OCR Text |
Show "Hamlet" was the most difficult, and the famous soliloquy had to bo twice repeated before be-fore Its meaning could be fully grasped. But the amazing thing was that those peasants peas-ants caught upon the very mooted points yiat Shakespearean audiences have so long debated, ;4f especially whether Hamlet was insane or not The account causes one first to give a now reverence to Shakespeare. So close was he to human nature that when his thoughts are portrayed por-trayed to the utterly unlettered they are perfectly understood in a moment; their heart's touched,, their souls thrilled; they see before them the passing of some beings oni the stage of life and those bolngs are every one realities. The next thought is, would it not be good for the teachers in country schools or for young men and young women to inaugurate such readings to while away long evenings and to kindle in reft re-ft , coptivo souls a thirst for knowledge, and better w prepare them for the world when they go out into it. No other reading would bo as effective as great plays. A little crude dramatic company in a little town in a neighboring State played "The Lady of Lyons" night after night, through a whole winter, and the interest never flagged, though the audiences wore made up mostly of farmers and lumbermen. And the discussion of the play went out into the homes, and the strange thing was not how this or that actor carried a part, but rather it went directly to the substance of tho play itself to the author rather than the actors. Tho feasibility .of such readings is worth considering. |