The
Professor said truly, Boston does really in some sort stand for the brain
of America. Well the brain of America appreciates the stage. It is but a
few months since the culture and distinction of Boston nightly crowded a
small and inferior theatre, to witness the personations of the young genius
who is destined at no distant day to rival the proudest names of the drama.
The most brilliant successes Edwin Booth has yet achieved have been
achieved in Boston; scholars and wits and poets and professors crowd the
boxes when he plays; women of talent write poems in his praise and publish
them in the "Atlantic Monthly"; professors of Harvard College send him
congratulatory letters; artists paint and carve his intellectual beauty;
and fashion follows in the wake of intellect, alike acknowledging his
merits. Boston recognized those merits, too, when they were first presented
to its appreciation; and now that they verge nearer upon maturity, her
appreciation is quickened and her applause redoubled. It cannot be said
that the taste or culture of the nation is indifferent to histrionic
excellence, when absolute excellence is found.
No other art is yet on such a footing among us. Neither is this because of
our partially developed civilization. It is equally so abroad; where the
nations are oldest and best established in culture, there, too, a similar
state of things exists. No school in painting, no style of sculpture, no
kind of architecture has made such an impression on the age as its music,
as its dramatic music, its opera.
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