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Untitled Article
this from the very persons , who , a second or two ago , were sitting with such hungry stillness and greedy attention ! What are they made of ? This was interstitial misery ; but delight and ecstasy , choking , suffocating ecstasy , again took possession of me , as the compassionating screen withdrew ils presence . What a bliss is ignorance ! I am quite certain I could not now be bribed to sit through the play of * Orestes , or , the Distrest Mother / as it was
acted on that evening : every thing was faultless , beautiful , divine then , because I had thought no more about the matter ; I had examined no further into the qualities of acting , and materials and workmanship , than the rest of the public , those who are in the habit of deciding the fate of a histrionist . In short , I had not learned to find fault . The star , the wondrous magnet of the evening , the being who drew the enthusiastic multitude to gaze on him , was he who figured as Orestes : but it was Andromache
that stood pre-eminent with me , sweet , tender , and soul-dissolving in my sight . Folks said Hermione was the finest ; she may have been ; but I have ever had an instinctive aversion to a virago , whether in brocade and lace and diamonds , silk or ginghams , or in linsey-woolsey , but the most horrible of these horrors , is a genteel virago ! Where was Astyanax for whom she feared and grieved ? What a blessed child was that for whom she moaned and wept ! And I heard Pyrrhus tell her , ten times at least , with boisterous , bullying condescension , that he loved her , and I disliked Mr . Barryrnore , and this too without loving Miss Norton . Would that this could last for ever ! I wished . Oh ! howl dreaded , whenever my thoughts turned to realities , how I dreaded the termination , the shutting up of this enchantment ! The prospect of the curtain falling , people all going away , lights extinguished , and the ' counting house !'
c Madam , ' tis done , your orders are obeyed ; The tyrant lies expiring at the altar !' said the boyish-murderer ; urged by the o ' er-mastering passion for her who advised the act ; while his mind shook in terror at the raging impulses of his heart . Howl trembled tool Such was the point , the precise moment in that engrossing incident , when a loud ' Ho , Lord , oh !—ho , moy hoy ! moy hoy V broke the dense and dumb mass of spectators into another commotion of heaving , tossing , and yelling . It was not my doing this time , but I felt the burning of shame again upon me . What s the matter ? ' and heedless of shins , shoulders , and heads , down plunged a constable to the quarter from which the disturbing cry uprose . There stood Hermione and Orestes , waiting neither patiently nor complacently , I ween , but striving to personify both , till it pleased the inferior deities above that their regalities should proceed in their hot debate . * Hallo ! what ' s the matter here ? Come out ; ' in the
Untitled Article
My first Play . 481
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1833, page 481, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2618/page/41/
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