Those who would turn from Church's or Page's pictures with
indifference are frequently attracted by the representations in a theatre.
The pictures there are more alive, more real, more intense, and fascinate
many unable to appreciate the recondite charms of the canvas. The grace of
attitude, the splendid expression, the intellectual art of Ristori or
Rachel may impress those who fail to discover the same merits in colder
stone, in Crawford's marble or the statues of Palmer; and they may
sometimes learn to relish even the delicate beauties of Shakspeare's text,
from hearing it fitly declaimed, who would never spell out its meaning by
themselves. The drama is certainly superior to other arts while its reign
lasts, because of its veriness, its actuality. He must be dull of
imagination, indeed, who cannot give himself up for a while to its
illusions; he must be stupid who cannot open his senses to its delights or
waken his intellect to receive its influences.
Neither can a taste for the stage be declared one which only the ignorant
or vulgar share. Though away in the wilds of California a theatre was often
erected next after a hotel, the second building in a town, and the
strolling player would summon the miners by his trumpet when not one was in
sight, and instantly a swarm peeped forth from the earth, like the armed
men who sprang from the furrows that Cadmus ploughed,--though the wildest
and rudest of Western cities and the wildest and rudest inhabitants of
Western towns are quick to acknowledge the charms of the stage,--yet also
the most highly cultured and the most intellectual Americans pay the same
tribute to this art.
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