Mrs. Jameson

“ In a spot fairer than the poet's creative pencil ever wrought into a picture for fancy to dwell on—where, at the extremity of the Brahman's garden, the broad and beautiful stream that bounded it ran swiftly to mingle its waves with those of the thrice-holy Ganges; where mangoes raised their huge twisted roots in a thousand fantastic forms, while from their boughs hung suspended the nests of the little Baya birds, which waved to and fro in the evening breeze—there had Amrà and Govinda met together, it might be, without design. ”

“ There is a second difficulty which the artist has had to contend with, not less honourable to the actress: the charm of her impersonation of Juliet consisted not so much in any particular points, as in the general conception of the whole part, and in the sustained preservation and gradual development of the individual character, from the first scene to the last. Where the merit lies in the beautiful gradations of feeling, succeeding each other like waves of the sea, till the flood of passion swells and towers and sweeps away all perceptible distinctions, the pencil must necessarily be at fault ”

“ Did ever any human being escape more intacte in person and mind from the fiery furnace of popular admiration? Let us remember the severity of the ordeal to which she was exposed; the hard lot of those who pass their lives in the full-noon glare of public observation, where every speck is noted! What a difference too, between the aspiration after immortality and the pursuit of celebrity!—The noise of distant and future fame is like the sound of the [45] far-off sea, and the mingled roll of its multitudinous waves, which, as it swells on the ear, elevates the soul with a sublime emotion ”

“ Fetch me the tongs here. (Takes up the purse in the tongs, and holds it at arm's length.) Now I'm going. So, Meg, if you repent, now's the time. Speak—or for ever hold your tongue.
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MARGERY.
Me repent? No, my dear Dick! I feel, somehow, quite light, as if a great weight were gone away from here. (Laying her hands on her bosom.) Money may be a good thing when it comes little by little, and we gain it honestly by our own hard work; but when it comes this way, in a lump—one doesn't know how or why—it's quite too surprising, as one may say;—it gets into one's head, like—the punch, Dick! ”

“ Amrà is no longer the wife of Adhar; for Adhar has vowed himself to a life of penance and celibacy in the temple of Indore, by order of an offended prince;—may he find peace! The writings of divorce are drawn up, and my daughter being already past the age when a prudent father hastens to marry his child, in order that the souls of the dead may be duly honoured by their posterity, I have sought for her a husband, such as a parent might desire; learned in the sciences, graced with every virtue; of unblemished life, of unmixed caste, and rich in the goods of this world. ”

“ The sight of a human being made her heart throb more quickly for a moment; but on approaching nearer, with all her faculties sharpened by the sense of danger, she perceived that it was no old woman, but the younger Hogan, the murderer of Halloran, who was thus disguised. His face was partly concealed by a blue handkerchief tied round his head and under his chin, but she knew him by the peculiar and hideous expression of his eyes: yet with amazing and almost incredible self-possession, she continued to advance without manifesting the least alarm, or sign of recognition ”

“ Amrà was but a child when Govinda first entered the dwelling of his preceptor; but as time passed on, she expanded beneath his eye into beauty and maturity, like the lovely and odoriferous flower, the name of which she bore.
The Hindoo women of superior rank and unmixed caste are in general of diminutive size; and accordingly the lovely and high-born Amrà was formed upon the least possible scale of female beauty: but her figure, though so exquisitely delicate, had all the flowing outline and rounded proportions of complete womanhood. ”

“ Well, if ever there was a man could say he had a good wife, why, that's me myself—tho'f I say it—the cheerfullest, sweetest temperedst, cleanliest, lovingest woman in the whole parish, that never gives one an ill word from year's end to year's end, and deserves at least that a man should work hard for her—it's all I can do—and we must think for to-morrow as well as to-day. (He works with great energy, and sings at the same time with equal enthusiasm.) ”

