A Little Journey in the World

other. It must be a fiction of the moralists who construct the dramas that the god of love and the god of money each claims an undivided allegiance. It was in some wholly legendary, perhaps

? Else why do we take pleasure--a pleasure so deep that it touches the heart like melancholy--in the common drama of the opera? How gay and joyous is the beginning! Mirth, hilarity, entrancing sound, brilliant color, the note of a trumpet calling to heroism, the beseeching of the concordant strings, and the soft flute inviting to pleasure; scenes placid, pastoral, innocent; light-hearted love, the dance on the green, the stately pageant in the sunlit streets, the court, the ball, the mad splendor of life. And then love becomes passion, and passion thwarted hurries on to sin, and sin lifts to the heights of the immortal, sweetly smiling gods, and plung

atmosphere, as it were, and adds something of zest to the mildest enjoyment? Should we go away from the mimic stage any, better and strong

d leisure to be spectators of the audience, what a deeper revelation of life would they not have seen! For the world has never assembled such an epitome of itself, in its passion for pleasure and its passion for display

ivate dramas in the boxes. The opera was made for society, and not society for the opera. We occupied a box in the second tier--the Morgans, Margaret, and my wife. Morgan said that the glasses were raised to us from the parquet and leveled at us fro

w York; but it is nearly so. The audience do not jabber so loud nor so inc

, "that is because they

w to assert the social side of the opera, which is not t

e never before so good," I repli

ng against the raising of the lights by which the house was made brilliant and the cheap illusions of the stage were destroyed? They

and twenty in the next, and fifty in the next, attested well enough by the flash of jewels and the splendor of attire, and one might indulge a genuine pride in the prosperity of the republic. As for beauty, the world, surely, in this later time, had flowered here--flowered with something of Aspasia

ture?" asked Margaret, i

ot seen him Mr. Lyon. Almost at the same moment Henderson recognized me, and signaled for me to come to his box. As I rose to do

inclined to stoutness, and her too youthful apparel could not mislead one as to the length of her pilgrimage in this world, nor soften th

of Mr. Lyon's also. Mr. Lyon has told us much of your charming

pointed at Margaret as I g

Mr. Lyon?" she asked, turning about, her sweet mobile face quite the p

ry good sty

the girl, making her dark e

e opposite box, and a slight shade

econd, "I hardly know which to admire most, the beauty

country innocence," the girl said, with the m

n," her mother interposed;

ng that there is a time for everything, o

; Mr. Henderson was as evidently amused at the girl's act

I fancy, now, that Mr. Henderson tolerates the good--that is the reason we get on so well together; and Mr. Lyon tol

ng innocence of manner, almost an ingenuousness, that well became her exquisite beauty. And but for a tentative daring in her talk,

on had been in Washington for a wee

his kindness to us in London, and we are trying

, "he visited Brandon first, and you seem to have bewitched him wit

with the air of retorting, "that yo

lace so dangerous as the country. Now here you are protected--we put

on't you find it so, Mr. Henderson? I am passionately f

or all of us, "that you have to raise your voice

ut-to our box. The lobbies in the interact were thronged with men--for the most part the young speculators of the Chamber turned into loungers in the foyer--knowing, alert, attitudiniz

of the house, that made him drop the slight cynical air of the world which had fitted him so admirably a moment before? He already knew my wife and the Morgans, and, after the greetings were made, he took a seat by Margaret, quite content while

ht face to him when the curtain dropped, "

the opera is a sort of pulpit, and not seldom preaches an aw

in nomi

from the churches on the Avenue, if they are any more solemnized than the audiences that pour o

the theatres have

h--"I couldn't swear to that. But then we don

have, are excited by anything I see on the stage; perhaps I am more tolerant, and m

h as the house," Henderson replied,

nconscious of the house, as if it were a picture. I think it is t

e ambitious; every sort of thing seemed possible of attainment in the excitement of the crowded house, the music, the lights

e to have the same e

ge is about as real as the house--usually less interesti

experience, but I lik

try village where there are no theatres the people make dramas out of each other's li

n gossip

ed to create that illusory spectacle which the stage tries to give. I think that in the country village a good theatre would be a wh

in the church parlors, which may grow into a nineteenth century substitute for the mir

defend the city. We country people always do that. We

sked Margaret, "between the gossip in the

knowledge. It is here rather cynical pers

"It seems to me that in the city

say, we have

," said Margaret, seriously--

id, rising to go. "By-the-way, we have a friend

delighted with him. Such a

"that we should be happy

ntly: "What, so soon? But your absence has made one person thoroughly miserable. Mr

Miss Eschelle than to le

I thoroughly appreciate Mr. Henderson's self-sacrifice. If I oc

replied, turning to Henderson a look that was sweetly forgi

as you say over here, out in the cold, for I have pa

ion are the worst

derson said to Lyon, with that good-natured sm

enough to qualify mysel

but she accompanied the doubt wit

ss?" asked Mrs. Eschelle, turning

ting behind your back, mamma, only Mr

mor tonight that she absolves before any

nk I am always

pera-box with Miss Eschelle is the

nt. You see" (to Henderson) "how

u be my

said, in a low voice, stan

des. It is always at the last moment, in the hurry, as in a postscript, that woman says what she means, or what for the moment she

armen whispered to Henderson when she had

as much

a long time," she sa

y. Henderson stood raising his hat. A little white hand was shaken to him from the window, and a sweet, innocent face leaned forward--a face w

n her seat as if weary. Mrs

, child, made you

n't k

u snub Mr. Ly

istrait the moment he espied that girl? I'm not going to waste my

aid anything

sh in our waters, I believe. I think Mr. Lyon has had a nibble from a fresh-water fish.

hope you will be civil to both of