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A DRAMATIC CRITIC and in his firm grasp of their thought. His reading, as an illumination of the text, was marvelous, and fairly compelled Browning to be comprehensible, even in works as subtle and obscure as La Saisiaz. Mr. Thaxter's dramatic gift was nothing short of magnificent, and I put his read- ing of the dialogue of Ottima and Sebald, in Pippa Passes, in the same class, for force and completeness, with Mrs. Kem- ble's reading of the Shakespearean trage- dies. In quite another kind, but unique and highly remarkable, was the reading of Shelley's and Keats's poetry by Mr. Wil- liam Ordway Partridge, now noted as a sculptor. Not much of the verse of Shel- ley will bear putting under the logician's press or into the analyst's crucible; but some of it is the fine wine of poetry, — poetry for poets, as has been cleverly said, appealing to the subtlest parts of the im- aginative sense, as remote from the com- [ ^76 ]
MEMORABLE EXPERIENCES mon touch as a rosy cloud dissolving in a sunset glow. Mr. Partridge read Shelley as if he were the author as well as the interpreter of the verse. His refined and delicate beauty of face, intensified by a rapturous expression as if he were thrilled by the melody which he made; the clear tones of his cultivated voice, not widely varied in modulation, but perfect within a sufficient range; his absolute plasticity and responsiveness under the thrill of the music, combined to give his reading an exquisitely appropriate distinction. There was, indeed, in his delivery something singularly lovely and impossible to de- scribe, — the product, apparently, of a gift, like Shelley's own, to charge mere sound with sense, so that it seemed to bear a message almost without the help of ar- ticulate utterance. The reference to Mrs. Kemble suggests a contrast sharply noted in my mind a few years ago. As a very young man, I had the [ ^77 ]
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MEMORABLE EXPERIENCES<br />
mon touch as a rosy cloud dissolving in a<br />
sunset glow. Mr. Partridge read Shelley<br />
as if he were the author as well as the<br />
interpreter of the verse. His refined and<br />
delicate beauty of face, intensified by a<br />
rapturous expression as if he were thrilled<br />
by the melody which he made; the clear<br />
tones of his cultivated voice, not widely<br />
varied in modulation, but perfect within<br />
a sufficient range; his absolute plasticity<br />
and responsiveness under the thrill of the<br />
music, combined to give his reading an<br />
exquisitely appropriate distinction. There<br />
was, indeed, in his delivery something<br />
singularly lovely and impossible to de-<br />
scribe, — the product, apparently, of a gift,<br />
like Shelley's own, to charge mere sound<br />
with sense, so that it seemed to bear a<br />
message almost without the help of ar-<br />
ticulate utterance.<br />
The reference to Mrs. Kemble suggests<br />
a contrast sharply noted in my mind a few<br />
years ago. As a very young man, I had the<br />
[ ^77 ]
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