In the midst of "cruel cursed fate," his dagger fell out of his dress; I, embracing him tenderly, crammed it back again, because I knew I should want it at the end.
Romeo. Tear not our heart-strings thus!
They crack! they break!—Juliet! Juliet! (dies.)Juliet. (to corpse.) Am I smothering you?
Corpse. (to Juliet.) Not at all; could you be so kind, do you think, as to put my wig on again for me?—it has fallen off.
Juliet. (to corpse.) I'm afraid I can't, but I'll throw my muslin veil over it. You've broken the phial, haven't you?
(Corpse nodded.)
Juliet. (to corpse.) Where's your dagger?
Corpse. (to Juliet.) 'Pon my soul, I don't know.
Sunday, 13th.
By half-past ten we were packed in what in this country is termed an exclusive extra, i. e. a stage-coach to ourselves, and progressing towards Washington. The coach was comfortable enough, and the country, for the first twelve or fifteen miles, owing to the abominable account I had heard of it from every body, disappointed me rather agreeably. It was by no means so dreary or desolate as I had been led to expect. There was considerable variety in its outline, and the quantity of cedar thickets scattered over it took away from the comfortless threadbare look of the wintry woods. Threadbare, indeed, the trees can scarce be called; for the leaves of the black oak, instead of falling as they fade, remain upon the branches, and give the trees more the effect of being lightning-struck, or accidentally blasted, than withered by the fair course of the seasons. I think the effect is more disagreeable than that of absolutely bare leafless boughs. When near, the trees look singularly deplorable and untidy, although at the distance, the red-brown of the faded oaks mingling with the bright, vivid, green cedars, and here and there a silver-barked buttonwood tree raising its white delicate branches from among them, produce a very agreeable and harmonious blending to the eye. The soil, the banks by the road-side, and broken ridges of ravines, and water-courses, attracted my attention by the variety and vividness of their colours; the brightest red and yellow, and then again pale green, and rich warm gravel-colour. I wished I had been a geologist. How much pleasure of reflection and contemplation is lost to the ignorant, whose outward sense wanders over the objects that surround it, deriving from them but half the delight that they give the wise and well-informed; even fancy is at fault, for fancy itself scarce devises images more strange, and beautiful, and wonderful, than the reality of things presents to those who understand their properties and natures. The waters were all fast frozen up, and one or two little pools, all curdled with ice, and locked up in deep gravelly basins, looked like onyx stones set in gold. As for the road, we had been assured it was exceedingly good; but mercy on us! I can't think of it without aching. Here we went up, up, up, and there we went down, down, down,—now, I was in my father's lap, and now I was half out of window. The utter impossibility of holding one's self in any one position for two minutes is absolutely ridiculous. Sometimes we laughed, and at other times we groaned, at our helpless and hopeless condition; but at last we arrived, with no bones broken, at about three o'clock, at the capital and seat of government of the United States.[83] Upon the height immediately above the city is situated the Capitol, a very handsome building, of which the Americans are not a little proud; but it seems placed there by mistake, so little do the miserable untidy hovels above, and the scattered unfinished red-brick town below, accord with its patrician marble and high-sounding title. We drove to Gadsby's, which is an inn like a little town, with more wooden galleries, flights of steps, passages, door-ways, exits, and entrances, than any building I ever saw: it reminded me of the house in Tieck's Love-charm. We had not been arrived a quarter of an hour, when in walked Mr. —— and Captain ——, and presently Mr. ——. They sat for some time discussing, laughing, quizzing, and being funny, and then departed. Captain —— was telling us a story about a man somewhere up in the lost lands, who was called Philemon, and whose three sons were paganed (christened, I suppose, one can't say,) Romulus, Remus, and Tiberius. I thought this was too good to be true; and D—— and I, laughing over it at dinner, agreed that we wished any thing of the sort had happened to us. "Some bread, waiter: what is your name?" said I to the black who was waiting upon us. "Horatius!" was the reply; which sent me and D—— into fits.
Monday, 14th.
