The fact is, I had attempted to give point to language which had no point, and nature to scenes which had no nature.  They said I did not fill out my characters; and they were right.  The characters had all been prepared for a different sort of man.  Our tragedy hero was a round, robustious fellow, with an amazing voice; who stamped and slapped his breast until his wig shook again; and who roared and bellowed out his bombast, until every phrase swelled upon the ear like the sound of a kettle-drum.  I might as well have attempted to fill out his clothes as his characters.  When we had a dialogue together, I was nothing before him, with my slender voice and discriminating manner.  I might as well have attempted to parry a cudgel with a small sword.  If he found me in any way gaining ground upon him, he would take refuge in his mighty voice, and throw his tones like peals of thunder at me, until they were drowned in the still louder thunders of applause from the audience.

To tell the truth, I suspect that I was not shown fair play, and that there was management at the bottom; for without vanity, I think I was a better actor than he.  As I had not embarked in the vagabond line through ambition, I did not repine at lack of preferment; but I was grieved to find that a vagrant life was not without its cares and anxieties, and that jealousies, intrigues, and mad ambition were to be found even among vagabonds.

Indeed, as I become more familiar with my situation, and the delusions of fancy began to fade away, I discovered that my associates were not the happy careless creatures I had at first imagined them.  They were jealous of each other’s talents; they quarrelled about parts, the same as the actors on the grand theatres; they quarrelled about dresses; and there was one robe of yellow silk, trimmed with red, and a head-dress of three rumpled ostrich feathers, which were continually setting the ladies of the company by the ears.  Even those who had attained the highest honors were not more happy than the rest; for Mr. Flimsey himself, our first tragedian, and apparently a jovial, good-humored fellow, confessed to me one day, in the fullness of his heart, that he was a miserable man.  He had a brother-in-law, a relative by marriage, though not by blood, who was manager of a theatre in a small country town.  And this same brother, ("a little more than kin, but less than kind,”) looked down upon him, and treated him with contumely, because forsooth he was but a strolling player.  I tried to console him with the thoughts of the vast applause he daily received, but it was all in vain.  He declared that it gave him no delight, and that he should never be a happy man until the name of Flimsey rivalled the name of Crimp.