And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss;

so too in the garden-scene, when she half rebukes herself, and all
encourages her lover--

O gentle Romeo,
If thou dost love, pronounce it faithfully;
Or if thou think'st I am too quickly won,
I'll frown, and be perverse, and say thee nay,
So thou wilt woo; but else, not for the world.

And she shows it wonderfully in her coaxing, half-pettish behavior to
the provoking old woman--talkative and reticent by fits and starts, now
whining and now laughing--who has been to seek out Romeo, and brought
back news of him. In _As You Like It_, Rosalind's bright humor ripples
and laughs like a silver brook through the glades of Ardennes, and
trickles gently even into the epilogue: in this lively comedy--so much
lighter and easier than the heavy tragedy we are discussing too--love
and despair never come to overlay and destroy the arch humor. If there
be any defect in the performance of the banished princess, it must still
remain, like Orlando's verses, tacked to some tree in the forest, but,
unlike those verses, still unseen.

To return to the tragedy--for in the discussion of two plays in which
the same faculties are exhibited by the same actress it is most
convenient to pass at times from one play to the other--who that has
seen Miss Neilson tread the stately _minuet de la cour_ at the ball
given in the palace of the Capulets will deny her the possession of
marvelous grace? The long floating robe and abundant train, the
high-heeled, pointed shoe of the period, instead of embarrassing her,
seem but to give additional opportunity for displaying elegance of pose
and gesture. In the garden-scene, when nightingales are whist, bright
moonlight falls upon the balcony, and lights up the face of Juliet who
leans there, certainly the fairest flower in that scenic paradise. As
yet the course of love runs smooth for her: she does not dream of the
dreadful gulf down which she is about to plunge, and her happy tones
fall musically upon the air, "smoothing the raven down of darkness till
it smiles." This happiness continues till her speedy and clandestine
marriage. Soon after the Nurse comes home, and by her incoherent
mutterings leads Juliet to suppose that Romeo is slain: then we have the
first display of grief, but it is a grief so sudden and so violent that
the blow stuns and almost silences the young wife. She is roused from
this by learning at l