When I came in to breakfast, found Mr. ——, whom I like mainly. While he was here, Dr. —— and —— came in. I gave the latter a most tremendous grasp of the hand: it was like seeing a bit of England to see him. He said to me, "Oh, how strange it is to see you here;" which caused my eyes to fill with tears, for, Heaven knows, it feels strange enough. They had hardly been seated two minutes, when in rushed a boy to call us to rehearsal. I was as vexed as might be. They all departed; —— faithfully promising to come again, and have a long talk about the old country: we then set forth to rehearsal. The theatre is the tiniest little box that ever was seen,—not much bigger, I verily think, than the baby's play-house at Versailles. When I came to perceive who the company were, and that sundry of our Baltimore comrades were come on hither, I begged to be excused from rehearsing, as they had all done their parts but a few days before with me. At about two o'clock, Mr. —— came to take us to the Capitol. Mr. —— was in the drawing-room. He had just seen the President; and it seems, that far from coming to any accommodation with the South Carolinians, there is an immediate probability of their coming to blows. They say, the old General is longing for a fight; and, most assuredly, to fight would be better, in this instance, than to give in; for to yield would be virtually to admit the right of every individual state to dictate to the whole government. We walked up to the Capitol: the day was most beautifully bright and sunny, and the mass of white building, with its terraces and columns, stood out in fine relief against the cloudless blue sky. We went first into the senate, or upper house, because Webster was speaking, whom I especially wished to hear. The room itself is neither large nor lofty; the senators sit in two semi-circular rows, turned towards the President, in comfortable arm-chairs. On the same ground, and literally sitting among the senators, were a whole regiment of ladies, whispering, talking, laughing, and fidgeting. A gallery, level with the floor, and only divided by a low partition from the main room, ran round the apartment: this, too, was filled with pink, and blue, and yellow bonnets; and every now and then, while the business of the house was going on, and Webster speaking, a tremendous bustle, and waving of feathers, and rustling of silks, would be heard, and in came streaming a reinforcement of political beauties, and then would commence a jumping up, a sitting down, a squeezing through, and a how-d'-ye-doing, and a shaking of hands. The senators would turn round; even Webster would hesitate, as if bothered by the row, and, in short, the whole thing was more irregular, and unbusiness-like, than any one could have imagined.[84] Webster's face is very remarkable, particularly the forehead and eyes. The former projects singularly, absolutely overhanging the latter, which have a very melancholy, and occasionally rather wild, expression. The subject upon which he was speaking was not one of particular interest,—an estimate of the amount of French spoliations, by cruizers and privateers, upon the American commerce. The heat of the room was intolerable; and after sitting till I was nearly suffocated, we adjourned to the House of Representatives. On our way thither, we crossed a very beautiful circular vestibule, which holds the centre of the building. It was adorned with sundry memorable passages in American history, done into pictures by Colonel Trumbull. In the House of Representatives we were told we should hear nothing of interest, so turned off, under Mr. ——'s escort, to the Library, which is a comfortable well-sized room, where we looked over Audubon's Ornithology, a beautiful work, and saw a man sitting, with his feet upon the table, reading, which is an American fashion. Met half the New York world there. After we had stayed there some time, we went into the House of Representatives. The room itself is lofty and large, and very handsome, but extremely ill-constructed for the voice, which is completely lost among the columns, and only reaches the gallery, where listeners are admitted, in indistinct and very unedifying murmurs. The members not unfrequently sit with their feet upon their desks. We walked out upon the terrace, and looked at the view of the Potomac, and the town, which, in spite of the enlivening effect of an almost summer's sky, looked dreary and desolate in the extreme. We then returned home. At half-past five, we went to the theatre. We were a long time before we could discover, among the intricate dark little passages, our own private entrance, and were as nearly as possible being carried into the pit by a sudden rush of spectators making their way thither: I wish we had been; I think I should like to have seen myself very much. The theatre is absolutely like a doll's play-house: it was completely crammed with people. I played ill; I cannot act tragedy within half a yard of the people in the boxes. By the by, a theatre may very easily be too small for tragedies which is admirably adapted to comedies. In the latter species of dramatic representations, the incidents, characters, manners, and dresses, are, for the most part, modern,—such as we meet with, or can easily imagine, in our own drawing-rooms, and among our own society. There is little if any exaggeration of colouring necessary, and no great exertion of fancy needful either in the actor or audience in executing and witnessing such a performance. On the contrary, comedy,—high comedy,—generally embodying the manners, tone, and spirit of the higher classes of society, the smaller the space, consistent with ease and grace of carriage, in which such personifications take place, the less danger there is of the actor's departing from that natural, quiet, and refined deportment and delivery, which are, in the present day, the general characteristics of polished society. 