Being desirous to observe the way in which a Sunday evening was passed in Germany, at seven o'clock on that day I followed a crowd of people into the theatre, and found the house so full, that I had great difficulty in obtaining a seat. The performance was a complete surprise to me; for though ages ago, when I was young, I had been in the habit of regularly attending for years together an Italian theatre, yet never having before witnessed a German opera, I did not know it was possible so completely to adapt the sounds of music to every varying thought and sentiment in a play; in short, the words of the play, and the notes of the orchestra, were as nearly as possible fac-similes of each other; demi-semi-quavers, crotchets, and minims being made most ingeniously to mimic, not only exclamations, but marks of admiration, notes of interrogation, colons, and full stops.
The musical emphasis which accompanied every line throughout the piece, while it merely astonished me, seemed to be most scientifically appreciated by the audience, whose countenances of severe attention were very remarkable; no interruption, however, of any sort took place, their feelings of approbation or censure being equally mute. In the various departments of the performance, a great deal of natural talent was displayed, and whether one attended to the music—to the style of acting—to the scenery—or even to a dish of devils, which made their appearance, most strangely garnished with toads, bats, serpents, and non-descript beings, one could not help admitting that, in spite of its torpor, there must exist a considerable quantity of latent genius, imagination, and taste, in the audience itself; indeed, there can be no fairer criterion of the mental character of any country, than its own national spectacles, which are of course, and must be, made to correspond with, and suit, the palates of those who support them. It is true that that mimic Fashion will occasionally introduce into a country foreign habits, not suited to its climate. For instance, of our own fine London opera, Italians say, that without calling upon the English audience itself to sing, their behaviour quite clearly proves that they have no real taste for—that they are not capable of relishing, the foreign musical luxury which by the power of money they have purchased: in short, they accuse us of listening, when we ought to be coughing—of talking to each other, when we ought to be breathless, from attention—and of most barbarously throwing the light of the theatre upon ourselves instead of on the performers—thus showing that we prefer looking at tiers of red cheeks and rows of white teeth, to listening to the soft, simple melody of music. But, whether these foreign remarks respecting an Italian performance be true or not, in our own element, in our own English theatres, the accusation of want of taste does not hold good. The admirers of Shakspeare, Siddons, Kemble, Kean, O'Neil, &c., cannot complain that the writings of the one, or the acting of the others, have not reached the hearts of those to whom they have been directed; in short, without sympathetic talent throughout the country, those names could never have reached the respective eminences on which they stand, and thus, though they do honour to the country, the country can also claim honour from them.
When the pleasing performance I had been witnessing was at an end, on coming into the open air, I found it was raining. Like myself, most people were without umbrellas; the rain, however, seemed to have no effect upon the tide of human bodies that flowed en masse towards the Cursaal, which, ready lighted up, was waiting for the disgorging of the theatre. On entering the great door, each person was required to pay a florin, and as the large room was rapidly very nearly filled, the band struck up, and dancing most vigorously began. I could now scarcely believe my eyes, that the performers, so awkwardly attempting to be active before me, were the identical people whose passive good taste and genius I had, with so much pleasure, been admiring; for with a more awkward, clumsy, inelegant set of dancers I certainly never before had found myself in society. Not only was the execution of their steps violently bad, but their whole style of dancing was of a texture as coarse as dowlas, and most especially, in their mode of waltzing, there was a repetition of vulgar jerks which it was painfully disagreeable to witness. Leaving, therefore, these dull, heavy, tetotums to spin out the evening in their own way, I quitted the great room; but no sooner did I enter the smaller dens than I found that I had fallen from the frying-pan into the fire, for these “hells” were literally swarming with inhabitants. In each chamber an immense solitary lamp (having a circular reflector) hung over the green cloth table, round which, male and female gamesters, of all ages, were bending, with horrid features of anxiety; and as the powerful rancid oil light shone upon their ill-favoured countenances, I could not help with abhorrence leaning backwards, at seeing a group of fellow-creatures huddled together for such a base, low-minded object. In passing through the chambers of this infernal region, I found one worse, if possible, than the other. Under each lamp, there were, here and there, contrasted with young nibblers, individual countenances of habitual gamesters, which, as objects of detestation, many a painter, or rather scene-painter, would have been exceedingly anxious to sketch; but I was so completely disgusted with the whole thing, that, as quickly as my staff and two legs could carry me, swinging the other arm, I took my departure.
In hastily worming my way through the ball-room, I saw there no reason for changing my opinion; and when I got into the fresh, cool, open air, though I was fully sensible I had not spent my Sunday evening exactly as I ought to have done, yet, in the course of my very long life, I think I never felt more practically disposed to repeat, as in England we are, thank Heaven, still taught to do—
“REMEMBER THAT THOU KEEP HOLY
THE SABBATH DAY.”
THE END.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] At this age I myself left my classical school, scarcely knowing the name of a single river in the new world—tired almost to death of the history of the Ilissus. In after life I entered a river of America more than five times as broad as from Dover to Calais—and with respect to the Ilissus, which had received in my mind such distorted importance, I will only say, that I have repeatedly walked across it in about twenty seconds, without wetting my ankles!