman in a manner that no gentleman ever chases his servants. Something is the matter with the men's legs: they all move by two steps and a hitch. They all speak with an intonation as unlike the English of real life as if they talked Greek. The young people make fools of the old people in a way they would never dream of in life,—and the old people are preternaturally stupid in submitting to be made fools of. After seeing one of these classics, let the spectator sit down and honestly ask himself if this is an attempt to hold the mirror up to Nature, or an effort to reflect the traditional manners and customs of the stage.
If he thinks he has ever seen anything of the sort in real life, we will agree to differ.