We do not know how matters were arranged, but we believe that the manager never tried afterwards to convert a classic actor to the romantic school.
The shade of Bishop Berkley would rejoice, could it read at this late date such a tribute to the merit of the once famed tar water, which he invented. But a solemn feeling steals over our heart when we remember that the hand which penned these lines now lies cold in death, and that the shades of the idealist and the poet may ere this have joined in the spirit land.
TAR WATER.
BY GEORGE W. DEWEY.
From the granite of the North,
Leapt this pure libation forth,
Cold as the rocks that restrained it;
From the glowing Southern pine,
Oozed this dark napthalian wine,
Warm as the hearts that contained it;
In a beaker they combine
In a nectar as divine
As the vintage of the Rhine,
While I pledge those friends of mine
Who are nearest, who are dearest in affection.
I have filled it to the brim;
Not a tear could ride its rim;
Not a fleck of sorrow dim
The flashing-smiles that swim
In the crystal which restores their recollection.
Floating on the pitchy wine,
Comes an odor of the brine,
Half suggesting solemn surges of the sea;
A sailor in the shrouds,
Furling sail amid the clouds;
Noisy breakers singing dirges on the lee,
To those friends upon the main,
Who have ventured once again,
In the realm which cleaves in twain
Loving hearts, that fill with pain
When the storm proclaims the terrors of December.
I will clink the beaded edge
Of the beaker, while I pledge
Safety over surf and sedge,
Foaming round the sunken ledge,
In the track of all the loved ones we remember.
And through Carolinian woods,
Ever muffled in the hoods
Of their fir-trees' aromatic evergreen,
I can hear the mellow stops,
Ever swaying in their tops,
To the playing of an organist unseen.
And the breezes bring the balm
Of the solitude and psalm,
From that indolence of calm,
In the land of pine and palm,
Over hills, and over rivers and savannas,
Till my feelings undergo
All their mortal overthrow,
In celestial strains which flow,
In a song of peace below,
From those regions where archangels sing hosannas.
A friend who has roamed in his time over the deserts and slept in Bedawee tents; one to whom the East is as a second mother, and in whose faith the Koran is necessary to really put the finishing touch to a true gentleman, sends us the following eccentric proverbs from the Arabic.
Words of Wisdom.
'A well is not to be filled with dew.'
There speaks the Arab, choice of water as of wine.