Mr. Talbot.—"But, Sir, when people become familiar with the stage, none of these evil effects are ever felt, which you imagine must be the consequence of their attendance."
Mr. Falkland.—"They may not be felt so forcibly as at first, because by habit the taste becomes reconciled to them, which proves that the stage lowers the high tone of virtue, and brings it down so softly and so imperceptibly on a level with impurity, that eventually its more disgusting forms and expressions merely excite the passing smile or the burst of laughter.
'Vice is a monster of such frightful mien,
As to be hated, needs but to be seen;
Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face,
We first endure, then pity, then embrace.'"
Mr. Talbot.—"It is no use, Sir, to argue against facts. I have gone to the theatre without being injured by it; and I have known many of my friends who have never been injured by it."
Mr. Falkland.—"It may be so; but would you like a son or a daughter to acquire a passion for theatrical amusements? And would you suffer them, if they had acquired it, to go alone?"
Mr. Talbot.—"No, Sir, I should not like my children to become passionately fond of the theatre, though I should not object to their occasional attendance, yet I would not suffer them to go alone."
Mr. Falkland.—"Not like them to become passionately fond of an amusement, which is intended and calculated to promote the growth of their virtues! Surely, good Sir, you don't wish their virtues to be stunted for want of nutriment; and though I can easily conceive that the expense attending this source of gratification and moral improvement, may form one formidable objection against its repeated indulgence, yet, can money be better laid out, than on the cultivation of our children's virtuous principles and habits? Suppose, for example, you have a son who is somewhat inclined to an evil course—one, over whose mind the grave lectures of morality which the clergy deliver have lost their influence—who is rather prone to treat parental authority with contempt; would you not wish to see him cherish a passion for theatrical exhibitions, which, according to the opinion of Mr. Proctor, and in which opinion you concur, are designed and adapted to recommend virtue and discountenance vice; and thus prove, by an appeal to the senses, rather than by a process of reasoning, that virtue is its own reward, and vice its own tormentor? If he should feel no deep interest in these exhibitions, it is not likely that they will produce any more powerful effect on his mind, than the grave lectures of morality which he instinctively abhors; but if his passions are strongly excited, and he returns to this school of wisdom and of virtue, con amore—if he cannot refrain from going, without doing violence to his feelings—if he long for the hour of evening dress, and for the agreeable alterative of mind, which is to divert him from the dull, monotonous duties of his station—if he enter into the spirit of the comedy, which usually makes a libertine the most attractive character in the piece—or if the spirit of that character enters into him—do you not suppose that he will soon be reclaimed from vice, and be so smitten with the charms of virtue, as to follow her through evil and through good report? And suppose several such young men should meet in the lobby of a theatre, which you know, Sir, is not impossible; and suppose they should sit together during the play, and should retire together, after the curtain falls, and the last charms of the comic muse have passed from the eye and the ear, do you not think that they will very naturally begin to resolve on amending their evil course, and as naturally resolve to become chaste, and temperate, and domesticated in their habits? Of course you cannot for a moment imagine that they will retire from this school of virtue to the tavern or the brothel! No, Sir! The comic muse would stand in their way, and dispute their passage, even if they should have a secret predilection for such haunts; as a dumb ass once reproved the madness of a certain prophet, on whose mind no other agent of persuasion could operate!"
Mr. Talbot.—"Satire is no argument, Sir."
Mr. Falkland.—"But it often puts forth a biting one, from under the folds of its concealment; yet, as you seem to dislike it, I will dismiss it, and return to the more grave form of debate. Permit me, then, to ask you, if the company into which the young are introduced at a theatre, does not form a very powerful objection against it?"
Mr. Talbot.—"This is an objection against theatrical amusements, which I have been expecting to make its appearance for some time; and now it is out, I am not unwilling to meet it. I will then confess, 'that the English box lobbies are too much disgraced by the open display of female prostitution,' and that too many of the baser sort of our own sex frequent the theatre; yet, as the wisest and the best are always to be found in attendance on the comic muse, we may very easily keep with them, and thus avoid that contagion of evil, to which you imagine we are necessarily exposed. We know that vice, like every other marketable commodity, will be offered for sale in all great public assemblages. But, Sir, can you see the vast majority of an audience rivetted on the scenic representation, without confessing that many a youthful passion is preserved from the out-of-doors temptation to vice, by this intellectual occupation of his time within? London, and all large towns, are, by reason of their congregated numbers, hotbeds of vice; you know licentiousness would find other haunts, and not be one whit limited by the suppression of the theatre; it would be hard, indeed, that virtue should imprison itself, because vice frequented the same resort; on that principle we might not walk the great streets of the metropolis, in broad day light, because of the 'polluted' neighbours on all sides."