that magnificent outburst of scorn with
tremendous power: but it was in the pathetic scene with Volumnia and
Virgilia that he reached the summit of the Shakespearean conception. The
deep heart as well as the imperial intellect of Coriolanus must then
speak. It is, for the distracted son, a moment of agonised and pathetic
conflict: for McCullough it was a moment of perfect adequacy and
consummate success. The stormy utterance of revolted pride and furious
disgust, in the denial of Volumnia's request--the tempestuous outburst,
"I will not do it"--made as wild, fiery, and fine a moment in tragic
acting as could be imagined; but the climax was attained in the pathetic
cry--

"The gods look down, and this unnatural scene
They laugh at."

XIII.

CHARLOTTE CUSHMAN.

Making, one summer day, a pilgrimage to the grave of Charlotte Cushman,
I was guided to the place of her rest by one of the labourers employed
about the cemetery, who incidentally pronounced upon the deceased a
comprehensive and remarkable eulogium. "She was," he said, "considerable
of a woman, for a play-actress." Well--she was. The place of her
sepulture is on the east slope of the principal hill in Mount Auburn.
Hard by, upon the summit of the hill, stands the gray tower that
overlooks the surrounding region and constantly symbolises, to eyes both
far and near, the perpetual peace of which it is at once guardian and
image. All around the spot tall trees give shade and music, as the sun
streams on their branches and the wind murmurs in their leaves. At a
little distance, visible across green meadows and the river
Charles,--full and calm between its verdant banks,--rise the "dreaming
spires" of Cambridge. Further away, crowned with her golden dome, towers
old Boston, the storied city that Charlotte Cushman loved. Upon the spot
where her ashes now rest the great actress stood, and, looking toward
the city of her home and heart, chose that to be the place of her grave;
and there she sleeps, in peace, after many a conflict with her stormy
nature and after many sorrows and pains. What terrific ideals of the
imagination she made to be realities of life! What burning eloquence of
poesy she made to blaze! What moments of pathos she lived! What moods of
holy self-abnegation and of exalted power she brought to many a
sympathetic soul! Standing by her grave, on which the myrtle grows dense
and dark, and over which the small birds swirl and twitter in t