Any study of suburban life would be very imperfect
without some glance at that larger part of it which
is spent in the painful pursuit of pleasures such
as are offered at the ordinary places of public amusement;
and for this reason I excuse myself for rehearsing
certain impressions here which are not more directly
suburban, to say the least, than those recounted in
the foregoing chapter.
It became, shortly after life in Charlesbridge began,
a question whether any entertainment that Boston could
offer were worth the trouble of going to it, or, still
worse, coming from it; for if it was misery to hurry
from tea to catch the inward horse-car at the head
of the street, what sullen lexicon will afford a name
for the experience of getting home again by the last
car out from the city? You have watched the clock
much more closely than the stage during the last act,
and have left your play incomplete by its final marriage
or death, and have rushed up to Bowdoin Square, where
you achieve a standing place in the car, and, utterly
spent as you are with the enjoyment of the evening,
you endure for the next hour all that is horrible
in riding or walking. At the end of this time
you declare that you will never go to the theatre
again; and after years of suffering you come at last
to keep your word.
While yet, however, in the state of formation as regards
this resolution, I went frequently to the theatre—or
school of morals, as its friends have humorously called
it. I will not say whether any desired amelioration
took place or not in my own morals through the agency
of the stage; but if not enlightened and refined by
everything I saw there, I sometimes was certainly
very much surprised. Now that I go no more, or
very, very rarely, I avail myself of the resulting
leisure to set down, for the instruction of posterity,
some account of performances I witnessed in the years
1868-69, which I am persuaded will grow all the more
curious, if not incredible, with the lapse of time.
There is this satisfaction in living, namely, that
whatever we do will one day wear an air of picturesqueness
and romance, and will win the fancy of people coming
after us. This stupid and commonplace present
shall yet appear the fascinating past; and is it not
a pleasure to think how our rogues of descendants—who
are to enjoy us aesthetically—will be taken
in with us, when they read, in the files of old newspapers,
of the quantity of entertainment offered us at the
theatres during the years mentioned, and judge us
by it? I imagine them two hundred years hence
looking back at us, and sighing, “Ah! there
was a touch of the old Greek life in those Athenians!
How they loved the drama in the jolly Boston of that
day! That was the golden age of the theatre:
in the winter of 1868-69, they had dramatic performances
in seven places, of every degree of excellence, and
