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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Untitled Article
to loll and lounge on his journey , verily as if to torment and laugh at me . After a long , long , long watch of outstretched , provokingly prolonged minutes , four o ' clock did come ; two hours previous to the opening of the doors , three before the rising of the curtain : and forth I sallied , stepping , no , vaulting on air .
On my arrival near the theatre , I saw a compact wall of thirty yards length , and fifteen feet breadth , built up of human bodies , close , compact , wedged , and welded : the owner of each particle fearful of slipping an inch in retrograde , or of being squeezed a hair ' s breadth out of the line . I lodged my diminutive substance in the mass . It was a blazing day in June . Oh , my masters , I was soaked ! but I bore it like a hero , as most heroes bear
hardships . I had a glory in view , and flinched not at the squeezing and sweltering . I have lost all this courageous endurance latterly . I could no more find patience to wait two hours now for the opening of the theatre ' s doors , than I could find the centre of gravity by boring for it with a gimlet ; yet my love of the drama is stronger than ever : but on the occasion to which I am now your index , reader , all , every thing was new , of mind-exciting , soulcaptivating , body-panoplying character . The very sky over my head seemed made for , and it did perform the office of , friendly participation in my senses : it communicated an encouraging , smiling , sympathizing brightness to my delight . I was in a bath of perspiration and bliss . I was part , yet single , of the mass assembled for the same object , urging to the same goal . Each individual was a portion of myself ; I loved them all ; they assisted
me in my enjoyment ; they aided me in the expectation of which they were themselves full ; and the two hours ran away unperceived by me : the knowledge that they had passed was communicated by the bending and heaving of the wall , which drove itself inwards by its own invisible and internal machinery ; the secret chain was one soul linked to and coursing through five hundred bodies ; the billowing mass lifted me from my feet , find carried me , resistless and effortless , to within the magical doors .
The same power bore me on to a sort of pigeon-hole , in which I deposited my ticket and received a copper check ; my visit to the pigeon-hole was not of three seconds' duration , but I found opportunity to be struck with the peering , keen , mechanical abstraction of look in the man who received my ticket . It was a species of human being that I had never before recognised , and
I had him down instantly on my tablets ; ( those malleable iron ones of which I spoke in my first chapter ; being rather vain of the phrase I remind you of it , reader . ) Away from the pigeon-hole , and I ran , leaped , and pushed , and panted up the endless , countless , and tantalizing stairs . At length I was in tiik thkatrk ! I started back at sight of the steep , almost precipitous declivity : it seemed like a hill with its components and fragments , creeping , leaping , falling , rolling , rumbling , and settling down in the dying
Untitled Article
476 My first Play .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1833, page 476, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2618/page/36/
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