'Tis otherwise with tragic representations. They are unnatural, not positively, but comparatively unnatural; the incidents are, for the most part, strange, startling, unusual; and though they always must be within possibility, in order to excite the sympathies of beholders,—though some of them may even be historical facts,—yet they are, for the most part, events which come within the probabilities of few of us, and this renders necessary a degree of excitement and elevation in the mind of the spectator, foreign to, and at variance with, the critical spirit of prosaic reality. Again, the scene of a comedy is generally a drawing-room; and the smaller the stage, the greater is the possibility of rendering it absolutely like what we all have seen, and are daily in the habit of seeing; but to represent groves and mountains, or lakes, or the dwellings of the kings of the earth, satisfactorily to the spectator's mind, there must be a certain distance observed, from which the fancy may take its stand for the best perception of what is intended. Whereas, in closer contact with such scenes, not only does their immediate proximity convey an unpleasing consciousness of the unreality of the whole, but the near and absolute detail of paint, canvass, and gilding, is obtruded in a manner that destroys all illusion, and, by disturbing the effect of the whole upon the spectator, necessarily weakens that part which depends solely upon the actor. The same thing applies to dress. Foil-stone, paste, and coloured glass, by French ingenuity have been manufactured into toys, which, with the help of distance, may be admitted as representing the splendours of Eastern costume, or even the glittering trappings of those gaudy little superhumans, the fairies. But nearness utterly dissolves the spell, and these substitutes for magnificence become palpable impositions, and very often most ludicrous ones. I have often been accused of studying my attitudes; but the truth is, that most things that are presented to my imagination, instead of being mere abstractions, immediately assume form and colour, and become pictures; these I constantly execute on the stage as I had previously seen them in my fancy: but as few pictures as large as life admit of being seen to best effect immediately close to the spectator, so the whole effect produced by a graceful attitude, fine colours, or skilful grouping on the stage, is considerably diminished when the space is restricted, and the audience brought too near the performers. So much for little theatres. —— came in after the play. He told us that as he was coming out of the theatre, a Kentuckian accosted him with, "Well, what do you think of that 'ere gal?"—"Oh," hesitatingly replied ——, "I don't quite know."—"Well," retorted the questioner, "any how, I guess she's o' some account!"
Tuesday, 15th.
At eleven o'clock, Mr. —— called. Went with him to see the original of the Declaration of Independence, also a few medals, for the most part modern ones, and neither of much beauty or curiosity. Afterwards went to the War-Office, where we saw sundry Indian properties,—bows and arrows, canoes, smoking-pipes, and, what interested me much more, the pictures of a great many savage chiefs, and one or two Indian women. The latter were rather pretty: the men were not any of them handsome; scorn round the mouth, and cunning in the eyes, seemed to be the general characteristic of all their faces. There was a portrait of Red Jacket, which gave me a most unpoetical low-life impression of that great palaverer. The names of many of them delighted me,—as, the Ever-awake; the Man that stands and strikes; the North Wind. One of the women's names amused me a great deal,—the Woman that spoke first; which title occasioned infinite surmise among us as to the occasion on which she earned it. After we had done seeing what was to be seen, we went on to the President's house, which is a comfortless handsome-looking building, with a withered grass-plot enclosed in wooden palings in front, and a desolate reach of uncultivated ground down to the river behind. Mr. —— gave us a most entertaining account of the levees, or rather public days, at the President's house. Every human being has a right to present himself there; the consequence is, that great numbers of the very commonest sort of people used to rush in, and follow about the servants who carried refreshments, seizing upon whatever they could get, and staring and pushing about, to the infinite discomfiture of the more respectable and better-behaved part of the assembly. Indeed, the nuisance became so great, that they discontinued the eatables, and in great measure got rid of the crowd. Mr. —— assured me that on one of these occasions, two ladies had themselves lifted up and seated on the chimney-piece, in order to have a better view of the select congregation beneath them. Mr. —— left us to go to the Capitol, and we came home. ——, Mr. ——, and Captain —— called. We sat discussing names; which, in this country, are certainly more ambitious than in any other in the world.[85] Besides Captain ——'s classical family, Mr. —— assured us that he knew of a man whose name was Return Jonathan Meigs; and —— swore to one in New York called Alonzo Leontes Agamemnon Beaugardus. I have myself seen a Harmanus Boggs, Aquila Jones, and Alpheus Brett; but I have not been favoured with an acquaintance with any such names as they quoted. —— appears to me altered since I saw him in England. He was always silent, and quiet, and gentle; but there was an air of complacency and contented cheerfulness about him, which I think he has very much lost: he looks sad and careworn. I was sorry to see it. After dinner, sat writing journal. Mr. —— came in and sat some time with us. He is very clever and agreeable, and I like him greatly.
Wednesday, 16th.
After breakfast, went to rehearsal. At half past twelve, Mr. —— came to ride with me. The horse he had gotten for me was base; but never mind, the day was exquisitely mild and bright,—the sort of early spring-feeling day, when in England the bright gold and pale delicate violet of the crocus buds begin to break the rich dark mould, and the fragrant gummy leaves of the lilac bushes open their soft brown folds. We had a very pleasant ride through some pretty woodlands on the opposite side of the river. At half-past five, went to the theatre. The play was the Hunchback: the house was crowded. In the last scene, Master Walter upbraided me thus:—