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To which Polonius replies, "That I did, my lord, and was accounted a good actor. I did enact Julius Caesar. I was killed in the Capitol." Do not suppose, Fastidiosus, that the playing of Polonius was any such light affair as you and I used to be concerned in up in the fourth story of "Stoughton," when we were members of the Hasty Pudding.
It is worthy the observing, that there is no passion in the mind of man, so weak, but it mates, and masters, the fear of death; and therefore, death is no such terrible enemy, when a man hath so many attendants about him, that can win the combat of him. Nay, Seneca adds niceness and satiety: Cogita quamdiu eadem feceris; mori velle, non tantum fortis aut miser, sed etiam fastidiosus potest.
Your face now, Fastidiosus, wears a frown like that of Rhadamanthus; but I remember our Hasty-Pudding days, when you played the part of a queen, and behaved in your disguise like Thor, in the old saga, when he went to Riesenheim in the garb of Freya, and honest giants, like Thrym, were frightened back the whole width of the hall.
Were Joachim Greffs masters in our high schools and in the English chairs in our colleges, we might now and then catch a glimpse of precious things at present hidden away in never-opened store-houses, and see something done toward the development of a taste that should drive out the opera-bouffe. Here, at the end, Fastidiosus, is what I now shape in mind.
As the crimson curtain was drawn apart, an organ sounded, and a far-away choir sent into the hush the Ave Verum of Mozart, low-breathed and solemn. It was not Munich, Fastidiosus.
Come, Fastidiosus, I shall invite too the editors of David's Harp, and you shall all own the truth of Milton's own words, "that sanctity and virtue and truth herself may in this wise be elegantly dressed," when the attendant spirit recites: "Now my task is smoothly done, I can fly or I can run Quickly to the green earth's end, Where the bowed welkin low doth bend; And from thence can soar as soon To the corners of the moon.
I have been distressed, dear Fastidiosus, by your remonstrance concerning the performance at our college at Sweetbrier of a "stage play." You have heard the facts rightly; that it was given under the superintendence of the English professor, the evening before Commencement, "with many of the accessories of a theatre."
I do not advocate, Fastidiosus, a return to the ancient state of things, which I doubt not was connected with many evils; but is there not reason to think a partial revival of the old customs would be worth while? It was not for mirth merely that the old professors and teachers countenanced the drama.
It was the young Schiller, wild as a pythoness upon her tripod, with the Robbers, which became famous in the following year. But I do not mean, Fastidiosus, to cite only German precedents, nor to uphold the college drama with the names of Reuchlin, Melancthon, and Luther alone, majestic though they are. In the University of Paris the custom of acting plays was one of high antiquity.
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