Short Stories and Essays From Literature and Life""

ended in spiritual pride for the doer and general demoralization for the doee. Still, I said, a law had lately been passed in Ohio giving a man who found himself behind a high hat at the theat

a certain number of seats at the theatres, or obliging the managers to give one free performa

that subject, for then you would probably want to do all the talking yourself. I want to ask you if you have visited any of the cheape

ts, for

es

ed a hardy and somewhat inconsistent doubt of the quality of the amusement that cou

?" my friend retorted. "And do you pretend

rally was not, and that this

eably. In the curio hall, as one of the lecturers on the curios called it-they had several lecturers in white wigs and scholars' caps and gowns-there was not a great deal to see, I confess; but everything was very high-class. There was the inventor of a perpetual motion, who lectured upon it and explained it from a diagram. There was a fortune-teller in a three-foot tent whom I did not interview; there were five macaws in one cage, and two gloomy apes in another. On a platform at the end of the hall was an Australian family a good deal gloomier than the apes, who sat in the costume of our latitude, staring down the room with varying expressions all verging upon me

ed, and operated a small model of it. None of the events were so exciting that we could regret it when the chief lecturer announced that this was the end of the entertainment in the curio hall,

and the entertainment began at once. It was a passage apparently from real life, and it involved a dissatisfied boarder and the daughter of the landlady. There was not much coherence in it, but there was a good deal of conscience on the part of the actors, who toiled through it with unflagging energy. The young woman was equipped for the dance she brought into it at one point rather than for the part she had to sustai

ence over me. I felt the compliment, but upon the whole it embarrassed me; it was too intimate, and it gave me a publicity I would willingly have foregone. I did what I could to reject it, by feigning an indifference to his jokes; I even frowned a measure of disapproval; but this merely stimulated his ambition. He was really a merry creature, and when he had got off a number of very good things which were received in perfect silence, and looked over his audience with a woe-begone eye, and said, with an effect of delicate apology, 'I

got abundant applause, but the lady at first got none. I think perhaps it was because, with the correct feeling that prevailed among us, we could not see a lady contort herself with so much approval as a gentleman, and that there was a wound to our sense of propriety in witnessing her skill. But I could see that the poor girl was hurt in her artist pr

e hour at that show?" I asked, with a

. But it was very good variety, and it was very cheap. I understand that this

ugh I must say I think your time was as well spent as it wo

still a genius, with a gift for his calling that couldn't be disputed. He was a genuine humorist, and I sorrowed over him-after I got safely away from his intimacy-as I should over some author who was struggling along without winning his public.

making yourself rather

say that any art is higher than the others? Why is it

ned, "and I feel that to aim at nothing higher than the amusement of your rea

se your readers, you don't keep them; practically, you cease to exist. You may call it interesting them, if you like; but, really, what is the difference? You do your little

our instances, or your instances less than your sa