To ease the anguish of a torturing hour?
A play there is, my lord, some ten words long,
Which is as brief as I have known a play;
But by ten words, my lord, it is too long,
Which makes it tedious.
As in a theatre, the eyes of men,
After a well-grac'd actor leaves the stage,
Are idly bent on him that enters next,
Thinking his prattle to be tedious.
I can counterfeit the deep tragedian;
Speak and look back, and pry on every side,
Tremble and start at wagging of a straw,
Intending deep suspicion.
And, like a strutting player, whose conceit
Lies in his hamstring, and doth think it rich
To hearthe wooden dialogue and sound
'Twixt his stretch'd footing and the scaffoldage.
Lo, where the Stage, the poor, degraded Stage,
Holds its warped mirror to a gaping age!
The play is done; the curtain drops,
Slow falling to the prompter's bell:
A moment yet the actor stops,
And looks around, to say farewell.
It is an irksome word and task:
And, when he's laughed and said his say,
He shows, as he removes the mask,
A face that's anything but gay.
In other things the knowing artist may
Judge better than the people; but a play,
(Made for delight, and for no other use)
If you approve it not, has no excuse.
ACTION
(See also Deeds)
Of every noble action the intent
Is to give worth reward, vice punishment.
That low man seeks a little thing to do,
Sees it and does it;
This high man, with a great thing to pursue,
Dies ere he knows it.
What's done we partly may compute,
But know not what's resisted.
Our grand business undoubtedly is, not to see
what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what
lies clearly at hand.
Carlyle—Essays. Signs of the Times.
He is at no end of his actions blest
Whose ends will make him greatest and not best.
Quod est, eo decet uti: et quicquid agas, agere pro viribus.
What one has, one ought to use: and whatever he does he should do with all his might.
Live like fire-hearted suns; to spend their strength
In furthest striving action.
Man is his own star, and the soul that can
Render an honest and a perfect man,
Commands all light, all influence, all fate.
Nothing to him falls early or too late.
Our acts, our angels are, or good or ill,
Our fatal shadows that walk by us still.
