was invariably spouted. “The Will, or The Power of Medicine,” is the subject of one play on record; also a colloquy on “Improvements in Education.” A play called “The Country Boy” was given, in which the characters were John Hickory and Hotspur. In one called “The Curfew,” the hero is a robber disguised as a minstrel. “The Combat,” from “The Lady of the Lake,” was another favorite. Miss Pierce herself wrote some very respectable dramas which the pupils presented in the exhibitions at the close of school. On these occasions a stage was erected, scenery was painted and hung in true theatrical style, while all the wardrobes of the community were ransacked for stage dresses. When the principal’s favorite, “Jephtha’s Daughter,” was given, the Biblical hero, adorned with a helmet of gilt paper, surmounted by waving ostrich plumes, strode grandly in, declaiming,
“On Jordan’s banks proud Ammon’s banners wave.”
There was a procession of Judæan maidens, bearing the body of Jephtha’s daughter on a bier after the sacrifice, and there was also a procession of sympathizing youths. For this part of the program the young students from the Law School came in very handy; and, judging by the diary of one of them which has been lately exhumed and published,[4] the young gentlemen of a hundred years ago were not so different from those of to-day.
If one desired to know the type of a young man to be found in the town of Litchfield during the time that Harriet Beecher and her two sisters, Catherine and Mary, were a part of the social life there, one may have recourse to this published journal. George Younglove Cutler is the name of the writer, and, judging by the fascinating pages he indited, the name was not wholly inappropriate. He had a vivid way of writing, as if he were directly addressing the person to whom he was speaking, and he writes in his vehemence with a sublime disregard of punctuation. For instance, he says: “Miss M., you were becomingly dressed last night because there was less fix about you than common. I like richness of dress but hate ribbons & bows & knots & ruffles & rigmaroles generally speaking I dislike ornaments of any kind. To see ladies loaded with as many kickshaws as are put on now-a-days looks more like burlesque than reality!” Again he harps on the same string when he says: “It is a very pretty thing, no doubt, to see a young lady dressed with Parisian flowers & Parisian gauzes & an Indian fan & the whole &c of fashionable array. But I question after all, the style in which a young man of any understanding sees a young lady with most danger to his peace.” Extremely critical as he is of the Litchfield young ladies, Mr. Younglove himself betrays a touch of vanity. There is a great deal of talk in his diary about his “adonizationizing” of himself in his toilet—by which manufactured word he means “frushing up,” “furbishing,” “making fix,” or “prigging.” Once he takes pains to say: “It being Sunday, I wore pumps and white stockings to meeting.” Again he records the sad news: “Tore my Angola pantaloons!” On one date he sets it down with an outburst of enthusiasm: “To begin this great day was powdered. Huzza!”
We may not know by what logic we reach the conclusion, but I believe all will agree that the sort of young man self-depicted in this long-buried, old diary could never have been averse to coming on the stage as a robber in the disguise of a minstrel, or as a proud Jephtha in a gilt paper helmet declaiming in stentorian voice,
“On Jordan’s banks proud Ammon’s banners wave;”
and if George Younglove ever became in any way unruly, there was always the overwhelming Miss Pierce, more powerful than any warrior, to bring order out of chaos. The discipline that she gave to one youth of George’s class is recorded. He gazed for something more than a minute at one of the sacred members of her household, and the worst happened! He was exiled. Surely not very frequently did anything take place to bring so dire a fate upon a Litchfield youth!
But to come back to the play by Miss Pierce and the actors that took part in it. They certainly did all the honor they could to the dramatist. The costumes were copied out of the “Bible Dictionary”—with the single exception, perhaps, of the nose-jewels—and the stabbing to the heart and the chorus of wailing maidens were done to the life. In this play the part of Bethulah, wife of Jephtha, was taken by “C. Beecher,” as the list of actors shows, and she is on the stage most of the time. Catherine also took a prominent place in the dramatic representation of the beautiful story of Ruth. The story of Esther the Queen was also enacted. Her majesty had a dress of old flowered brocade from somebody’s wedding chest; Mordecai and Ahashuerus were appropriately enrobed, and the part of Haman—who was to be hanged—was taken by the dog. At least this is the way Mrs. Stowe tells about it, long afterward, in “Oldtown Folks,” but perhaps by that time she may have forgotten some of the particulars as to the death of Haman. For the plots of their plays, the young ladies in Miss Pierce’s Seminary analyzed the stories in “Plutarch’s Lives,” and found treasures there for dramatic representation from Romulus and Remus down to Julius Cæsar. History in their own country came in for a share of attention. Bunker Hill was done with a couple of old guns to give effect to the scene and with the rolling of a cannon ball across the floor behind the curtains to make the cannonades of battle. Harriet, like Tina, a past master in getting up a cave of banditti, borrowed suggestions from the “Mysteries of Udolpho,” and delighted one audience with a playlet of the purest romance.
Those dramatic representations seem to have awakened no unfavorable comment in the Beecher family so long as they were carried on under the supervision of the Academy. But on an unlucky day Harriet’s brilliant sister Catherine lighted upon a thrilling story in Miss Edgeworth’s “Moral Tales,” called “The Unknown Friend,” which tells how an attractive sixteen-year-old young lady was cured of a foolish sentimentality. In this story Angelina, the heroine, reads a book written by an unknown lady by the name of Araminta. This book speaks extravagantly, and as it seems to Angelina alluringly, of the charms of friendship, and on the theory that one who wrote so feelingly of the beautiful and romantic must be herself the embodiment of those traits, Angelina sets out to find this paragon, believing that in her she will gain such a friend as she has dreamed of. After wandering futilely for a time, she reaches a hut in the Welch mountains, where the writer of the sentimental book has taken refuge. She finds in Araminta a disheveled, unlovely, forbidding person. Every sense of taste and propriety is shocked, and they do not get on well together at all. The story shows Angelina’s complete disillusionment and the sorrows that will come to one who disregards the practical side of life. The incidents in this tale of Miss Edgeworth’s are ludicrous and the story is not a bit tame. It might afford amusement even to-day.
The clever Catherine conceived the idea of making it into a play and giving a happy surprise to the whole family by setting up the little drama in the house itself. There were characters enough for every one of the Beecher children to have one to himself—and that is saying a good deal! There was also variety. The dialects used included Welsh, Scotch, and broad Irish. The Lady Diana Chillingworth and her sister, the Lady Frances Somerset, trailed about in finery extracted from mother’s band-boxes and chests. A palace, a mountain top, a shop, afforded changes of scene that were easily designated in true Elizabethan fashion by the use of a parlor table, or a kitchen chair, or a set of shelves; and costumes were delightfully relied upon to give aid to the imagination. Rehearsals were carried on in the strictest secrecy for some weeks. The appointed evening came. Father and mother wondered why a fire was built in the large parlor or why so many neighbors and students happened to come in at about the same moment; but before any questions could be asked, the door to the dining room was suddenly thrown open and a mysterious drapery was seen at the farther end of the room. The curtain rose and forthwith the actors appeared and completed the whole drama amid thunders of applause—at least so runs the account by an eye witness. The next day, however, Catherine was told with some severity that while it was very good, they must not do so any more!