"That's cool enough," said Frank; "you would make a good refrigerator in dog-days. Perhaps you intend to be an actor?"

"No, I don't fancy the business. I shall be satisfied to _see_ one."

Some of their friends propounded objections to this project, but they were overruled by a full and clear statement of their object in going.

Then, too, the general good character which they bore, and their usual prudence in avoiding bad company, combined to remove more easily all the objections propounded.

The evening of the entertainment was pleasant, and it was indeed a new step for them, as we see them standing at the entrance of the theatre.

To how many it has been the turning point of life! "Entrance to the Pit," they read in capitals, with a hand pointing thither,--and to how many it has been emphatically _the entrance to the pit_, in a most appalling sense! It was a hazardous experiment for Nat and his companions,--even more dangerous than the attempt to swim four rods under water. But they entered with the mult.i.tude who were pouring in, drawn thither by the popularity of the actor announced. The play commenced, and scene after scene pa.s.sed before the eyes of Nat, every word of which he had read over and over again; but now, for the first time, he beheld the characters in living persons. To him it was putting the breath of life into what was before beautiful but dead. The play that was cla.s.sic and charming to read, was now human-like and wonderful to act. There was more force, meaning, and power in the text than he had ever attached to it,--much as he had loved to read it. Closely he observed the distinguished actor, noticing the utterance of every word, and the significance of every gesture and motion, with sharp discrimination, until he almost felt that he could do the like himself.

It was a memorable evening to Nat, and language could scarcely express all he thought and felt.

"Nat, you will like Shakspeare better than ever now, will you not?" said Charlie.

"More than that," replied Nat. "It seems to me I never understood that play before. I was reading it the other day, but it is so much more grand when spoken and acted, that I should hardly know it."

"Did you observe the bar when you was coming out?" inquired Frank, addressing himself to Marcus.

"Yes, and I thought by the appearance they did quite a business in the line of drinking."

"They always have bars in theatres," said Nat, "and that is one reason why they lead persons to ruin. No doubt many are drawn there as much by the bar as they are by the play."

"What is the reason they can't have a theatre without having such vices connected with it?" inquired Charlie.

"Because they don't try," answered Nat. "I suppose that theatres are generally managed by men who are in favor of drinking, and they would not shut out such things of course. I think that men of principle might establish one that would be un.o.bjectionable; for they would allow no such evils to be harbored there."

"Perhaps you can get Parson Fiske and Deacon White to get one up," said Marcus, laughing at Nat's suggestion, "and then you won't have to walk ten miles and back to witness a play."

"Ten miles or not," said Nat, "I have been well paid to-night. There is a great deal to be learned in witnessing one such performance. I can read Shakspeare now with more interest and profit than ever. I want to hear 'The Tempest' played now, and 'King Lear,' and 'Hamlet,' and 'Romeo and Juliet,' and I mean to the first chance I have."

"Ah, Nat," said Charlie, "I see that it is a foregone conclusion with you,--you are half ruined now--the more you have, the more you want. We shall be obliged to look after him more closely," addressing the last sentence to Marcus and Frank.

"Yes," added Marcus, "by the time he has heard all these plays, he will be patronizing that bar, and we shall see him reported in the Police Court in the morning."

By the time the clock struck one, Nat was at home. His visit to the theatre was not kept secret. It was soon quite generally known that he had been to the theatre, and many remarks were elicited by the fact.

Good people did not respect theatres more at that time than they do now, so that they regarded this step of Nat as taken in the wrong direction.

"I am afraid that all the hopes Nat has raised among his friends will be dashed now," said one. "When a youth gets to going to the theatre, there is little hope of his doing well. I hardly thought this of him."

"I thought Nat always wanted things respectable," said a gentleman.

"Does he consider the theatre a respectable place?"

"What has he done with his books?" inquired another. "I supposed that he thought of little but an education,--does he find the theatre a good school in which to be educated?"

"It is a good school in which to be educated for evil," replied the individual to whom the remark was addressed.

One person, however, was heard to say,

"It will not hurt Nat at all. You may be sure that he did not go there just for the pleasure of the thing. I have no doubt that he went for the same reason that he went to hear Webster, Everett, and others speak,--to learn something. He was drawn thither, not by his love of amus.e.m.e.nt, but by his desire to learn. Nat learns more by seeing, than half the scholars do by hard study."

"What in the world could he learn there that is good?" inquired a person who heard the last remark.

"He could learn how to speak better, if nothing else," was the reply.

"And _that_ he said, in the beginning, was his object in going. When he has acquired what he thinks he can get there to aid him, you will see that he will stop."

"And by that time he may be ruined," was the reply.

Nat carried out his resolution, and went to the theatre a number of times, to hear certain plays, walking to Boston and back each time. One result of his visits was to increase his interest in Shakspeare, so that he began to practise reading his plays aloud, and personating the different characters. He made decided progress in this art, and subsequently gave public readings of Shakspeare, by which he gained much applause. The result satisfied nearly every one, that he went to the theatre simply to observe the manner of speaking, as he went to hear distinguished orators.

That the object for which a youth visits the theatre will decide, in a great measure, its influence upon him, no one can deny, and it is so with all forms of amus.e.m.e.nt. If he is drawn thither by the fascination of the play alone, yielding himself up to the witchery of it, without any regard to the intellectual or moral character of the scenic representations, he is in a dangerous path. A large majority of those who visit the theatre with this motive, as mere thoughtless pleasure-lovers, are probably ruined.

