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But it cannot be . Such families as the Bedfords can only exist l > y favour of concurrent circumstances , which come but to the few—healthy and luckily assorted parentage , easy means , and happy chances in the way of friends and connexions . A scoundrel might blast its happiness ; a reckless schemer might break the bank ; an ill-assorted marriage might have poisoned the family in its birth . Such homes are the prizes in the social lottery : the lot of the million is happy if it is no worse than blank ; for the multitude cannot have many of the circumstances essential to domestic happiness , as it is here seen .
Meanwhile , it is a blessing that Bedfords exist , to show how man can be happy , even in trammelled England . For the invidious complaint of the dogmatic democrat , that the few enjoy while the many mourn , is a false feeling . It is wholesome to view a happy lot , even from a distance : it embodies hope , or soothes suffering through the sympathies . True to my restless habits , I was up before the rest , and am reporting progress before we set out on our tour again . For we are going to spend the evening , much against the will of the Bedfords , at the house of another friend . Tonight , you know , is the festival of the Three Kings , which the English keep with a sort of unmasked masquerade ; though the sport , they tell me , is going out of fashion , as most sports are . Sophy comes down here to-morrow : Mrs . Bedford knows all , and , like all truly virtuous hearts ,
her reprobation shows itself in nothing but pity and the desire to restore health . God bless you both .
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THE PRIM A DONNA : OPENING OF THE PRINCESS'S THEATRE . On Saturday the Princess ' s re-opened to a crowded , good-humoured audience , with a petite comedy from the French , signed by Dion Bourcicault , to guarantee it as an imitation de bonne foi . By the way , I must be allowed to express my personal gratitude to the French and their language , not merely for furnishing our stage with material , but also for furnishing me with a Mask to be worn on peculiar occasions . You shall judge .
On Friday , Le Chat Hiiant and I were to take a dinner of relaxation with a friend at Thames Ditton . In the train we were both occupied reading works of an entertaining and instructive character . He was buried volume deep in a Treatise on Subsoil Drainage , and I , true to my character for frivolity , turned over Kant ' s chapter on The Antinomies of Reason ( a pleasant diversion on a wet afternoon , or when in a rumbling railway carriage ) . As the train arrived , I suggested , " This must be Thames Ditton ? " " I don't think so , old fellow , " he replied , in his takeit-coolly way ; but after some urging he consented to look out and see .
" No , I don't think this is it . And yet , 'pon my life , I don't know . " " Ask . " " There ' s no guard . " " Ask that gent in the alarming trousers . " " The guard will be here directly . " In this lax and hesitating condition we remained until at last he called out to the guard , learned that it was the station , and opened the door , when he was peremptorily ordered to keep his seat , for the train had started ! This was agreeable ! At the thought of the dinner left behind , Hunger waltzed madly in the vast vacuity of our visceral spaces ; while Imagination called Tip phantom-horrors of our not stopping at any station for half
an hour or more ! We had " to make the best of it , " and on arriving at the place where they take the tickets for Hampton Court , I sprang out of the carriage in spite-of vociferous porters assuring me , " You can ' t get out here , sir" ( how little they knew Vivian !) and availing myself of a facility in speaking broken Knglish , I assumed the character of a muchinjured and very furious Frenchman . \' ou should have witnessed the scene I lint followed ! " Where is the ; inspector /—I will to see the inspector . I have lac Let for Temms Dif-on , and I am carry a- \\ ay . " " You should have go I . out , . sir , at the time . " " Comment ! I shall gel , out ! When 1 not know dni we arrive nl Tannis Dit-on . You have no call out
