In the same street, and immediately opposite the great hotel, is the
Tremont Theatre, certainly the most elegant exterior in the country, and
with a very well-proportioned, but not well-arranged _salle_, or
audience part.
I commenced here on Monday the 30th of September, three days after
closing at Philadelphia, to a well-filled house, composed, however,
chiefly of men, as on my _debut_ at New York. My welcome was cordial and
kind in the extreme; but the audience, although attentive, appeared
exceedingly cold. On a first night I did not heed this much, especially
as report assured me they were very well pleased; but throughout the
week this coldness appeared to me to increase rather than diminish, and
so much was I affected by it, that, notwithstanding the houses were very
good, I, on the last day of my first engagement of six nights, declined
positively to renew it, as was the custom in such cases, and as, in
fact, the manager and myself had contemplated: on this night, however,
the aspect of affairs brightened up amazingly; the house was crowded; a
brilliant show of ladies graced the boxes; the performances were a
repetition of two pieces which had been previously acted, and from first
to last the mirth was electric; the good people appeared, by common
consent, to abandon themselves to the fun of the scene, and laughed _a
gorge deployee_. At the fall of the curtain, after, in obedience to the
call of the house, I had made my bow, the manager announced my
re-engagement; and from this night forth I never met a merrier or a
pleasanter audience.
It was quite in accordance with the character ascribed to the
New-Englanders that they should coolly and thoroughly examine and
understand the novelty presented for their judgment, and that, being
satisfied and pleased, they should no longer set limits to the
demonstration of their feelings.
In matters of graver import they have always evinced the like deliberate
judgment and apparent coldness of bearing; but beneath this prudential
outward veil they have feelings capable of the highest degree of
excitement and the most enduring enthusiasm.
I do not agree with those who describe the Yankee as a naturally
cold-blooded, selfish being. From both the creed and the sumptuary
regulations of the rigid moral censors from whom they sprung, they have
inherited the practice of a close self-observance and a strict attention
to conventional form, which gives a frigid restraint to their air that
nevertheless does not sink far beneath the surface.
A densely-populated and ungrateful soil has kept alive and quickened
their natural gifts of intelligence and enterprise, whilst the shifts
poverty imposes upon young adventure may possibly at times have impelled
prudence to degenerate into cunning. But look at their history as a
community; they have been found ever ready to make the most generous
sacrifices for the commonwealth. In their domestic relations they are
proverbial as the kindest husbands and most indulgent fathers; whilst as
friends they are found to be, if reasonably wary, at least steadfast,
and to be relied on to the uttermost of their professions.
I can readily understand a stranger, having any share of sensibility,
not liking a people whose observances are so peculiar and so decidedly
marked; but I do think it impossible for an impartial person to spend
any time in the country, or have any close intercourse with the
community, without learning to respect and admire them, _malgre_ their
calculating prudence, and the many prejudices inseparable from a system
of education even to this day sufficiently narrow and sectarian.
As far as my personal experience is worthy of consideration, I must
declare that some of the kindest, gentlest, and most hospitable friends
I had, and, I trust I may add, have, in the Union, were natives of
New-England, or, as they say here, "real Yankee, born and raised within
sight of the State-house of Bosting."