The youthful reader should not infer that it is altogether safe to visit the theatre, even for the reason that Nat did. It was a hazardous step for him on account of the attractions that are thrown around it to dazzle and bewilder. A high aim, in the path of knowledge, and great energy and decision of character to execute his purpose, were his protection. Perhaps not ten of a hundred youth could do the same thing, and be saved from ruin. Augustine tells of a Christian young man who was prevailed upon to visit the amphitheatre to witness the gladiatorial games. He was unfriendly to such sports, and consented to go solely to please his companion. For his own protection he resolved to close his eyes that he might not be influenced by the scene. For some time he kept his eyes closed; but, at length, a tremendous shout caused him to open them, and look out upon the arena. In an instant, he was fired with the spirit of those around him,--he cheered the gladiators on,--he shouted with all his might,--and ever after he became a constant patron of the games. So it is often with the youth, in our day, who goes to the theatre _for once_ only. He merely wants to see what the theatre is, resolved, perhaps, that he will never be known as a theatre-goer.

But he cannot withstand the fascination. Once going has created an irresistible desire to go again, and again, and again, until his character is ruined. Where one derives the impulse and knowledge that Nat did, a hundred are destroyed. It is not wise, then, to try the experiment. It is acquiring knowledge at too great a risk. Who would cross a rough and stormy river where he knew that only one in a hundred had reached the other sh.o.r.e?

Theatres have always been schools of vice. There never was a time when their influence was good. At the time our country was struggling for independence, Congress pa.s.sed an act recommending the different States to suppress theatrical performances by law; and soon after they pa.s.sed another act declaring that no person who visited the theatre should hold an office under the government. It seems impossible to make them otherwise than disreputable. Attempts have been made to establish _respectable_ theatres, but they have always failed. Such an attempt was made to reform one of the royal theatres of London, some years ago, and the committee to whom the subject was submitted reported that the inst.i.tution could not be supported after such reform. The experiment was actually tried with the late Tremont Theatre, in Boston. Intoxicating drinks were not allowed to be sold, and no females were admitted unaccompanied by gentlemen, as the better cla.s.s of people would not attend if profligate persons were admitted. But the theatre could not be supported on these principles, and the plan was abandoned. A report was published, in which it was stated, that if the rent of the building was free, it could not be sustained by the reform system. Intemperance and licentiousness appear to be indispensable to support the theatre. There is good reason, then, for the legend recorded by Tertullian, running as follows: A Christian woman went to the theatre, and came home possessed of a demon. Her confessor, seeking to cast out the evil one, demanded of him how he dared to take possession of a believer, who, by holy baptism, had been redeemed out of his kingdom. "I have done nothing but what is proper," said the devil, "for I found her on my own territory." He might have made a captive of Nat for the same reason.

Some p.r.o.nounce this hostility to theatres a prejudice of Christian ministers and their sympathizers, but this is not true. The popular actor, Macready, who won a world-wide fame in the business, by his long connection with the stage, expressed a similar opinion of theatres after he left the play. He settled in Sherbourne, England, where he had a pleasant, promising family, and one rule to which his children were subjected was, "None of my children shall ever, with my consent or on any pretence, enter a theatre, or have any visiting connection with actors and actresses." The honored Judge Bulstrode at one time expressed the feelings of the English bench, when, in his charge to the grand jury of Middles.e.x, he said, "One play-house ruins more souls than fifty churches are able to save." Sir Matthew Hale relates that when he was at Oxford, he was making rapid advancement in his studies when the stage-players came thither, and he went to the performance, and became so corrupted that he almost entirely forsook his studies. He was saved only by resolving never to attend another play. Even the infidel, Rousseau, condemned theatres. He said, "I observe that the situation of an actor is a state of licentiousness and bad morals; that the men are abandoned to disorder; that the women lead a scandalous life; that the one and the other, at once avaricious and profane, ever overwhelmed with debt, and ever prodigal, are as unrestrained in their dissipation as they are void of scruple in respect to the means of providing for it. In all countries their profession is dishonorable; those who exercise it are everywhere contemned."

CHAPTER XXII.

THE DRAMATIC SOCIETY.

"Let us form a dramatic society," said Nat to his companions, one day.

"Perhaps we can put an extra touch on 'Henry the Eighth' or 'The Merchant of Venice.'"

"I should laugh," answered Charlie, "to see us undertaking the drama. I guess it would be straining at a _gnat_ (Nat) and swallowing a camel,"

attempting to perpetrate a pun, over which he, at whose expense it was said, laughed as heartily as any of them.

"Let Charlie laugh as much as he pleases," said Marcus, "I think we could do well in such an enterprise. We might not eclipse Booth, but we could get along without a bar and some other things as bad."

"You will find," continued Charlie, "that a play of Shakspeare will not go off very well without scenery."

"Of course it would not," replied Nat. "But we must have scenery of some kind."

"Where will you get it?"

"Make it," quickly responded Nat. "It will be an easy matter to paint such representations as will answer our purpose."

"So you will turn actor and artist all at once," said Charlie. "What will you try to do next, Nat?"

"As to that," answered Nat, "I will let you know when I have done this.

'One thing at a time,' was Dr. Franklin's rule. But say, now, will you all enlist for a dramatic society?"

Frank and Marcus replied promptly in the affirmative, and Charlie brought up the rear, by saying,

"Well, I suppose I must be on the popular side, and go with the majority--yea."