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HENRY IRVING
superstition, which it feeds, and by which,
again, it is fed — can hardly be conceived.
Every utterance of the strident, nasal voice,
with its snaps and snarls, its incisive tones
of hatred, its hard notes of jealousy, its
cold accents of suspicion, its brief touches
of slimy sweetness when a saint is to be
propitiated by devotion, or a foe is to
be destroyed by flattery; every movement
of the false, sneering, lustful lips; every
attitude of the feeble frame, which in the
midst of its decrepit ugliness has instants
of regal dignity; every one of the count-
less expressions of the eyes and eyebrows,
with their wonderful power of questioning,
qualifying, searching, doubting, insinuat-
ing, and denying, — of all these and many
more details in this marvelous picture,
each one is absolutely true to life; each
one has its own place and significance,
and its own precise relation to the general
effect; none is exaggerated or unduly in-
trusive. A finer, truer, and more artistic
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