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—ye gods ! how we did talk ! ( At least they did ; I am taciturn to a fault !) We laughed , we " made music , " we probed deep questions , and ploughed up the old landmarks of tradition , as if Life itself were only matter for jest , though , in serious truth , we were serious men , to whom Life was very far from being a jest—( I am serious , . sad too , though you wouldn't think it to see my whiskers !)—but the sombre moocLwithout raised a defiant spirit of mirth within ; and Ajax defying the ihunder was but a pose plastique of our moral attitude . There were moments , indeed , when left alone , and the loud echos of mirth had vanished into silence , I felt something akin to what was going on without . Tears , idle tears , I know not what they mean .
( Alas ! I knew too well what they meant . ) Tears from the depths of some divine despair Rise in the heart , and gather to the eyes , In looking on the happy Autumn fields , And thinking of the days that are no more . The days that are no more !—that never more can be ! What can be sadder than the Irrevocable ? The poet says , and truly says , that these gone days are Dear as remembered kisses after death . Dear they are , but the awful Shadow rests upon them ! There is a pleasure in the pain , but the pain is inevitable .
O death in life the days that are no more ! The wind which hurried these clouds across my soul ' s heaven , was a swift wind , and hurried them over it , so that , among the floods , I felt but moments of seriousness ; the Hours were all of mirth . I left this to return to damp and dirty London , and , arrived here , found a pretty squabble going on respecting
THE PRESS AND THE STAGE , with reference to a certain absurd " privilege" which has grown into a huge abuse . Of course you know that newspapers , besides sending in their critics gratis to theatres , have also the privilege of writing " orders " nightly , which orders , ostensibly admitting critics and reporters , do really admit friends and advertisers . Charles Mathews computes that if every person admitted by a press order to the Lyceum during his management had paid money for tliat admission , the theatre would have received no less a sum than five-and-twenty thousand pounds . It will be answered that so many persons would not perhaps have paid their money—a man
will go to the theatre for nothing who will not pay to go . True ; but the computation is nevertheless under the mark , for this reason : a man who has the chance of getting an order is extremely reluctant to pay at all : he waits till he gets one . Therefore , by giving orders , a theatre not only admits nonpaying visitors , but creates a disinclination in playgoers to pay . It is an old observation , that we do not prize what is easily obtained ; price is the standard of prizing . If therefore every week several thousands are admitted gratis to various places of amusement—and the actual figures would astound you—it requires little foresight to perceive that the amusement-loving public will be largely adulterated with indifference . No wonder the drama declines !
Yet patent as the abuses of the order system are , they need some " press agitation " to abolish them . No one manager could afford to break through the system ; only a great journal like the Times could afford to do so . I will render this intelligible by a reference to the leader . On the first establishment of this paper ( a " most desirable medium for advertisements " you will be pleased to observe !) I refused every species of " privilege , " because , as I intended to be perfectly independent , I thought the privilege was a " favour . " For several months the paper had to
conss ^ artf a ^^^ asjfsu'gs and the do ! " Which , being translated , meant , j *> J ™ expect me to advertise in your paper without orders , when I J ™ ™™™* in papers greatly surpassing yours in age , f ^ ation ^^ a l ° ?' fsuch order giving ? " Man is flesh ; I leave you to judge of the effect ot such lis ted " orders , " therefore . Whether it has affected my independence ^ safelybe left to your decision Friend or foe no man « say that tMs pen has written of him what this brain did not think , ± m-
P to ^ lVZ ° qSon has come to be discussed , it behoves the Press for its own dignity , to forego the use of such a " privilege , H ^^ P ^ . S n ° Besfdes " the above " agitation , " my absence _ has P ™ rentef me from seeing the new five act drama at Drury-lane . But another will tell you all about it .
