“I am not sufficiently ungrateful to consider that Mounet-Sully’s Hamlet is completely eclipsed, as some well-meaning persons would have us believe. Mounet-Sully showed us a man of terrible but intermittent energy. Sarah Bernhardt gives us a youth under the influence of over-sensitive nerves. The great artiste was never greater. Her defects, such as they are, sink into insignificance before her brilliant talents. Her frequently hard and abrupt diction passed almost unperceived. She was moderate but powerful, ardent but restrained. She threw a flood of light on a particularly obscure character. I do not think that stage art could further go than when, in the play scene, Hamlet holds up a torch to the livid features of his father’s murderer and puts him to flight, howling with terror.” M. Emile Faguet, of the _Journal des Débats_, says-- “There are so many ways of playing this puzzling part that I shall not venture to criticize Mme. Sarah Bernhardt’s rendering. She makes Hamlet sometimes weak and sometimes violent (the latter quality being much more manifest than the former), capricious, and a creature of nerves. The dreamy and melancholy part of Hamlet’s temperament she leaves in obscurity. Still, the result is acceptable. We cannot say either ‘This is exactly as it should be,’ or, ‘This is not the thing at all.’ It depends on one’s point of view. In any case the attempt is interesting and the effect is incontestable. It is impossible to say that the interpretation is indifferent. One must go further and describe it as fascinating. It is something that must be seen. The question whether Hamlet can be played by a woman is now set at rest. It must be admitted that Hamlet, being, as he is, weak, violent, cunning, undecided, and constantly on the brink of losing his wits, is a feminine mind in the body of a young man. Hamlet’s youth cannot be seriously disputed, and whenever we possess a great actress we can permit and even encourage her to try her hand on Hamlet.” M. Catulle Mendès, whose opinions, or rather his vigorous way of expressing them, earned him a duel with M. Georges Vanor, and a two-inch-deep puncture in the stomach, is the only critic to agree with the actress in regard to the simplicity of the character. He says-- “Rouvière played the part like an inspired epileptic, Rossi like a tenor, and Salvini like a philosopher. Mounet-Sully reproduced all the best features of previous Hamlets, and added some inspiration of his own. Now, for the first time, Hamlet stands revealed to us in his real simplicity, as the poet created him. As to Mme. Sarah Bernhardt, it is hard to conceive that any human creature can combine so much instinct and innate intelligence with so much exact knowledge. Mme. Sarah Bernhardt is something more than an accomplished actress or an artist who plays upon the strings of our emotions. She is the incarnation of all gifts and all acquirements. She is the union, hitherto unhoped-for, of all inspiration and all art.”