[LETTER XI.]
Visit to the Park Theatre—First Impressions of the Poetry of Motion, as written on the air, in the aerial feats of Mademoiselle Celeste—First shock at the exhibition of a Ballet Costume accompanied by the "twinkles" of Celeste's feet—with her pigeon wings, double-shuffles, gallopades, and pirouettes.
Dear Par:
I've been a trying tu git time tu write you a letter this ever so long; but somehow I've had so many parties tu go tu, besides sleigh-rides, balls, and so on, that I haint known which eend my head is on more than half the time. Besides all that, I've felt kinder loth tu write you, for I aint jest sartin that you and marm won't be in a pucker about what I've been a doing since I writ tu you before. But I've got my pluck a stirring jest now; so I'm detarmined tu up and tell you all right out, jest as it is—for arter all, a feller must be a consarned coward that'll do a thing, right or wrong, and then back out from owning on it.
Wal, t'other night Mr. Beebe he cum up tu my office about sundown, and sez he, "Cousin Slick, supposing we go tu the Park Theatre to-night, and see Madame Celeste dance."
My heart riz right up into my throat as he said this, for the very idee of going tu the Theatre set me all over in a twitter. Ever since I cum down here tu York, I've had an etarnal hankering tu go and see some of their plays; but I tried all I could tu pacify myself, and thought over more than forty times all the preachings you used to make agin them—how you used tu say they were filled with sinful devices and picters of the devil's own painting, and that they warn't nothing more nor less than scraps of the infarnal regions sot up here on arth tu delude away poor mortals.
I wanted tu go awfully, but insted of giving in tu cousin John when he fust come, I jest sot too and let off one of your preachments to him; he didn't seem to mind it a mite, but, sez he, "Cousin, would you think it right if a feller was tu cum out like all blazes agin one of your letters in the Express, if he hadn't read 'em?"
"I should like to ketch a feller at it—I should," sez I.
"Wal," sez he, "du you think it fair tu run out agin the Theatres till you've seen something on 'em?"