de slacion I" " \ oh , I did , Kir . " " Mais je vans dis < jue -non ! If you have call out ' /' cmins Dil-on , then nattireUement I say , Me voila ! et alors je descends . . But you call no station . I spike wid your . Inspector . " You must suppose Le Chat Iluaut wit h dignified gravity looking on , the guard bewildered , me voluMe and irate . From the windows of the carriage gazed Ihe curious . Such n scene ! And then a , snuhnoscd " party , " looking from one of the windows , ventured to interfere , and declare lie heard the guard call out the station . As he was leagued against me , I thought it proper to crush him ; so , not understanding vvhaf , he said , I turned to ( . ! . . 11 ., and asked , contemptuously , ( In'est ce i / k ' -H chante celui-la / Whereupon the " party , " anxious to show his familiarity with European dialects , made an approximative ! dash at an allirmative , and said , " We , we /" Turning my wrath upon him , I said , " Comment , oni I" " We , we !" " You have hear him call de stacion ' { " " We ' . jai entandoo , " he replied , perfectly satisfied with the purity of his accent ; but as he was against
me , 1 refused to recognise thai he even meant to speak French ; and he Bank back , blushing ni hin failure in the eyes of railway porters and friends To hasten to the conclusion , 1 so overpowered the guard with a sense of our injury , thai he meekly oflered to repair it by taking us back on the locomotive , as noon us the passengers were out . He did ho . We mounted the locomotive , and we were carried back to Thames Diffon in triumph ! " And pray , sir , what has all this to do with the ' Prima Donna ' /" What a question ! . If you come to that , sir , what have j / ou to do with ihe Prima , Donna ' I or , what has the Prima Donna , herself t , o do with the piece P . She might have been anything else with equal propriety ; no , not anythin else—not a . chest , of drawers , for example ! However , as you insist upon an explanation , listen . In the anecdote ju . st narrated , you see how useful the acquisition of l < Yench may be . Had 1 been simply an lOnglinhmun , I should have hud to boar the consequences of Lc , Chat Iluant ' e taking it coolly . JJul the terror of the . French numo— tho
conquerors of the " universe "—the soldiers who won the battles of To , l and Waterloo—naturally inspired the British guard ( railway euarS - ^ meek alacrity to make me comfortable . In fact , French did for nit \ it does for our dramatists—converted a difficulty into a triumph ! But the curtain is up ! Stella , the Prima Donna in question pnt followed by Mr . Bouble , an amorous banker . Stella is the dJbut ' Miss Heath , a young lady with fine eyes and hair , whose drawing ro carriage and intelligent delivery give promise of an agreeable actress line poorly furnished on our stage . The banker is Walter Xacv ** Wigan . Rouble is an eccentric , excellent creature , with " strictly hem ^ able intentions" towards the fair Stella . But of what use are " int " tions "—of what use is love , when the heart is already occupied ? Otn ^" vincit amor , says the bragging poet ; to which maxim I beg to add a cod- !* Prosier amorem—" Love conquers all thiftgs—except Love ! " and mot true is the remark of Stella— " Poor Rouble ! I should like him ver much if he did not love me ! " Who has not read that chapter in the history of Love?—who is there . ignorant of that " sorrow ' s crown of sorrow , " the misery of irremediable wrong arising out of all being claimed when only some can be given ? Love does not conquer that ! And yet the banker is not to be pitied . He is happy , after a ^ l . If not happy in his love , as people say , he is happy by love , for love is fuller life , as Calderon testifieth : — Pues vive mas donde ama El hombre , que donde aniina ! or , to give it you in the more touching verse of Milnes : — He who for Love has undergone The worst that can befall , Is happier thousand-fold than one Who never loved at all ; A grace within his soul has reigned Which nothing else can bring—Thank God for all that I have gained By that high suffering ! And so you see Rouble is not to be pitied , especially as we guess at once that Stella will accept him after all . But how ? Does she not love Count JErig , an officer in the Austrian service ? ( Such an officer ! such an Austrian I Ye gods I I think every patriotic soul in the theatre must have thrilled with contemptuous delight at that effigies of Austria !) There lies the dramatic difficulty . But to Frenchmen , w hether at Temms Dit-on or : n Milan , difficulty is an inadmissible word . Voyons . Can