Download File

MEMORABLE EXPERIENCES
carded, and the stress was thrown upon
" liveth," which, by some swift alchemy of
tone or accentuation, was charged with the
fullness of the soul's conviction ; while, in
the closing passages of the air, the words
" the first fruits of them that sleep " as-
cended like the breath of one who longed
to be with those that rest in the hope of
a joyful resurrection.
Time is most relentless in effacing re-
membrance of the work of public readers.
Let a strong word, then, be said for Levi
Thaxter, who read the poems of Robert
Browning in a fashion beside which all
other attempts in that kind were, and yet
are, prosaic, small, and faint. He was not
a professional elocutionist, and his efforts
were not deformed by mechanical artifice;
his voice was sweet, pure, and of extraor-
dinary depth and reach, and his enuncia-
tion and pronunciation were elegantly fault-
less. The source of his peculiar power was
in his full sympathy with poet and poem,
[ 175 ]