GREAT orators who are not also great writers become very indistinct historical shadows to the generations immediately following them. The spell vanishes with the voice. A man's voice is almost the only part of him entirely obliterated by death. The violet of his native land may be made of his ashes, but nature in her economy seems to have taken no care of his intonations, unless she perpetuates them in restless waves of air surging about the poles. The well-graced actor who leaves no perceptible record of his genius has a decided advantage over the mere orator. The tradition of the player's method and presence is associated with works of endur-ing beauty. Turning to the pages of the drama-tist, we can picture to ourselves the greatness of Garrick or Siddons in this or that scene, in this or that character. It is not so easy to conjure up the impassioned orator from the pages of a dry and possibly illogical argument in favor of or against some long-ago-exploded measure of gov-ernment. The laurels of an orator who is not a master of literary art wither quickly.
ALL the best sands of my life are somehow get-ting into the wrong end of the hour-glass. If I
could only reverse it! Were it in my power to do so, would I?
SHAKESPEARE is forever coming into our affairs --putting in his oar, so to speak--with some pat word or sentence. The conversation, the other evening, had turned on the subject of watches, when one of the gentlemen present, the manager of a large watch-****** establish-ment, told us a rather interesting fact. The component parts of a watch are produced by different workmen, who have no concern with the complex piece of mechanism as a whole, and possibly, as a rule, understand it imper-fectly. Each worker needs to be expert in only his own special branch. When the watch has reached a certain advanced state, the work requires a touch as delicate and firm as that of an oculist performing an operation. Here the most skilled and trustworthy artisans are em-ployed; they receive high wages, and have the benefit of a singular indulgence. In case the workman, through too continuous application, finds himself lacking the steadiness of nerve demanded by his task, he is allowed without forfeiture of pay to remain idle temporarily, in order that his hand may recover the requisite precision of touch. As I listened, Hamlet's courtly criticism of the grave-digger's want of sensibility came drifting into my memory.
"The hand of little employment hath the dain-tier sense," says Shakespeare, who has left no-thing unsaid.
IT was a festival in honor of Dai Butsu or some one of the auxiliary deities that preside over the destinies of Japland. For three days and nights the streets of Tokio--where the squat little brown houses look for all the world as if they were mimicking the favorite sitting posture of the Japanese--were crowded with smiling hol-iday makers, and made gay with devices of tinted tissue paper, dolphins, devils, dragons, and mythical winged creatures which at night amia-bly turned themselves into lanterns. Garlands of these, arranged close together, were stretched across the streets from ridgepoles to ridgepole, and your jinrikisha whisked you through inter-minable arbors of soft illumination. The spec-tacle gave one an idea of fairyland, but then all Japan does that.
A land not like ours, that land of strange flowers, Of daemons and spooks with mysterious powers--Of gods who breathe ice, who cause peach-blooms and rice And manage the moonshine and turn on the showers.
Each day has its fair or its festival there, And life seems immune to all trouble and care--Perhaps only seems, in that island of dreams, Sea-girdled and basking in magical air.
They've streets of bazaars filled with lacquers and jars, And silk stuffs, and sword-blades that tell of old wars;They've Fuji's white cone looming up, bleak and lone, As if it were trying to reach to the stars.
They've temples and gongs, and grim Buddhas in throngs, And pearl-powdered geisha with dances and songs:
Each girl at her back has an imp, brown or black, And dresses her hair in remarkable prongs.
On roadside and street toddling images meet, And smirk and kotow in a way that is sweet;Their obis are tied with particular pride, Their silken kimonos hang scant to the feet.
With purrs like a cat they all giggle and chat, Now spreading their fans, and now holding them flat;A fan by its play whispers, "Go now!" or "Stay!"
"I hate you! "I love you!"--a fan can say that!
Beneath a dwarf tree, here and there, two or three Squat coolies are sipping small cups of green tea;They sputter, and leer, and cry out, and appear Like bad little chessmen gone off on a spree.
At night--ah, at night the long streets are a sight, With garlands of soft-colored lanterns alight--Blue, yellow, and red twinkling high overhead, Like thousands of butterflies taking their flight.
Somewhere in the gloom that no lanterns illume Stand groups of slim lilies and jonquils in bloom;On tiptoe, unseen 'mid a tangle of green, They offer the midnight their cups of perfume.
At times, sweet and clear from some tea-garden near, A ripple of laughter steals out to your ear;Anon the wind brings from a samisen's strings The pathos that's born of a smile and a tear.
THE difference between an English audience and a French audience at the theatre is marked.
The Frenchman brings down a witticism on the wing. The Briton pauses for it to alight and give him reasonable time for deliberate aim. In English playhouses an appreciable number of seconds usually precede the smile or the ripple of laughter that follows a facetious turn of the least fineness. I disclaim all responsibility for this statement of my personal observation, since it has recently been indorsed by one of London's most eminent actors.
AT the next table, taking his opal drops of absinthe, was a French gentleman with the blase aspect of an empty champagne-bottle, which always has the air of saying: "I have lived!"
