Page:Papers on Literature and Art (Fuller).djvu/138

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PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.

hearer; and Zara, you weep, was so spoken as to melt the whole French nation into that one moment.

Elena’s sob of anguish:

Arouse yourself, sweet lady: fly with me,
I pray you hear; it was his last command
That I should take you hence to Ghent by Olsen.
ELENA.
I cannot go on foot.
VAN RYK.
No, lady, no,
You shall not need; horses are close at hand,
Let me but take you hence. I pray you come.
ELENA.
Take him then too.
VAN RYK.
The enemy is near,
In hot pursuit; we cannot take the body.
ELENA.
The body! Oh!

In this place Miss Kemble alone would have had force of passion to represent her, who

Flung that long funereal note

Into the upper sky?

Though her acting was not refined enough by intellect and culture for the more delicate lineaments of the character. She also would have given its expression to the unintelligent, broken-hearted,

I cannot go on foot.

The body—yes, that temple could be so deserted by its god, that men could call it so! That form so instinct with rich gifts, that baseness and sloth seemed mere names in its atmosphere, could lie on the earth as unable to vindicate its rights, as any other clod. The exclamation of Elena, better bespoke the tragedy of this fact, than any eulogium of a common observer, though that of Burgundy is fitly worded.