The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1898-02-06
the sLars axe fire Douht lhat the sun doth

the stars are fire, Doubt that the sun doth
move"-an ejaculation. by the way, which
makes Hamlet's love for Ophelia depend
ent on an erroneous astronomical theory
doubt truth to he a liar, But never
doubt I love-" is a puatrain which would
lend itself admirably to a version in very
choice Italian" On the other hand, a cold
parental inquiry as to the means and ca
pectations of the impassioned wooer seems
almost to elamor for utterance In the dam
guage which is SO reltgiously consecrated
to the service of 1.-THE almighty dollar"
1t appears pretty plain, however, that
prose, even Italian prose, soon proved TO
be an inadequate medium for the utter
ance of the lovers emotions. He has ask
ed, we are told, and obtained permission
TO dedicate one of his poems to the fair
Virginian." The word dedicate" it is
true, is a little ambiguous, and of course
might merely imply a desire on his part
to ''inscribe" poem of his innamorala.
We incline to believe, however, that the
word has what the venerable critic of a
certain famous love letter described as a
more tenderer'' meaning than that.
Prince Fabian, we take it. intends not
simply TO dedicate poem to Miss Moran
in the formally complimentary sense of the
term, but to devote a poem TO the celebra-
ton of those charms which as yet he has
never actually seen in the flesh, but has
gazed upon in a specimen of the pho
tcgrapher's art.
This it must be admitted is to Guido the
lover as described by the melancholy
Jacques. To Sigh like a furnace, with
woeful ballad made to his mistress eye
brow" may be comparatively easy task
to a love-siek swain, who has actually seen
the eyebrow which has inspired his Muse
But to drop into poetry over this point of
feminine beauty as exhibited on a portrait
cabinet size, a guinea for the first half
L. g. III
higher degree of imaginative ardor, not
to add singularly firm faith in the pro-
ducts of the camera. Petrarch, himself
the supreme type of the poetic lover, ii is
difficult to imagine as the subject of so
immaterial an inspiration. Would a 'ko-
baked half-length of Laura have turned
on the poetic stop and produced the SON.
net. sequence? From some accounts of
the poets mistress 1t is rather to be in
ferred that it would have produced an tx
actly opposite effect The subject of his
adoring verse is said to have had a GER
tain opulence of charm which required a
good deal of idealization on the part of
the sonnetteer. Had he written with a
portrait of the matronly Laura before him
in the form of a photograph representing
the original even better developed" than
himself, his praises might have lost much
OF their fervor We can well believe that
Miss Morans likeness, on the other hand
Is a cream of beauty, and that as a por-
trait it fully justifies Prince Fabian's rap
lures. STILL he has to take the risk of it
being too f1attering, and there is an ele-
ment of chivalry in his unhesitating de-
lance of the mere possibility of disap-
pointment. Royal suitors it is true have
often contracted and even by proxy gone
through the ceremony of marriage with
brides whom they have never seen, but
that of course, was because the natural
and human preference for looking before
you leap has had to give way to reasons
OF state. Sometimes, too, they have
drawn back at the last moment, as In the
case of one of the proposed alliances of
our much-married Henry, who would
have been spared the performance of
painful duty to himself If somebody could
nave furnished him with a "snap shot,
OF Anne of Cleves When, however the
evidence of portrait is distinctly adverse
to the original the situation is simplifed
MISS Moran's case is one of the opposite
KIND. There the evidence is in the highest
degree favorable, and we hope and be-
ieVe that 1t is to be implicitly relied on.