so prosaic as a "modern
conscience" may seem unkind, but actually our modern conscience is
anything but prosaic, and combines within it something at once poetic
and prophetic, of which that something ghostly in Forbes-Robertson's
acting is peculiarly expressive. That quality of other-worldliness which
at once scared and fascinated the lodgers in _The Passing of the Third
Floor Back_ is present in all Forbes-Robertson's acting. It was that
which strangely stirred us, that first night of _The Profligate_. We
meet it again with the blind Dick Heldar in _The Light That Failed_, and
of course we meet it supremely in _Hamlet_. In fact, it is that quality
which, chief among others, makes Forbes-Robertson's Hamlet the classical
Hamlet of his time.

Forbes-Robertson has of course played innumerable parts. Years before
_The Profligate_, he had won distinction as the colleague of Irving and
Mary Anderson. He may be said to have played everything under the sun.
His merely theatric experience has thus enriched and equipped his
temperament with a superb technique. It would probably be impossible for
him to play any part badly, and of the various successes he has made, to
which his present repertoire bears insufficient witness, others, as I
have said, can point out the excellences. My concern here is with his
art in its fullest and finest expression, in its essence; and therefore
it is unnecessary for me to dwell upon any other of his impersonations
than that of Hamlet. When a man can play _Hamlet_ so supremely, it may
be taken for granted, I presume, that he can play _Mice and Men_, or
even that masterpiece of all masterpieces, _Caesar and Cleopatra_. I
trust that it is no disrespect to the distinguished authors of these two
plays to say that such plays in a great actor's repertoire represent
less his versatility than his responsibilities, that pot-boiling
necessity which hampers every art, and that of the actor, perhaps, most
of all.

To my thinking, the chief interest of all Forbes-Robertson's other parts
is that they have "fed" his Hamlet; and, indeed, many of his best parts
may be said to be studies for various sides of Hamlet, his fine _Romeo_,
for example, which, unfortunately, he no longer plays. In _Hamlet_ all
his qualities converge, and in him the tradition of the stage that all
an ambitious actor's experience is only to fit him to play Hamlet is for
once justified. But, of course, the chief reason of that success is that