Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1881-04-10

lameter, and the work of mutilating and dis
Numbering his fame isn't so difficult, because
| what intellectual alleomprising greatness
gar red thatch such as Mr.. Wilkes conjures?
Looking at the majestic brow and signii-
cant face which have been accepted for gener-
atoms as the Shakspearian portrait, and are
the very features we all believe the master
had;-with this picture firmly fixed In
the mind of the world, if that
fair and most satisfying image could be over
| turned with irrefutable proof, why the other
scepticism concerning him would naturally
follow.
For, if good looks we're assigned to him
| wherein he had no real investment, a pre-
eminent repute in mental achievement might
have been conceded as well, and doubt Of the
genuineness of one inevitably brings doubt OF
the strict legitimacy of the other.
But there must be something more than in
genious conjecture, and fanciful Interpretation
of bubbles.
Meanwhile Shakespeare is Shakespeare.
We are pretty apt to associate certain char
acters with certain looks, and to feel peculiar
dash of disappointment-p perhaps, at times, a
sense of injury if there be any discrepancy be-
tween them.
For instance, when Fechter played Hamlet
wearing blonde wig, it was merciless rout-
ing of the popular ideal of the melancholy and
distempered Dane. Our Hamlet must
be tall and spare, and dark complexioned-
possibly with Jewdaic cast of countenance
like that modern daisy in the part, Edwin
Booth. Yet, no doubt the impetuous and
cratic Fechter was historically correct in
giving the predomi mating yellow hair and fair
complexion of Hamiet's nationality
Who thanked him for his correctness in
putting such head on our romantic prince,
so fascinating in his mourning, and not alone
that, but adipose tissue as well. A humorous
gentleman declared that Shakespeare meant
Hamlet to illustrate the mental degradation
to which one may be reduced by obesity.
Said he. know that young ladies and stage
struck and moon-struck fedglings of t'other
sex hug the notion that Hamlet was tall,
fine choking, dark, spare, melancholy youth
whose brain had been partially capsized by the
power of love and revenge, but the dscriminat-
ing know better.
He was less of the ancient Roman than the
modern Dane. He was Saxon, not Celtic.
| Like all his race he was doubtless reliable
trencher-man, and entirely sound on the sub
ject of Wassail. What topper he must have
been! Didn't he offer to drink up Eisel?
In the early stages of the disease just look
how he deplored the heavy burden which was
fasteningIitself upon him, and how fervently
he prayed to be reduced to reasonable size.
| ooh! thatIthis too solidifesh, ETC." is the
burthen of morning prisons and evening
prayers, and then as time goes on he becomes
SO unwieldy that he cannot even fence with
out putting land tblowing like porpoise. A
few minutes practice with Laeters at the
stoccata, the embrocata, the immortal passa-
do, and Lord have mercy upon us! my Lord
Hamlet's wind is gone. Looking at her pant
ing, and perhaps perspiring son, his mother
| says: she's fat and scant o. BREATH"
| tell you that the theory of fat is correct
one, and had Banting lived and published in
those days Hamlet would never have made
such goose of himself as he did, and that
Ophelia, instead of meeting with SO tragic a
fate, would have settled down to suclzle fools
ana chronicle small Deer.
But with all the authorities and commenta-
tors, grave and gay, the ideal Hamlet never
comes to us with yellow locks-forid and Ell!
fail There is a sense of injury in these sug
gestions historical or chronological, and it's an
ungracious task to deface the protraiture of
such a general and deep-seated ideal, even for
the plea of correctness"
This coroo1 howov With vofavo1no To Tho
"Venus of Ailo," that masterpiece of ideal
beauty By an unknown sculptor. It has
pathetic association with Heine's last walk in
the boulevards, May, 1S4s, revolutionary day.
The poet, then. on the brink of his ''mattrass-
grave" for the.next'eight years through soft
ening of the spinal marrow, was caught in one
of the frenzied crowds peculiar to the political
ferment of the tme-and to escape from the
tumult, he struggled along with the help of
his cane, and sought refuge in the Louvre.
He writes to friend: "Only with pain
could drag myself to the Louvre, and was
nearly exhausted when entered the lofty hall
where the goddess OF beauty-the dear Lady of
Milo-stands on her pedestal. At her feet
lay long time, and I wept 80 passionately
that stone must,have had compassion on me.
Therefore the goddess looked down pityingly
upon me, yet at the same time inconsolably, as
hough she would say, See you not that 1
have no arms, and that therefore 1 can give
you no helpT"
Well, something was said last week about
having a few suggestive portraits in this
column of st. Paul's representative beauty
just idealized enough to set readers guessing
the identity of the sitter. Nshould begin with
woman-for place aur DANES is the rule-and
yet what's body. to do?
Just look at the wig-wearing crowd of
women now, with deliberately waved, frizzed,
crimped, and frenzied fronts of false hair in
every depravity of fashionable DISAGREEMENT,
fancying that they have got the drop on Time
while the grim pirate has run down roundness,
bloom, and smoothness.
But what are we talking abouts Didn't
Mary Stuart, and that tremendous epicene
Elizabeth of England, wear false locks, and
didn't Brantome give us the most exquisite
pen portrait of the Queen of Scots? To be
sure he debut may be he wasn't posted
about the suspicious cherelare.
Mrs. Harris says. Heine hobbling about with
cane is sad, and she thinks he was regular
4'gommy' not to have made matrimonial al |
lance where carriage was in order, with a /
liveried and cockaded gentleman on the box to |
drive, while Madame was the solvent party.
In St. Paul it's feasible, while in Paris,-l
Univ Heine uar cilJv With his reunilase