we not get rid of this young Austrian ? There is Stella ' s adopted sister Margaret , " sickening of that vague disease , " can we not revive her ? To a Frenchman nothing is impossible . The thing is done—how , I won't tell you , because that will take the edge off your curiosity ; but it is done , and a sufficiently amusing drama represents the doing of it . Bourcicault , according to gossip report , was to have played the young Austrian ; had lie done so , the piece would have been infinitely more agreeable , for , with the best will in the world , one could not feel the slightest interest in Mr . Cathcart ' s presentation of the part : it was bad Charles Kean ! Heavens ! ! Good Charles Kean was seen in the Corsica ?* Brothers , which followed . This is really a good piece of acting from first to last , and all in " keeping . " He strikes the key-note early , and never wanders from it . The duel is perfect . Walter Lacy , who was very amusing in the first piece , was at a disadvantage in Chateau Renaud . His manner had not a toudi of the Frenchman , so that his " make up" by its very fidelity brought into stronger relief the English nature it was meant to disguise . By the way , I neglected to give a word of deserved praise to Miss Itoberlson for her acting of Margaret in the Prima Donna , especially in the first act , where , as the French say , she had " good moments" of genuine pathos and impulse . On Tuesday I went to see UNCLE TOM'S CABIN , at the Olympic . The immense , tho unheard-of , success of MrB . Stowe s novel—a success as great on this as on the other side of the Atlantic— -lias of course set the minor theatres to the work of dramatizing it . Ihe piece at the Olympic , though feeble and inartificial in its dialogue and structure , contains enough of the material to make a very popular drama , and wa . ^ received with laughter , tears , and applause . I could not help moralizing us I sat there , and heard the shouts of laughter called forth by scene * ho tragic , so unpleasantly painful , that I wished myself away ; hut Doifl ihe pathos of niggers it excited boisterous laughter ! Tears were sm ^ too ; but the audience ; could not subdue its sense of the ludicrous . < ^ proper sympathy with the tragedy before them . The man in torn Iiis wife and children—sold to another master—and the audience Jau ^ - What a subject for mirth ! And yet , do not misunderstand inc . , English hearts there present beat ' in manly sympathy for tho n » ' »| j ^ slave . Tears were not wanting . But as you may have observe characteristic it is of the uncultivated mind to forget essentials in '"' ^ ^ rats—to be carried away from its contemplation of tho heart aim "' ^ HUf . of a , question by some side detail — imitating the bull in the arena , ai ^^ fering itself to be withdrawn from its enemy by the fluttering <> l ^ , i ( 1 rag—ho in this really tragic scene the audience forgot the iraf , y the nigger dialect , uttering nigger pathos . . i , ecnwH <> As for mo , I have been unable to read Uncle Tom's Cahm ~ -noi ^^ 1 have no relish for pathetic ; fiction ( give me one , and I will c ' J- ^ \ \ , even to " slops , " as a dear juvenile of my ¦ acqua intance . . F ™"'"^ ^ ' ^ i \* because when fictions turn on such gigantic and immediate M ' j . jj ,,, inslavery , the pain ceases to be pleasurable . I delight to linn It o ^ j () ( lignation which iho book is intensifying , but not being ubjo V ' farinbh interfere in the slave question ,. ! , decline mailing myself un < -o „ ( UI ) . over it . At the Olympic there was less of this , because the iimi ^ reality of the drama cheeked a too quick sympathy ; bu t i > ° ,. o (| j < ' < lbanish from my mind the consciousness of the living horror t )>< " J l ( . | , ( . . d The acting of Mrs . Walter Lacy in the part of ViYiwr ^ . . ° ] "„ ; ,. | , o < 1 <" indieations of a powerful melodramatic uctreHH , which I a (| V 1 H ° H n velop by further trials . < J . Cooke , as Uncle Tom , was hum ^ ^ ^ pathetic . William Farren " did" the melodramatic lover ^ " ^ , j d , inenee which the Victoria would have appreciated : las curse yiylAN . certainly , but not deep .
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930 THE LEADER . [ Saturday I
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 25, 1852, page 930, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1953/page/22/
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