Umbra

“ A dead man, on the other hand, has to break through six feet of mother earth, before we can be induced to set him down for a ghost. The appearance of a Witch is therefore not so obnoxious to splenetic remark as that of a ghost. Both are, however, very apt to excite merriment in an audience; I have frequently heard those around me laugh, positively laugh, at the entrée of the Ghost in Hamlet, the noblest, the most pathetic character ever delineated by a poet. ”

“ Where shall we find the unearthly, heart-thrilling voice, which the fancy imputes to these supernatural beings,-the aerial, tremulous, half-formed syllables, melting into the winds, and passing over the ear as if they were breathed, not spoken? ”

“ It is not to be attained by any human power of articulation; here, as well as in the outward visible form, the human attributes are refined to a degree of excellence, to which no actor could ever hope to arrive, however suaviloquent in voice and majestic in person. The elder Kemble was the only man who could have approached the character; had his voice been more harmonious, and his manner less artificial, less unpoetic (for the Ghost is essentially a poetic creation) , he might have realized in a great measure the poet's conception. ”

“ Even Caliban has a congeniality of nature and disposition, in the lowest degree, with us mortals; it is much easier for an actor to embrutify his manners to the ferodity of a savage, than to refine them to the perfection with which we invest a spirit. But the attributes which we impute to a spirit, are many of them neither to be met with in one, nor in different men, such for instance as ubiquity, or the power of evanescence, impassiveness of stance, &c.; and even those attributes with which all men are invested, such as visible form, voice, &c. ”

“ The Ghost in Hamlet, founded on a vulgar and even ludicrous basis, is beyond all doubt the noblest personification of the Spiritual essence afforded in any age or by any writer. The Gods of Homer are very ordinary mortals, most of them very wicked, and many of them very contemptible beings. ”

“ A new discipline might be introduced with considerable effect and very little trouble, as far as regards ghost-playing, which would, I think, be found of equal benefit to the author, manager, performer, and spectator. I must premise that with respect to the physical qualifications of the performers themselves, however, the nostrums I am about to submit boast no secret plastic power whatever; they will not enable a dwarf to stretch himself into a giant, nor a rosy prelatical pot-bellied son of Thalia to reduce himself to a fine cadaverous, ghost-playing condition of person ”

“ Yet I cannot persuade myself but that a very little judgement, and a very little attention bestowed this matter by the managers of our theatres and the gentlemen upon whom ghost-playing usually devolves—would remedy the evil I complain of in a great degree. Although it may be impossible to do the character complete justice, it is certainly capable of a much more adequate representation than it ever obtains upon the modern stage. ”

“ This change of public opinion has rendered what was never very easy to the performer, superlatively difficult. It has now become a matter of exquisite delicacy to prevent the Ghost in Hamlet or Macbeth (especially the former, who is vocal) , from exciting feelings either of offence or risibility in the audience. More so, even, than with respect to the Witches; for any ugly old ill-tempered woman has nothing to do but get a-stride of a broomstick, and she may still be esteemed as a witch if she chooses. ”

“ But as for those gentlemen-ghosts who dress themselves out as if they were going to a masque or a fancy-ball, in garments foreign to their character, it is proper that I should inform them,—they quite mistake the matter. ”

“ Few play-goers believe, now-a-days, in the existence of ghosts; in our sceptical times, the appearance of such airy beings has become quite a rarity. They scarcely durst even show their faces in their old haunts, the nursery, the kitchen, or the cottage ”

“ The Angels in Paradise Lost are cold and characterless: Satan himself wants individuality; we have him not in our "mind's eye;" all we can collect of him is, that he was very bad, very bold, and very big. ”

“ The first rule, then, to be observed by the judicious Ghost-player, is,—never to let his desire for admiration tempt him to the front of the stage, unless the mechanism of the piece compel him to transgress this salutary precept. Let the ghost always appear in the back ground ”