From Philadelphia we went to New York where our success was confirmed.
It remained for me to win the suffrages of Boston, and I secured them,
first having made stops in Brooklyn, New Haven, and Hartford. When in
the American Athens I became convinced that that city possesses the
most refined artistic taste. Its theatrical audiences are serious,
attentive to details, analytical--I might almost say scientific--and
one might fancy that such careful critics had never in their lives
done anything but occupy themselves with scenic art. With reference
to a presentation of Shakespeare, they are profound, acute, subtle,
and they know so well how to clothe some traditional principle in
close logic, that if faith in the opposite is not quite unshakable in
an artist, he must feel himself tempted to renounce his own tenets.
It is surprising that in a land where industry and commerce seem to
absorb all the intelligence of the people, there should be in every
city and district, indeed in every village, people who are competent
to discuss the arts with such high authority. The American nation
counts only a century of freedom, yet it has produced a remarkable
number of men of high competence in dramatic art. Those who think of
tempting fortune by displaying their untried artistic gifts on the
American stage, counting on the ignorance or inexperience of their
audience, make a very unsafe calculation. The taste and critical
faculty of that public are in their fulness of vigour. Old Europe is
more bound by traditions, more weary, more blase, in her judgment, not
always sincere or disinterested. In America the national pride is
warmly felt, and the national artists enjoy high honour. The
Americans know how to offer an exquisite hospitality, but woe to the
man who seeks to impose on them! They profess a cult, a veneration,
for those who practise our art, whether of their own nation or
foreign, and their behaviour in the theatre is dignified. I recall
one night when upon invitation I went to see a new play in which
appeared an actor of reputation. The play was not liked, and from act
to act I noticed that the house grew more and more scanty, like a
faded rose which loses its petals one by one, until at the last scene
my box was the only one which remained occupied. I was more impressed
by this silent demonstration of hostility than I should have been if
the audience had made a tumultuous expression of its disapproval. The
actors were humiliated and confounded, and as the curtain fell an
instinctive sentiment of compassion induced me to applaud.