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The Journal of a London Playgoer from 1851 to 1866
The Journal of a London Playgoer from 1851 to 1866 Author:Henry Morley Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: tion of the Juliet of Miss Bateman. Intellectual men have accredited Mr. Charles Kean, in his most honourable career as a manager and actor, with poetic insight ... more »that I fail to recognise. It is well for the world, and for every section of work done in it, that opinions thus differ. Without such difference there would be no scouting of rash assertions, no constant shaking to and fro of the great sieve of argument, no exercising of the thews of a man's intellect, no divine energy at work in men, who labour well only when labouring in concert with their fellows, and only with their help can rise, by studying in the endless uses and graces of life the pattern of true wisdom in the will of the Creator. The mind that does not shut itself out from the world, or hold itself the universal arbiter, will find in all that breathes a spark of the Divine. God, who gave to the moth his dainty wings, and to the violet a scent whose use is but the creation of pleasure, gave to man, with the delights of speech, faculties that weave them by the subtlest of his arts into a flower-world of intellect and feeling. At the playhouse-door, then, we may say to the doubting, Enter boldly, for here, too, there are gods. There are in London twenty-five theatres. Her Majesty's Theatre will hold 3000 persons; the Pavilion, in Whitechapel, holds even 3500; the Marylebone 2000; the now Adelphi 1400; and others in proportion. Except during the autumn holidays, and after all allowance for thin houses, andhouses occasionally closed, the London public must be going in daily detachments, averaging at least 15,000 persons, to the play for recreation; and the audiences are changed every night. What is accounted in London good entertainment is adopted by provincial and colonial theatres. Add all their audiences to su...« less