The essential attributes that Lawrence Barrett did not possess were enchantment for the public and adequate and philosophic patience for himself. He gained, indeed, a great amount of public favour, and,--with reference to an indisputable lack of universal sympathy and enthusiasm,--he was learning to regard that as a natural consequence of his character which formerly he had resented as the injustice of the world. Men and women of austere mind do not fascinate their fellow-creatures. They impress by their strangeness. They awe by their majesty. They predominate by their power. But they do not involuntarily entice. Lawrence Barrett,--although full of kindness and gentleness, and, to those who knew him well, one of the most affectionate and lovable of men,--was essentially a man of austere intellect; and his experience was according to his nature. To some persons the world gives everything, without being asked to give at all. To others it gives only what it must, and that with a kind of icy reluctance that often makes the gift a bitter one. Lawrence Barrett, who rose from an obscure and humble position,--without fortune, without friends, without favouring circumstances, without education, without help save that of his talents and his will,--was for a long time met with indifference, or frigid obstruction, or impatient disparagement. He gained nothing without battle. He had to make his way by his strength. His progress involved continual effort and his course was attended with continual controversy and strife. When at last it had to be conceded that he was a great actor, the concession was, in many quarters, grudgingly made. Even then detraction steadily followed him, and its voice--though impotent and immeasurably trivial--has not yet died away. There came a time when his worth was widely recognised, and from that moment onward he had much prosperity, and his nature expanded and grew calmer, sweeter, and brighter under its influence. But the habit of warfare had got into his acting, and more or less it remained there to the last. The assertive quality, indeed, had long since begun to die away. The volume of needless emphasis was growing less and less. Few performances on the contemporary stage are commensurate with his embodiments of Harebell and Gringoire, in softness, simplicity, poetic charm, and the gentle tranquillity that is the repose of a self-centred soul. But his deep and burning desire to be understood, his anxiety lest his effects should not be appreciated, his inveterate purpose of conquest,--that overwhelming solicitude of ambition often led him to insist upon his points, to over-elaborate and enforce them, and in that way his art to some extent defeated itself by the excess of its eager zeal. The spirit of beauty that the human race pursues is the spirit that is typified in Emerson's poem of _Forerunners_--the elusive spirit that all men feel and no man understands. This truth, undiscerned by him at first, had become the conviction of his riper years; and if his life had been prolonged the autumn of his professional career would have been gentle, serene, and full of tranquil loveliness.