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GOLD ! If the Murchisons and Hargreaves of O'Keefe ' s time had dreamed of " nuggets , " to be turned up by tons from all sorts of places in the BritisJi colonies , Gold would have been a stock piece at those theatres . where " genuine English comedy" is still " triumphant . Yes , it is quite true that the five-act drama , brought out on Monday at Drury Lane , is equal in merit , as near as may be , with the Farmer , the Rovers , or any of the O'Keefian plays which are sometimes galvanized , for experiment , about thr . month of November . Veterans choose such plays for their benent
nights , at the end of the season , when we are called on to rally round our old favourites / and support the legitimate drama . Yet G old owes its success t o novelty of interest , and was hissed only at certain passages where the " useful information , " clothed in melodramatic garb , exceeded moderate limits ,- and at the end , by a few , persons whom we humbly conceive to have been misled by the announcement that the piece was in five acts ; and perhaps also by the familiar sound of certain names among
the dramatis persona . . , The scene at first is in Berkshire , afterwards on the banks ot tne Macquarrie . There is a young farmer , who is in love with his cousin ; and there is a villainous cornfactor , his landlord and rival . There is , besides a scientific Israelite , named Isaac Levi , whom George Sandtord , the young farmer , saves from the violence of John Meadows , the -machinating landlord . Thus the hero of the piece makes a friend and an enemy at a single coup ; and in the counterplotting of these two persons lies the main interest of the play . _ . , .
Mr Davenport never played better than as the honest , impulsive young farmer ; and a minor part , that of William Sandford , a younger brother , was filled by Mr . Moorhouse with carefulness and ease , which seem to promise superiority . Miss Fanny Vining is the rural heroine , a somewhat didactic and , withal vacillating , young lady . Mr . H . Lee has an uphill part as the cornfactor , but he does the best with it ; and Mr . Ji-dward Stirling sustains the chief " character " part of Isaac Levi . A London thief , who turns out quite a pattern of wisdom and justice , when elevated to authority at the "diggings , " is vigorously embodied by Mr . H . Wallack .
A great improvement in the number of visitors is noticeable , and the applause was loud and general when the curtain fell on the happiness of the deserving characters , and the confusion of villany . The piece deserves , and no doubt ( if only as a kej to the Diggings for " intending emigrants" ) will have a run . The attention to scenic detail is a gratifying ' advance on the promise held out by Uncle Tom . Q-
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70 THE LEADER . [ Saturday ^
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A XA MODE Fiianoaise . —Ralph was , in truth , becoming' positively illustrious in foreign society . He had fought a duel ; lie hud imported a now dance from Hungary ; lie had contrived to got the smallest groom that ever was Keen behind a cabriolet ; be bad curried oft" the reigning beauty among the opera dancers of the day from all competitors ; a groat French cook bad composed a grout French dish , and christened it by bis name ; lie was understood to be the " unknown friend , " to whom a literary Polish countess had dedicated her " Letters against the restraint of the Marriage Tic ;; " a female German metaphysician , sixty years old , bad fallen ( Platonically ) in love with him , and had taken to writing erotic ; romances in her old age . Such were some of the rumours that reached my father ' s oars on the subject of his son and heir ! After a long absence , he came home on a visit . How well I remember the astonishment ho produced in the ; whole household ! He ; had become a foreigner in manners and appearance . His mustnohios wore magnificent ; miniature toys in gold and jewellery hung in clusters from his watclicliain ; his shirt-front was a perfect filigree of lace and cambric . He ; brought with him his own boxes of choice liqueurs and perfumes ; his own smart , impudent , French valet ; his own travelling bookcase of French novels , which be cancel with bis own golden key . He drank nothing but chocolate in the morning ; be ; hod long interviews with the cook , and revolutionized our Hfcf £ \ V ?> i ' ^^» . ^ mwir- table . All the ; French newspapers were sent to /^^^ rf ^ C ^^ -ty ^ PX n ljOndoii agent . Ho altered the arrangements f ^ 0 $ ¦ ' :: _ J- . '» V ?< <^ WiApd-roenn ; no servant but bis own valet was pormaS $ kfr-h' \ - ' ' . ' /^ SiaElzJ ° ntor iL Fltln 51 y ix > rtraitn that hung there , £ KM * fcv ' : V \'!^ 3 ? S&ai lt ° " WallH > lllld l X ) rtraitH of French ac-BH ^ pJ ' ' ' ' ^ Sff ^ Pj ^/ ™' 1 lluliuu HinK « r » wuro stuck to tho backs of Kmte ^ Kl ^/ BSinv ***
