On this page
-
Text (1)
-
Untitled Article
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.
-
-
Transcript
-
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.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
her exertions , ' That woman would even say her prayers if they were in her part , and she was paid for it !' That the dramatic profession has also its demoralizing tendencies , we have no doubt ; although we do doubt whether they can be worse than those of many avocations which are in better odour ; and doubt much more whether they are the real cause of the feeling which it excites .
The great evil of the actor ' s life is analogous to that which is so extensively produced by the subdivision of labour . He only does one thing , and that incessantly ; and it only exercises one class of his faculties , a confined portion of his being . His sole work is to cast his own powers of expression in moulds prepared for them by the intellect of others . These moulds may be so large that he cannot fill them , so small that he overflows them ,
so unadapted that they gall him ; but still , on he must go , day after day , fusing his feeling and presenting it in the prescribed form . Very-dimcult indeed , in such a course of life , must be that expansion of mind and heart without which man is not a progressive , that is to say , not a moral being . Hence so many actors have little knowledge beyond their authors and their art , no decided opinions or principles , no independence or individuality , —in short , no character , save that which is professional . But it is for other reasons that they are , both men and women , generally disesteemed ; and those reasons mainly are , that the former are often known to be improvident , and the latter are sometimes supposed to be unchaste . Improvidence is only pardonable under privilege of Parliament , and finds no shelter beyond the folds of that mantle which hides so much better than even all-covering charity . And as to the other offence , it is the loss of woman ' s virtue ; she has but that , and surely ought to keep it , as it exonerates from the practice of all the rest , and alone constitutes the
gulf between good and bad in her sex . She may be full of ' envy , hatred , malice , and all uncharitableness ; ' as ignorant as an ass , as obstinate as a mule , as blind as a beetle , as poisonous as an asp , and as savage as a hyaena , and yet be a virtuous woman . She may , from sheer vanity , excite affection which she means to disappoint ; she may marry without a spark of love ,
and procure clothes , board , lodging and money , by the legal barter of her person ; she may vend the heartless form , if it wear well enough , again and again , and renew the disgusting bargain and perform its conditions to the end of her days , and yet be a virtuous woman . She may , by her wasteful expenditure , scatter
to the winds the hard earnings of her husband ; she may withhold all sympathy from the honourable but not profitable exertions in which he needs it , and ever influence towards sycophancy and selfishness ; she may abandon her children to hirelings , or only teach them lessons better unlearnt , training them to leave ana
Untitled Article
M& CnmpbttV * ti / e of Mr * . SiddonM .
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1834, page 536, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2636/page/6/
-