“ But Govinda looked neither on the earth, nor on the sky. What to him were the stars, or the flowers, or the moon rising in dewy splendour? His eyes were fixed upon one, who was brighter to him than the stars, lovelier than the moon when she drives her antelopes through the heavens, sweeter than the night-flower which opens in her beam.
"O Amrà!" he said, at length, and while he spoke his voice trembled even at its own tenderness, "Amrà! beautiful and beloved sister! thine eyes are filled with the glory of that sparkling firmament! ”

“ The distance between Javita and San Fernando, where Guahiba had left her infants, is twenty-five leagues in a straight line. A fearful wilderness of gigantic forest trees, and intermingling underwood, separated these two missions;—a savage and awful solitude, which, probably, since the beginning of the world, had never been trodden by human foot. All communication was carried on by the river; and there lived not a man, whether Indian or European, bold enough to have attempted the route along the shore. ”

“ All the fine arts, poetry excepted, possess a limited range of power. Painting and sculpture can convey none of the graces that belong to movement and sound: music can suggest vague sentiments and feelings, but it cannot express incident, or situation, or form, or colour. Poetry alone grasps an unlimited sceptre, rules over the whole visible and intellectual universe, and knows no bounds but those of human genius. And it is here that tragic acting, considered in its perfection, and in its relation to the fine arts, is allied to poetry, or rather is itself living, breathing poetry ”

“ Ages hence, when these solitary regions have become the seats of civilization, of power, and intelligence; when the pathless wilds, which poor Guahiba traversed in her anguish, are [259] replaced by populous cities, and smiling gardens, and pastures, and waving harvests,—still that dark rock shall stand, frowning o'er the stream; tradition and history shall preserve its name and fame; and when even the pyramids, those vast, vain monuments to human pride, have passed away, it shall endure, to carry down to the end of the world the memory of the Indian Mother. ”

“ If with such rare natural gifts were blended some human infirmities;—if the cultivation of the imaginative far above the perceptive faculties, hazarded her individual happiness;—if in the course of a professional career of unexampled continuance and splendour, the love of praise ever degenerated into the appetite for applause;—if the worshipped actress languished out of her atmosphere of incense,—is this to be made matter of wonder or of ill-natured comment? ”

“ The first drawing is taken from the scene in which Juliet first appears. The actress has little to do, but to look the character;—that is, to convey the impression of a gentle, graceful girl, whose passions and energies lie folded up within her, like gathered lightning in the summer cloud; all her affections "soft as dews on roses," which must ere long turn to the fire-shower, and blast her to the earth. The moment chosen is immediately after Juliet's expostulation to her garrulous old nurse—"I pr'ythee, peace!" ”

“ This at least was the opinion of one who admired her with all the fervour of a kindred genius, and could lavish on her praise of such "rich words composed as made the gift more sweet." Of her Lady Macbeth, he says, "nothing could have been imagined grander,—it was something above nature; it seemed almost as if a being of a superior order had dropped from a higher sphere to awe the world with the majesty of her appearance. Power was seated on her brow, passion emanated from her breast as from a shrine. In coming on in the sleeping scene, her eyes were open, but their sense was shut ”

“ The murderers, having done their work on the poor Pedlar, approached her bed, and threw the gleam of their lanthorn full on her face; she lay quite still, breathing calmly and regularly. They brought the light to her eye-lids, but they did not wink or move;—there was a pause, a terrible pause, and then a whispering;—and presently Cathleen thought she could distinguish a third voice, as of expostulation, but all in so very low a tone that though the voices were close to her she could not hear a word that was uttered. ”

“ On the last day of the dark half of the moon, it was the custom of the wise and venerable Sarma to bathe at sunset in the Ganges, and afterwards retire to private meditation upon the thousand names of God, by the repetition of which, as it is written, a man insures to himself everlasting felicity. But while Sarma was thus absorbed in holy abstraction, where were Govinda and Amrà? ”

