- Insanity is often the logic of an accurate mind overtasked.Good mental machinery ought to break its own wheels and levers, if anything is thrust among them suddenly which tends to stop them or reverse their motion.A weak mind does not accumulate force enough to hurt itself; stupidity often saves a man from going mad.We frequently see persons in insane hospitals, sent there in consequence of what are called RELIGIOUS mental disturbances.Iconfess that I think better of them than of many who hold the same notions, and keep their wits and appear to enjoy life very well, outside of the asylums.Any decent person ought to go mad, if he really holds such or such opinions.It is very much to his discredit in every point of view, if he does not.What is the use of my saying what some of these opinions are? Perhaps more than one of you hold such as I should think ought to send you straight over to Somerville, if you have any logic in your heads or any human feeling in your hearts.Anything that is brutal, cruel, heathenish, that makes life hopeless for the most of mankind and perhaps for entire races, - anything that assumes the necessity of the extermination of instincts which were given to be regulated, -no matter by what name you call it, - no matter whether a fakir, or a monk, or a deacon believes it, - if received, ought to produce insanity in every well-regulated mind.That condition becomes a normal one, under the circumstances.I am very much ashamed of some people for retaining their reason, when they know perfectly well that if they were not the most stupid or the most selfish of human beings, they would become NON-COMPOTES at once.
[Nobody understood this but the theological student and the schoolmistress.They looked intelligently at each other; but whether they were thinking about my paradox or not, I am not clear.
- It would be natural enough.Stranger things have happened.Love and Death enter boarding-houses without asking the price of board, or whether there is room for them.Alas, these young people are poor and pallid! Love SHOULD be both rich and rosy, but MUST be either rich or rosy.Talk about military duty! What is that to the warfare of a married maid-of-all-work, with the title of mistress, and an American female constitution, which collapses just in the middle third of life, and comes out vulcanized India-rubber, if it happen to live through the period when health and strength are most wanted?]
- Have I ever acted in private theatricals? Often.I have played the part of the "Poor Gentleman," before a great many audiences, -more, I trust, than I shall ever face again.I did not wear a stage-costume, nor a wig, nor moustaches of burnt cork; but I was placarded and announced as a public performer, and at the proper hour I came forward with the ballet-dancer's smile upon my countenance, and made my bow and acted my part.I have seen my name stuck up in letters so big that I was ashamed to show myself in the place by daylight.I have gone to a town with a sober literary essay in my pocket, and seen myself everywhere announced as the most desperate of BUFFOS, - one who was obliged to restrain himself in the full exercise of his powers, from prudential considerations.I have been through as many hardships as Ulysses, in the pursuit of my histrionic vocation.I have travelled in cars until the conductors all knew me like a brother.I have run off the rails, and stuck all night in snow-drifts, and sat behind females that would have the window open when one could not wink without his eyelids freezing together.Perhaps I shall give you some of my experiences one of these days; - I will not now, for Ihave something else for you.
Private theatricals, as I have figured in them in country lyceum-halls, are one thing, - and private theatricals, as they may be seen in certain gilded and frescoed saloons of our metropolis, are another.Yes, it is pleasant to see real gentlemen and ladies, who do not think it necessary to mouth, and rant, and stride, like most of our stage heroes and heroines, in the characters which show off their graces and talents; most of all to see a fresh, unrouged, unspoiled, high bred young maiden, with a lithe figure, and a pleasant voice, acting in those love-dramas which make us young again to look upon, when real youth and beauty will play them for us.
- Of course I wrote the prologue I was asked to write.I did not see the play, though.I knew there was a young lady in it, and that somebody was in love with her, and she was in love with him, and somebody (an old tutor, I believe) wanted to interfere, and, very naturally, the young lady was too sharp for him.The play of course ends charmingly; there is a general reconciliation, and all concerned form a line and take each others' hands, as people always do after they have made up their quarrels, - and then the curtain falls, - if it does not stick, as it commonly does at private theatrical exhibitions, in which case a boy is detailed to pull it down, which he does, blushing violently.
Now, then, for my prologue.I am not going to change my caesuras and cadences for anybody; so if you do not like the heroic, or iambic trimeter brachy-catalectic, you had better not wait to hear it THIS IS IT.
A Prologue? Well, of course the ladies know; -I have my doubts.No matter, - here we go!
What is a Prologue? Let our Tutor teach:
PRO means beforehand; LOGOS stands for speech.
'Tis like the harper's prelude on the strings, The prima donna's courtesy ere she sings; -Prologues in metre are to other PROS
As worsted stockings are to engine-hose.
"The world's a stage," as Shakspeare said, one day;The stage a world - was what he meant to say.
The outside world's a blunder, that is clear;The real world that Nature meant is here.
