第52章 LETTER XX(1)

I have formerly censured the French for their extreme attachment to theatrical exhibitions,because I thought that they tended to render them vain and unnatural characters;but I must acknowledge,especially as women of the town never appear in the Parisian as at our theatres,that the little saving of the week is more usefully expended there every Sunday than in porter or brandy,to intoxicate or stupify the mind.The common people of France have a great superiority over that class in every other country on this very score.It is merely the sobriety of the Parisians which renders their fetes more interesting,their gaiety never becoming disgusting or dangerous,as is always the case when liquor circulates.

Intoxication is the pleasure of savages,and of all those whose employments rather exhaust their animal spirits than exercise their faculties.Is not this,in fact,the vice,both in England and the northern states of Europe,which appears to be the greatest impediment to general improvement?Drinking is here the principal relaxation of the men,including smoking,but the women are very abstemious,though they have no public amusements as a substitute.

I ought to except one theatre,which appears more than is necessary;for when I was there it was not half full,and neither the ladies nor actresses displayed much fancy in their dress.

The play was founded on the story of the "Mock Doctor;"and,from the gestures of the servants,who were the best actors,I should imagine contained some humour.The farce,termed ballet,was a kind of pantomime,the childish incidents of which were sufficient to show the state of the dramatic art in Denmark,and the gross taste of the audience.A magician,in the disguise of a tinker,enters a cottage where the women are all busy ironing,and rubs a dirty frying-pan against the linen.The women raise a hue-and-cry,and dance after him,rousing their husbands,who join in the dance,but get the start of them in the pursuit.The tinker,with the frying-pan for a shield,renders them immovable,and blacks their cheeks.

Each laughs at the other,unconscious of his own appearance;meanwhile the women enter to enjoy the sport,"the rare fun,"with other incidents of the same species.

The singing was much on a par with the dancing,the one as destitute of grace as the other of expression;but the orchestra was well filled,the instrumental being far superior to the vocal music.

I have likewise visited the public library and museum,as well as the palace of Rosembourg.This palace,now deserted,displays a gloomy kind of grandeur throughout,for the silence of spacious apartments always makes itself to be felt;I at least feel it,and Ilisten for the sound of my footsteps as I have done at midnight to the ticking of the death-watch,encouraging a kind of fanciful superstition.Every object carried me back to past times,and impressed the manners of the age forcibly on my mind.In this point of view the preservation of old palaces and their tarnished furniture is useful,for they may be considered as historical documents.

The vacuum left by departed greatness was everywhere observable,whilst the battles and processions portrayed on the walls told you who had here excited revelry after retiring from slaughter,or dismissed pageantry in search of pleasure.It seemed a vast tomb full of the shadowy phantoms of those who had played or toiled their hour out and sunk behind the tapestry which celebrated the conquests of love or war.Could they be no more--to whom my imagination thus gave life?Could the thoughts,of which there remained so many vestiges,have vanished quite away?And these beings,composed of such noble materials of thinking and feeling,have they only melted into the elements to keep in motion the grand mass of life?It cannot be!--as easily could I believe that the large silver lions at the top of the banqueting room thought and reasoned.But avaunt!ye waking dreams!yet I cannot describe the curiosities to you.

There were cabinets full of baubles and gems,and swords which must have been wielded by giant's hand.The coronation ornaments wait quietly here till wanted,and the wardrobe exhibits the vestments which formerly graced these shows.It is a pity they do not lend them to the actors,instead of allowing them to perish ingloriously.