“ What pains have been taken to cater trifling scandal for the blind, heartless, gossip-loving vulgar! and to throw round the memory of a woman, whose private life was as irreproachable as her public career was glorious, some ridiculous or unamiable association which should tend to unsphere her from her throne in our imagination, and degrade from her towering pride of place, the heroine of Shakspeare, and the Muse of Tragedy! ”

“ Upon a bank, covered with that soft and beautiful grass, which, whenever it is pressed or trodden on, yields a delicious perfume, were Amrà and Govinda seated side by side. Two of her attendants, at some little distance, were occupied in twining wreaths of flowers. Amrà had a basket at her feet, in which were two small vessels of porcelain. One contained cakes of rice, honey, and clarified butter, kneaded by her own hand; in the other were mangoes, rose-apples, and musk-melons; and garlands of the holy palàsa blossoms, sacred to the dead, were flung around the whole. ”

“ In this let the God of all the earth judge between the king and his servants."
"Now, by the head of our Prophet! shall we be braved on our throne by these insolent and contumacious priests? Tortures shall force the seal from those lips!"
"Not so!" said the old Brahman, drawing himself up with a look of inexpressible dignity. "It is in the power of the Great King to deal with his slaves as seemeth good to him; but fortitude is the courage of the weak; and the twice-born sons of Brahma can suffer more in the cause of truth, than even the wrath of Akbar can inflict." ”

“ As serpents dwell among the odorous boughs of the sandal-tree, and alligators in the thrice sacred waters of the Ganges, so all that is sweetest, holiest, dearest upon earth, is mixed up with sin, and pain, and misery, and [147] evil! Thus hath it been ordained from the beginning; and the love that hath never mourned, is not love.
How sweet, yet how terrible, were the moments that succeeded! While Govinda, with fervid eloquence, poured out his whole soul at her feet, Amrà alternately melted with tenderness, or shrunk with sensitive alarm. ”

“ She had always the consciousness of a power—of which she has already given evidence—to ensure to herself a higher, a more real immortality than that which the stage can bestow. She had a very high idea, abstractedly, of the capabilities of her art; but the native elegance of her mind, her poetical temperament, her profound sense of the serious ideal, rendered her extremely, and at times painfully sensitive, to the prosaic drawbacks which attended its exercise in public, and her strong understanding showed her its possible evils. ”

“ When he darkly intimated the irresistible power he possessed to overcome all obstacles to their union—when he spoke with certainty of the time when she should be his, spite of the world and men—when he described the glorious height to which his love would elevate her—the delights and the treasures he would lavish around her, she, indeed, understood not his words; yet, with all a woman's trusting faith in him she loves, she hung upon his accents—listened and believed. ”

“ Thus do I resign all worldly cares, devoting myself henceforth solely to pious duties and religious meditation: for the few days he has to live, let the old man repose upon thy love! A little water, a little rice, a roof to shelter him, these thou shalt bestow—he asks no more."
The Brahman's voice faltered. He rose, and Govinda stood up, trembling in every nerve. ”

“ And, Amrà! my own! my beautiful! my beloved! oh, how richly shall the future atone for these hours of anguish! In these arms the cruel pride and prejudices of thy race shall be forgotten. At thy feet I will pour the treasures of the world, and lift thee to joys beyond the brightest visions of youthful fancy! But—O merciful Allah!"—
At the same moment a long, loud, and piercing shriek was heard from the women's apartments, followed by lamentable wailings. He made but one bound to the door. It resisted, but his despair was strong. ”

“ You have not lightly assumed this disguise, and braved the danger of discovery! You know all, and have come to save me—to bless me? Is it not so?"
Abul Fazil could not see his brother's uplifted countenance, flushed with the hectic of feverish impatience, or his imploring eyes, that floated in tears; but his tones were sufficiently expressive.
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"Poor boy!" he said, compassionately, "I should have foreseen this. But calm these transports, my brother! nothing is denied to the sultan's power, and nothing will he deny thee." ”