Into the city during the day,
Back to the country at eventide,
Courting the charm of the simple way,
Casting the tumult of greed aside.
"He is the happiest man who best appreciates his happiness. Happiness comes to him who does not seek it."
"Well, you've got there. I was opposed to your goin' into the minstrel business. It's not good to argue agin anything a young man sets his mind on. I figured if you got knocked out, you'd be able to come back agin. I'd rather seed you in the circus business, but say, boy, if this show of yours ain't a Jim Dandy. Are you making any money?"
"Well, I have made money, Uncle Henry, but I'm investing it in my business as fast as I earn it. You see the minstrel business is changing. The basis of minstrelsy will always be that which it is and has been, but you can't hand them the same things they've been accepting the past forty years and expect them to enjoy and buy it. The farce comedy, the musical show are virtually minstrel shows. Based upon music and dancing, they produce about the same stuff the minstrels do."
"Well Alfred, we hear a great deal about the old black-face minstrels. Some people say they like them best."
"That's true, Uncle Henry. You can't gainsay it. Some people like the old-fashioned cooking the best. But the public, the majority demand something different. Even if they eat the same sort of food they ate when younger, they demand it be served differently. Let me call your attention to this fact: Every manager that has endeavored to present an old-time, black-face minstrel show in late years has failed. The old-time minstrel show, like the one-ring circus, is pleasant to dream of, pleasant to talk of, but not profitable to present. Two friends were responsible for my decision to put on a simon-pure, old-time minstrel show. I engaged the best talent procurable, costumed the show in conformity with the ideas of my friends. It was the least profitable of any season since my first year; or it would have been had I continued. I changed my entire show in the middle of the season, going back to the black-face comedians, white-face singers.
"The minstrels in all climes have sung their songs of love and war. Even in the days of the ancients there were minstrels who sang the news of the times to the gaping multitudes in the streets and market places. In fact, David, with his harp of a thousand strings, whose voice charmed King Saul and his court, was the first minstrel. I can fully understand why a minstrel, an American minstrel, singing a plantation melody to his dusky dulcinea, should have a blackened face, but why a man blackened as a negro should sing of 'My Sister's Golden Hair,' or 'Mother's Eyes of Blue,' is too incongruous for even argument's sake."
David, the First Minstrel
"Well, Alfred, how is it the other managers do not adopt the style of your entertainment."