As if it had a way to fuse The golden sunlight into juice. (But stay, When life, once past its fortieth year, Tow'rd morning's loss and vain regret, And, argue with it as we will, "But count the gains," I hear you say, If fire within keep Age aloof, Though blundering north-winds push and strain With clumsy palms against the pane?" My dear old Friend, you 're very wise; We always are with others' eyes, And see (so clear !) our neighbor's deck on Folks when they see how life has quizzed 'em Are fain to make a shift with Wisdom, And, finding she nor breaks nor bends, Give her a letter to their friends. Draw passion's torrent whoso will Prefer who likes the sure esteem To cheated youth's midsummer dream, On life's hard stithy to a tool, Be whoso will a ploughshare made, Let me remain a jolly blade! What's Knowledge, with her stocks and lands, To gay Conjecture's yellow strands, Sitting to watch her flock's increase To ventures for the golden fleece? Her full-fraught ships, safe under lee, To youth's light craft, that drinks the sea, For Flying Islands making sail, And failing where 't is gain to fail? A sort of finer Mister Pope,) Dear Friend, you 're right and I am wrong; And I sophistically tease My fancy sad to tricks like these. So, when God's shadow, which is light, My wakening instincts falls across, In my heart's nest half-conscious things Be patient, and perhaps (who knows?) At first they're but the unfledged proem, Or songless schedule of a poem ; When from the shell they 're hardly dry If some folks thrust them forth, must I? But let me end with a comparison Never yet hit upon by e'er a son Of our American Apollo (And there's where I shall beat them hollow, If he is not a courtly St. John, But, as West said, a Mohawk Injun). A poem 's like a cruise for whales : But the dead plunder once secured Yes, this is life; and so the bard Now I've a notion, if a poet Beat up for themes, his verse will show it; ADELAIDE RISTORI. Lady. Is she young or old? Page. Neither, if I right guess; but she is fair. For Time has laid his hand so gently on her, As he too had been awed. "Lady. The foolish stripling! She has bewitched thee. Is she large in stature ? Ristori the woman, however, is as unlike Ristori the artist, as her real character differs from that of Elisabetta or Medea. If we may credit the assertions of biography and tradition, Mrs. Siddons was always, though unintentionally, more or less of a tragedy queen. She "stabbed the potatoes," astounded shopkeepers by the majesty with which she inquired whether material for clothing would wash, and frightened her dressing-maid by the sepulchral intensity of her exclamations. The awe which Ristori frequently excites is confined entirely to the theatre. Away from it she is the most human, and humane, - the most simple, the most unaffected, the most sympathetic of women. So strongly is the line drawn between reality and fiction, that in Ristori's presence it requires a mental effort to recall her histrionic greatness, though you have a sense of her power, and you feel persuaded that whatever such a woman earnestly willed would be accomplished. The large friendliness in Ristori's nature creates a fellow-feeling, making you wondrous kind toward your own personality, and razing those barriers with which genius often surrounds itself. To excite love as well as admiration is not always in the power of greatness. There is frequently an intolerance of manner, an assertion of superiority, a species of intellectual scorn for the dead level of humanity, that preclude the possibility of sympathy. Yet there is no surer test of grandeur of character than a readiness to acknowledge and respect the individuality of all God's creatures. This is the crowning grace that brings Ristori so near to the hearts of her friends. Her social ease makes you wonder how she can ever be transformed into the classic statue of Mirra. Rachel was so complete a Pagan princess"Elle pose toujours," said her best friends that she never succeeded in being herself. Both she and Siddons were first artists, and then women. Ristori is first a woman, and then an artist. Which is more satisfactory to the world admits of argument, but for ourselves we believe it better to step from nature to art than from art to nature. In acting, the common should precede the uncommon; one must be a creature of every day, and walk upon the earth, in order to be a complete master of the heart. It is not enough that an actor know how to wear a toga. To live in his own age, and love and laugh with his contemporaries, is as necessary as to suffer, hate, and murder after the fashion of the past. It is not often that Nature does her work equally. She gives us beauty without wit, and then again wit without beauty. She fashions a distorted mouth, and demands that a fine eye make amends for all short-comings. She places a beautiful head on a diminutive, unattractive body, as in the case of Junius Brutus Booth. She gave the erratic Edmund Kean a bad voice, and breathed a Greek fire into the fragile form of Rachel. Garrick |