File:The essays of Leigh Hunt (1903) (14781974991).jpg

Identifier: essaysofleighhun00hunt (find matches)
Title: The essays of Leigh Hunt
Year: 1903 (1900s)
Authors: Hunt, Leigh, 1784-1859 Symons, Arthur, 1865-1945, ed Brock, H. M. (Henry Matthew), 1875-1960 illus
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Publisher: New York, E.P. Dutton and Company
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: Sloan Foundation

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ded or avowed arts of a gentleman, whenhe was conversing or complimenting, or making love,everything which implied the necessity of attention to theother person, and a just, and as it were, mutual conscious-ness of the graces of life on his own. His manners hadthe true minuet dance spirit of gentility,—the knowledge howto give and take, with a certain recognition of the merits oneither side, even in the midst of raillery. And then hisvoice was remarkable for its union of the manly with themelodious; and as a lover, nobody approached him.Certainly nobody approached a woman as he did. It wasthe reverse of that preposterous style of touch and avoid—that embracing at arms length, and hinting of a mutualtouch on the shoulders,—by which the ladies and gentlemenof the stage think fit to distinguish themselves from thecharacters they perform, and even the Pollys and Macheathspropitiate our good opinion. Elliston made out that it wasno shame to love a woman, and no shame in her to return
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OLD ACTORS 261 his passion. He took her hand, he cherished it against hisbosom, he watched the moving of her countenance, he madethe space less and less between them, and as he at length burstout into some exclamation of charming ! or lovely ! his voice trembled, not with weakness, but with the strengthand fervour of its emotion. All the love, on the stage, sincethis (with the exception of Macreadys domestic tenderness),is not worth twopence, and fit only to beget waiters. In calling to mind the pleasant hours that have beengiven us by the talents of Elliston, we must not forget tomention his defects. In tragedy, for want of a strongsympathy with the serious, he sometimes got into a common-place turbulence, and at others put on an affected solemnity;and he was in the habit of halving between his words.The longer he was a manager, the worse this habit became.He was not naturally inclined to the authoritative; buthaving once commenced it in order to give weight to hislevity, he seems to

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