The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America and Europe by James Kendall Hosmer
page 79 of 258 (30%)
page 79 of 258 (30%)
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would not be still better if our dear Harvard, say (the steam of the
pudding infects me through twenty years), among the many new wrinkles she in her old age so appropriately contracts, should devote an evening of Commencement-time to a performance, by the students, under the sanction and direction of professors, of some fine old masterpiece? At our little Sweetbrier we have young men and young women together, as at Oberlin, Antioch, and Massachusetts normal schools. I have no doubt our Hermione, when we gave the _Winter's Tale_, had all the charm of Mademoiselle de Veillanne, who played Esther at St. Cyr. I have no doubt our Portia, in the _Merchant of Venice_, in the trial scene, her fine stature and figure robed in the doctor's long silk gown, which fell to her feet, and her abundant hair gathered out of sight into an ample velvet cap, so that she looked like a most wise and fair young judge, recited "The quality of mercy is not strained," in a voice as thrilling as that in which Mademoiselle de Glapion gave the part of Mordecai. I am sure Queen Elizabeth would think our young cavaliers, well-knit and brown from the baseball-field, "right martial knights, having swart and manly countenances." If she could have seen our Antoninus, when we gave the act from Massinger's most sweet and tender tragedy of the _Virgin Martyr_, or the noble Caesar, in our selections from Beaumont and Fletcher's _False One_, she would have been as ready with the guineas as she was in the case of the son of the dean of Christ Church. Our play at the last Commencement was _Much Ado about Nothing_. |
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