How completely he personated the characters that he assumed I can testify from comparison with what may be called his originals, the actual Hotspurs and Hamlets, the soldiers and princes, of the real world. One night in Louisiana before a battle I was with General T. W. Sherman while he was giving orders to his officers and aides-de-camp. It was nearly midnight, and there was to be an attack at dawn. First came in one messenger, then another, next the leader of the advance, last the captain of the reserves. The night was warm and the tent was thrown open; a candle burned on a table within, while the general paced up and down in the darkness outside. There was a hush and a bustle combined, a subdued intensity and a dramatic haste, as the commander gave his different orders and received his successive subordinates, that brought to my mind at the moment the tent scene in "Richard III." I thought, just then, "How like all this is to what I have seen on the stage." Yet Booth had never witnessed actual war. In the same way in Europe: I often thought of him when princes and sovereigns were holding levees or processions, receiving homage or conferring honors; no Guelph or Bourbon of them all went through his part with greater dignity or grace than the young American who had never been at court; and sometimes the magic of genius arrayed him in a majesty which all the reality of their grandeur could not inspire. There was one character, however, that he could not play--the lover. He was the poorest of Romeos, and he knew it. He looked the part, of course, in his youth; the women always wanted to see him play it, and the actresses all wanted to be Juliet; but there was a lack of tenderness in his eye, and of ardor in his tone; even the gestures were tame. He was not anxious or persuasive enough; he was too confident, or too indifferent. The only point in the play where he rose to his usual level was in the fight with Tybalt; but then there was killing to be done, and this was passion of a different sort--this was tragedy. Then he became inspired, and looked for a moment like one of the demi-gods in Homer's battles. But in the scenes with the friar and with Juliet, even in the balcony scene, he was comparatively spiritless. Whether he was not actually a good lover, or whether he felt a certain delicacy about love-making in public, the fact remains that he was always more effective in parts that represent harsh or violent emotions than in tender ones with women.