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This was only one of many tragedies which darkened the life of Edwin Booth, for, to use the words of William Winter, he was "tried by some of the most terrible afflictions that ever tested the fortitude of a human soul. Over his youth, plainly visible, impended the lowering cloud of insanity.

At last we, too, were crossing the Atlantic. From childhood I had studied their Natural History, their charts, their Romances, and alas! their Tragedies; and now, at last, I was about to compare books with facts, and judge for myself of the reported wonders of the Earthly Paradise.

Critics have complained of the sameness of his poetry; that he makes all his characters speak equally elegant, and has not attended sufficiently to the manners. This uniformity of versification, in the opinion of some, has spoiled our modern tragedies, as poetry is made to supply nature, and declamation characters.

We may never know the exact truth, but at least we can study a state of morals and manners at Madrid, compared with which the blundering tragedies of Holyrood, in Queen Mary's time, seem mere child's play. The 'lambs' of Bothwell are lambs playful and gentle when set beside the instruments of Philip II.

It is scarcely literature, I confess; it is a sport, a long game which I shall probably be still playing at, with three mouldy old tragedies and one opera yet needed to complete my set, when the Reaper comes to carry me where there is no amassing nor collecting.

He was seized at length with an impulse to be away from it all. As the days went by with their tragedies, he became half wild with restlessness and a strange fear of himself. In spite of his lifelong training, he knew there was wrong in the air.

In the effort to meet and conquer Germany, let us beware of the mistake of Germany. One of the world tragedies of this epoch is the way in which Germany has sacrificed her spiritual heritage, first for economic, then for purely military efficiency.

Such licence has gone: asides are dead, statements of fact in soliloquies are only permitted in formal tragedies. Moreover, having the right to make almost an unlimited number of changes of scenery, they were enabled to present in action the facts which in our days have to be told to the audience in dialogue dialogue written under severe limitations.

Young aspirants to poetical fame regularly began with tragedies; and Horace, accepting this as an actual fact, discusses the rules of tragedy with as much gravity as if he were dealing with some really living and national form of poetry.

At his words, my heart seemed to turn over within me and settle heavily. It was before the days when we discussed life's tragedies with our best men friends. Indeed, it was so long before that I sickened and grew faint at the very thought of the sorrowful knowledge which I kept secret from him. Again he repeated, "What's the matter with you?" but I could find no answer.