CHAPTER XXXVI.

occurred to the children. The improvident Rip is discovered when Dame Van Winkle throws open the inn window-shutter, which contains the enormous score against her husband, and when Rip drinks from the bottle over the dame's shoulder as he promises to reform. The most popular and the most thriftless man in the village; the most intelligent and the least ambitious; the best-hearted and the most careless;—the numerous contrasts which the role presents demand versatility in design and delicacy in execution. They are worked out with a moderation and a suggestiveness that are much more natural than if they were presented more decidedly. The sympathy of Mr. Jefferson's creation is the greatest secret of its popularity. In spite of glaring faults, and almost a cruel disregard of the family's welfare, Rip Van Winkle has the audience with him from the very beginning. His ineffably sad but quiet realization of his desolate condition when his wife turns him out into the storm, leaves scarcely a dry eye in the theatre. His living in others and not in himself makes him feel the changes of his absence all the more keenly. His return after his twenty years' sleep is painful to witness; and when he asks, with such heart-rending yet subdued despair, "Are we so soon forgot when we are gone?" it is no wonder that sobs are heard throughout the house. His pleading with his child Meenie is not less affecting, and nothing could be more genuine in feeling. Yet all this emotion is attained in the most quiet and unobtrusive manner. Jefferson's sly humor crops out at all times, and sparkles through the veil of sadness that overhangs the later life of Rip Van Winkle. His wonder that his wife's "clapper" could ever be stopped is expressed in the same breath with his real sorrow at hearing of her death. "Then who the devil am I?" he asks with infinite wit just before he pulls away at the heartstrings of the audience in refusing the proffered assistance to his tottering steps. He has the rare faculty of bringing a smile to the lips and a tear to the eye at the same time. From the first picture, which presents young Rip Van Winkle leaning carelessly and easily upon the table as he drinks his schnapps, to the last picture of the decrepit but happy old man, surrounded