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MR. ERWYN, betrothed to Lady Allonby. VANRINGHAM, an impudent tragedian of the Globe Company. QUARMBY, Vanringham's associate. Miss ALLONBY, an heiress, of a petulant humor, in love with Audaine. MARCHIONESS OF FALMOUTH, an impertinent affected dowager, and grandmother to Miss Allonby. LADY ALLONBY, step-mother to Miss Allonby and Gerald. POSTILIONS, SERVANTS, Etc.
The stage cannot be held in contempt by mankind; because all mankind is acting, and every human being is playing a part. The better a man plays his part, the better he succeeds. The more a man knows of the art of acting, the greater the man; for, from the king on his throne to the beggar in the street, every man is acting. There is no greater comedian or tragedian in the world than a great king.
In the hall giving sound advice, perhaps, to a newly fledged tragedian sat some dear, gray-haired old gentleman in white socks who puffed silently at a long cigar, while from out the low-ceiled, black-oak dining room, resplendent in pewter and hazy with tobacco smoke, came intermittent outbursts of laughter.
I prepared her, as it were, for my coming. I sent her studies of two pictures I made last winter in Berlin. One of the Prime Minister, and one of Ludwig, the tragedian at the Court Theatre. I sent them to her through my London agent, so that she would think they had come from some one of her English friends, and I told the dealer not to let any one know who had forwarded them.
He told some good stories of John Kemble, and told them well; but it seemed an effort to him; and, while the listeners were still smiling at his excellent imitation of the great tragedian, he sank back in his chair with an air of utter abstraction.
Tact, discretion, fine taste, are quite indispensable elements of his performance; he must be really a more complete actor than a great tragedian need be.
I remember, I went once to see the Hamlet of a famed performer, the pride of the English stage; and all I then heard, and all I now remember, of the tragedian, was that in which the tragedian had no part; simply, Hamlet's question to the ghost, "What may this mean, That thou, dead corse, again in complete steel Revisit'st thus the glimpses of the moon?"
The fascinating Mary Fairlie is at length married to Cooper, the tragedian, with the opposition of her parents, after a dismal courtship and a cloudy prospect of happiness. Goodhue is engaged to Miss Clarkson, the sister to the pretty one.
This cynical description of the political situation was pointed by a quotation of the retort of Demades to the successful tragedian "Are you so proud of having got a talent for speaking? why, I got ten talents from the king for holding my peace". This sketch was probably more witty than true; condemnation, when it becomes universal, ceases to be convincing, and cynicism, when it exceeds a certain degree, is merely the revelation of a diseased or affected mental attitude.
It was as though a revered tragedian should overnight find that his vogue had departed; that he was no longer getting over; that an irreverent upstart, breaking in on his most sonorous periods, was getting laughs with slang. We had lots of water; the dust we left behind; it wasn't even hot in the wind of our going! In the shallow crease of hills a shimmer of white soon changed to evident houses.
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