nce of the
language and the refined tones and lofty bearing of the speaker. In
fact, so foreign were such displays to the dominant qualities of his
character, while yet so closely connected with the fine sense and
exacting spirit of the artist, that one is tempted to wish that he
could himself have viewed them with more indifference, accepting this
thorn in the flesh as a slight but irremediable misfortune, instead of
making it the constant subject of penitence and self-abasement. But
such a course would have been still more foreign to his nature, ever
aiming at perfection, moral and artistic, ever summoning his faculties
and actions to the stern inquest of conscience, and refusing to accept
the verdict of any lower tribunal. And the struggle had its reward in a
real if not complete victory. The weeds, if never wholly eradicated,
could not choke the nobler growth; the stream, if it retained its
turbid coloring, increased always in volume and majesty. The fine
qualities which might so easily have deteriorated remained unscathed.
His keen sense of justice and honor, his inborn candor and generosity,
his fervent love of virtue and goodness in their simplest and least
obtrusive exhibitions, his cordial admiration of true greatness,--these
and kindred traits never lost their freshness or force. Above all, he
retained throughout life that deep and exquisite tenderness of feeling
which formed the supreme charm of his character, as it did of his
acting, and to which it would not, we think, be easy to find a parallel
in a person of his own sex. It was not alone in his ardent family
affections--his fond recollections of the mother he lost in boyhood,
his devotion to his sister, wife and brother, his passionate love of
his children, or his anguish and abiding sorrow at every severance of
such ties--that this quality displayed itself. His sympathy with all
suffering, especially if conjoined with innocence and patient
endurance, was not only quick but strong. His eyes fill with tears at
the sight of a fellow-passenger in a mail-coach, a poor deformed boy,
who is carrying a basket of toys from one town to another, and he
shakes his hand at parting with a "God bless thee!" that comes direct
from the heart. It was strikingly characteristic of him that, with all
his intense ambition, his resolute desire--to use a phrase which we
have heard him apply to himself--"to rise above the crowd, and stand
when others fall," he chose for his wife