whole the conception of the character was defective. There was not the
exquisite under current of deep feeling, gentleness and fresh-heartedness ;
evident in her portrayal of the sweetest, dearest heroine Shakspere
hath created for us. Ah me! how full of briars is this working
day world! was not given as a bursting forth of mingled sorrow and
womanly feeling. And By this hand-it would not harm a fly!
almost verged on common-place. Best was she in her playful
descriptions of time s paces, and perhaps most in the sweet counter
feit I assure you! She is a clever woman. I
was pleased at seeing little Scharf of Sadlers Wells in Touchstone.
/ How vilely do the players counterfeit nature, neither walking,
looking nor speaking like men of God s making aught else.
A villanous, overdrawn striving to make effect of every line and word
so that a servitors message cannot be delivered without buffonery or
tragic grimace: a strongly marked line drawn of good and ill
characters; such a one is a villain, therefore must he scowl
fold his arms, bellow and look melo-drame in every line Why
Oliver is simply an avaricious, moody, tyrannical, self willed man,
yet was his splenetic curse be better employed, and be naught a-
while! given as though he invoked all unspeakable horrors in the
head of Orlando. But bah! let me not think of these fellows
but of the Most Divine play itself.
It is to be bodily transported into the Golden Age. To revel in the
richest, most genial and deepest thoughts of the Poets Mind. To
listen to the most profound, sweetly solemn comments on all that
fills up the routine of mortals. To be gladdened by the out pourings
of the quaintest wit; to hold converse with Nature in her most
inviting mood.
a perpetual feast of nectared sweets
Where no crude surface reigns
To think with, to love with Orlando, the noble, gentle-hearted &| Page |
| Title: | Thomas Butler Gunn Diaries, Volume One: page one hundred and eighty |
| Description: | Comments on Shakespeare's play, ''As You Like It.'' |
| Date: | 1850-10-08 |
| Subject: | Actors; Cushman, Pauline; Gunn, Thomas Butler; Theater; Shakespeare, William |
| Coverage (City/State): | [New York, New York] |
| Scan Date: | 2011-02-07 |
| Volume |
| Title: | Thomas Butler Gunn Diaries, Volume One |
| Description: | Details Gunn's first year living in the United States, including his experiences with boarding house living in Jersey City and New York City, looking for work as an artist and a writer, publishing his first book ""Mose Among the Britishers"" and brief visits to Philadelphia and Boston. |
| Subject: | Boardinghouses; Books and reading; Drawing; Gunn, Thomas Butler; Publishers and publishing; Theater; Travel |
| Coverage (City/State): | New York, New York; Jersey City, New Jersey; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Boston, Massachusetts |
| Note: | Thomas Butler Gunn was born February 15, 1826, in Banbury, England, and came to New York in 1849. During the Civil War he worked as a correspondent for the New York Tribune and the New York Evening Post. He returned to England in 1863, and died in Birmingham in April 1903. The collection includes twenty-two volumes of his diaries, including newspaper clippings, letters, photographs, sketches, and various other items inserted by Gunn. Diary entries date from July 7, 1849, to April 7, 1863, and include his experiences with the New York publishing and literary world, his descriptions of boarding houses, his travels throughout the United States, and his experiences traveling with the Federal army as a Civil War correspondent. |
| Publisher: | Missouri History Museum |
| Rights: | Copyright 2011 Missouri History Museum. |
| Source: | Page images, transcriptions, and metadata of the Thomas Butler Gunn diaries have been provided by the Missouri History Museum. |
