Impressions of America During the Years 1833, 1834 and 1835. Volume 2 (of 2)Power, Tyrone
History
Impressions of America During the Years 1833, 1834 and 1835. Volume 2 (of 2)
Power, Tyrone
Canada -- Description and travel; United States -- Description and travel
But it is not so, as every well-constituted mind will avouch.
Preference, and a constant expression of favour from his auditory,
necessarily beget a kind feeling in return: the actor is aware also that
he is not always in a condition to fulfil his part of the bond; illness,
low spirits, crosses, losses, or any of "the thousand ills that flesh is
heir to," rob the mind of its elasticity, and the body of its power; yet
rarely does the disappointed auditor turn on the favourite and act the
clamorous creditor.
Even in very extreme cases, what a spirit of forbearance have we seen
exhibited, what positive sympathy have we felt extended in our own time
to cherished players! It is at such moments that, more exposed, as he
is, to immediate censure, and more helpless than any other of the
servants of the public, he also feels himself more especially, more
kindly considered, and, if possessed of a kindly heart, cannot fail to
be touched by the feeling.
After illness or prolonged absence too, it is in the electric burst of
welcome, the enthusiastically prolonged cheer of gratulation, and in the
genuine pleasure sparkling from hundreds of uplifted ardent eyes, that
the man who devotes himself to win the player's meed receives his brief,
his shadowy it may be, but his inspiring triumph, accompanied by the
assurance that he is closely linked with the kindest feelings of those
who for the scene are subject to his thrall.
And when at length the hour of farewell comes, it is in the anxious
pause, the breathless attention, yet more impressive than all other
species of homage, that "the poor player," about to be "heard no more,"
reads the assurance that on the many young fresh hearts now subject to
his art he has indelibly engraven his name, often to be pleasantly
recalled in after hours, perhaps of pain and worldly care.
It is in the hope of gaining this living record he seeks consolation for
the absence of all other less perishable fame: expecting, hoping nothing
from posterity, he has a stronger claim upon the kindness of his
contemporaries, for whom alone he lives, and the feeling is reciprocal:
hence it is that these repay him with a superabundance of present
regard, to soften to him the consciousness of the oblivion to which his
memory is inevitably consigned, however great his genius, and however
ardent its longings "after immortality."
JOURNAL
OF A VISIT TO QUEBEC, VIA LAKE CHAMPLAN AND MONTREAL.
_Saturday, May 30th._--Went on board the De Witt Clinton steam-boat
about six P.M. and in the brightest possible night sailed up the most
beautiful of rivers. We were not crowded; my excellent friend C----e was
in company, on his way to take unto him a wife, and consequently the
trip was to me unusually agreeable. We kept pacing the deck until we had
passed through the deep shadows of the highlands, and floated over the
silvery expanse of Newburg Bay.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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