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Untitled Article
for such to me they were ^ to be gazed on only at a distance , unapproachable and immaculate ! How beautiful ! how very , very beautiful they were , indeed they were , whether you call them women or goddesses ! how much more than lovely !
Mortality ' s touch , or the voice or breath of earthliness would have blasphemed them . Yet the play-bill informed me that Hermione , the Juno , the tornado queen , Hermione was ycleped by mortals Mrs . Johnstone , and the tearful , sad , and fond , and graciously tender Andromache , was grossly called Miss Norton , and that both were real women ! Bat I would not , I could not believe
it , even though the white cambric , handkerchief of the latter told me it had just left the profane hands of the laundress , it was folded so neatly : and how prettily those pretty fingers unfolded it to my view , and exhibited the nice rectangular creases ere it was lifted to those glorious eyes to wipe away the tears which did not glisten there ! Ah me ! if I had carried a hundred hearts
under my waistcoat , they would all have jumped out and yielded themselves captives , willing , joyous captives . But bless you ^ reader ! I have been in like predicament a hundred times since ; black , brown , fair , and coppery , all have held me in their thralls , and , as I thought with each , past escape . It is all over now , and I am as free as a weathercock . How I followed every step and waving of the arms with my earnest gaze , or I endeavoured to do so ! but I was somewhat perplexed to look at two at
once . How every word and every tone trickled through my ears and dropped into rny heart ! all was delicious , soul-elevating , and soul-subjugating enchantment ! except between the acts ; and then 1 was reminded that I was an earthly gallerian , that all around me were earthly . It would be almost profanation of the subject to turn to the occurrences of the evening pending these intervals ; it was a matter of astonishment to me , that the impressions which I took , and which all seemed to take , could be so
easily thrown away . Amid the general clapping of hands , and thumping with sticks , and beating with hoofs , that followed any thing which pleased or struck the multitude , I was dumb and motionless ; I had no power to bring the palms of my hands in collision ; the vis insita slept ; mind had ceased to act on the body . There was one sympathetic and simple creature sitting next to me ( not the one whose * geawnd I had rucked' ) motionless and mute as myself , but she found breath to whisper to me , « Are
they alive ? ' alluding to the beings on the stage . ' Oh , yes , ' was all my reply , glad to give the information , and not a jot surprised at the question . But between the acts I was really agonized ; what with the ugly change and impatience for the elevation of the cruel act drop-scene , I could scarcely endure myself . There was whistling and shouting , and hallooing to acquaintances , and cork drawing , all in a moment from the descent of the act drop ay , ere it had closed the view in entirely , the villany began ; and
Untitled Article
480 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 480, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2618/page/40/
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