the canvasses . Then , he displaced a beautiful little ebony cabinet which bad been in the family three hundred years ; and set up in its stead a Cyprian temple of his own , in miniature , with crystal doors , behind which hung locks of hair , rings , notes written on blushcoloured paper , and other love-tokens kept as sentimental relics . His influence became all-pervading among us . He seemed to communicate to the bouse the change that had taken place in himself , from the reckless , racketty young Englishman to tho snperexquisito foreign dandy . Tt was as if the fiery , effervescent atmosphere of the Boulevards of Paris bad insolently penetrated into the old English mansion , and milled and infected its pure ; , quiet , native air , to the ; remotest corners of the place . —Cot / mnr ' h Jiasil . A Fairy Tat-h . —The Sibuyows never e ; at the ; puttin , on account of an old tradition in their tribe . " One day a Dyak was fishing " , and caught only a single puttin , which he ; gave ; to a Malay at whose house he ; landed to procure a light for his pipe . On h ^ s coining buck to get the ; fish , the fish was no longer there , but crouched in the bottom of his canoo was a pretty little girl . The good Dyak was greatly astonished at this transformation , but carried the little girl home , where she ; was brought up with the ; family , and grew to be ; a woman , and in due ; courso married her finder ' s son . No peculiarity was observed in her conduct ; she was like any other Dyak woman , and made a good wife ; she pounded the rice , drew the ; water , made mats , anel conducted the ; affairs of the ; household with propriety anel neatness . After a time , she bore ; her attuched husband a son , and suckled tho boy till he ; could run about , when one day , being at the edge ; of the water with the ; boy and lier husband , sho suddenly mud to him , ' Here , tako tho
child ; be kind to him , for he is my child ; I have beem n good wife , but I must now rejoin my own tribe ; ' and thus saying , she plunged into the river , and became once more a puttin . "—Keppki / b Visit to the Indian Archipelago . 1532 and 1852 . —Tho suppression of the monasteries , though less popular at the moment , yet was also felt by most serious persons , of whatever crettd , to be imperatively called for . Tho grosser moral disorders have ; been probably over-estimated by Protestant controversialists , and the rare exceptionstoolightly assumed to be the rulo . But tho evidence which cnnie out on the visitation of them in 1532 , singularly resembling , as it does , that lately given in reply to tho circulars of the Oxford Commissioners , revealed a systematic breach of vows , non-observance of statutes , and misapplication of funds , which , after exposure , could be neither defended nor tolerated . — Westminster Itcvi&io for January . Tub Fiubt Kish . —Mr . Sherwin hadgom ; out of the room ; Mrs . Sherwin was at the other end of it , watering some plants at the ; window ; Margaret , by her father ' s desire , was showing me some rare ; prints . She handed me a magnifying glass , through which 1 was to look at a particular part of one ; of the engravings , that was considered a master-piece of delicate workmanship . Instead of applying the magnifying test to the print , for which I cared nothing , 1 laughingly applied it to Margaret ' s face ; . Her lovely , lustrous black eye seemed to Hush into mine through the glass ; her warm , quick breathing played on my check—it was but for an instant , and in that instant I kissed her for tho first time . What sensations the kiss gavo mo then !—what remembrances it has left ine now!—OoLMNfl ' a Jiasil .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Jan. 15, 1853, page 70, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1969/page/22/
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