Page:My Friend Annabel Lee (1903).pdf/89

 give one an idea of positive innocence. In the Magdalene's face—and in that of an actor of Mrs. Fiske's range—these are a beautifully delicate incongruity.

And my friend Annabel Lee has told me that the strongest things are the delicate incongruities—the strongest in all this wide world. Because they make you consider—and considering, you wait.

With such a pair of round, innocent eyes of some grayish color—who can blame Mary Magdalene?

In the latter acts of the play these eyes go one step farther than innocence: they do hunger and thirst after righteousness. And, ah, dear heaven (you thought to yourself), how well they did it! To hunger and thirst after righteousness—not herself, but her eyes. That was this Mary Magdalene's art.

This Mary Magdalene, though she is indeed in the last throes of youth—without