Nothing can be more striking than to hear a lady, who has just been
figuring upon the stage as a coquette or a romp, explaining to some
friend the distress she is labouring under in consequence of the serious
illness of her mother or aunt; or to see a gentleman fresh from the
boards, upon which he has been amusing the audience as Caleb Quotem or
Jeremy Diddler, with tears in his eyes, and a low comedy wig on his
head, giving an account of the melancholy state of his wife and three
children, all dying of scarlatina; but such is too often the case: too
often, while the player is tortured with physical pain, or sinking under
moral distress, he is obliged in his vocation to wear the face of mirth,
and distort his features into the extremes of grimace. The actress,
writhing under the pangs of ingratitude in man, or insult from woman, is
similarly driven to strain her lungs to charm the ears of an audience,
or exhibit her graceful figure to the best advantage in the animated
dance, for the amusement of the half-price company of a one shilling
gallery, while her heart is bursting with sorrow; add to all these
inevitable ills, the constant labour of practice and rehearsal,
the caprice of the public, the tyranny of managers, the rarity of
excellence, the misery of defeat, and the uncertainty of health and
capability, and then might one ask, Who would be an actor, who could
be any thing else?--_Hook's Gervase Skinner_.
* * * * *
The first Italian performer that made any distinguished figure in London
was Valentini, a true, sensible singer at that time, but of a throat too
weak to sustain those melodious warblings, for which the fairer sex have
since idolized his successors. However, this defect was so well supplied
by his action, that his hearers bore with the absurdity of his singing
his first part of Turnus, in _Camilla_, all in Italian, while every
other character was sung and recited to him in English.--_Life of
Colley Gibber._
* * * * *
To attain complex and difficult ends by simple means, whether in
physics or politics, falls not to the lot of man. What should we think
of the man who should insist on having a _simple watch_, which should
answer every object of that machine, and yet possess the simplicity of a
sun-dial? The artificer would naturally say to such a customer, "Sir, if
you want a sun-dial, you can have a very cheap and a very simple one;
but if you desire a watch, I shall be glad to learn how its operations
are to be accomplished without complex mechanism."
* * * * *