From the Easy Chair, vol 1 | Page 5

and impossibilities, and smite our perfumed gloves in
approbation. It is no excuse to say that the whole thing is absurd; that
people do not carry on the business of life in song, nor expire in
recitative. That is true, but even fairy tales have their consistency.
Every part is adapted to every other, and, in the key, the whole is
harmonious. Hermann, for instance, the basso, who sang
Mephistopheles, would have been quite perfect if he had only
remembered this. But he forgot that Mephisto is a sly and subtle devil.
He caricatured him. He made him a buffoon and repulsive. Such
extravagance could not have imposed upon Faust or Martha; yet we all
agreed that it was very fine, and amiably applauded what no opera-goer
of sense could seriously approve.
You think that this is taking syllabub seriously, and that the
circumstances of the time had made the Easy Chair hypercritical. No; it
was only that there comes a time in theatre-going when the boxes are
more interesting than the stage. The mimic life fades before the real. In

the midst of the finest phrases of the impassioned Herr Faust, what if
your truant eyes stray across the parquette and see a slight, pale figure,
and recognize one of the bravest and most daring Union generals,
whose dashing assaults upon the enemy's works carried dismay and
victory day after day? Herr Faust trills on, but you see the sombre field
and the desperate battle and the glorious cause. Gretchen musically
sighs, but you see the brave boys lying where they fell: you hear the
deep, sullen roar of the cannonade; you catch far away through the
tumult of war the fierce shout of victory. And there sits the slight, pale
figure with eyes languidly fixed upon the stage; his heart musing upon
other scenes; himself the unconscious hero of a living drama.
Or, if you choose to lift your eyes, you see that woman with the sweet,
fair face, composed, not sad, turned with placid interest towards the
loves of Gretchen and Faust. She sees the eager delight of the meeting;
she hears the ardent vow; she feels the rapture of the embrace. With
placid interest she watches all--she, and the sedate husband by her side.
And yet when her eyes wander it is to see a man in the parquette below
her on the other side, who, between the acts, rises with the rest and
surveys the house, and looks at her as at all the others. At this distance
you cannot say if any softer color steals into that placid face; you
cannot tell if his survey lingers longer upon her than upon the rest. Yet
she was Gretchen once, and he was Faust. There is no moonlight
romance, no garden ecstasy, poorly feigned upon the stage, that is not
burned with eternal fire into their memories. Night after night they
come. They do not especially like this music. They are not infatuated
with these singers. They have seats for the season; she with her
husband, he in the orchestra chairs. She has a pleasant home and sweet
children and a kind mate, and is not unhappy. He is at ease in his
fortunes, and content. They do not come here that they may see each
other. They meet elsewhere as all acquaintances meet. They cherish no
morbid repining, no sentimental regret. But every night there is an
opera, and the theme of every opera is love; and once, ah! once, she
was Gretchen and he was Faust.
Do you see? These are three out of the three thousand. There is nothing
to distinguish them from the rest. Look at them all, and reflect that all
have their history; and that it is known, as this one is known, to some
other old Easy Chair, sitting in the parquette and spying round the

house. "All the world's a stage, and men and women merely players."
Is it quite so? Are these players? The young pale general there, the
placid woman, the man in the orchestra stall, have they been playing
only? There are scars upon that young soldier's body; in the most secret
drawer of that woman's chamber there is a dry, scentless flower; the
man in the orchestra stall could show you a tress of golden hair. If they
are players, who is in earnest?

EMERSON LECTURING.
Many years ago the Easy Chair used to hear Ralph Waldo Emerson
lecture. Perhaps it was in the small Sunday-school room under a
country meeting-house, on sparkling winter nights, when all the
neighborhood came stamping and chattering to the door in hood and
muffler, or ringing in from a few miles away, buried under
buffalo-skins. The little, low room was dimly lighted with oil-lamps,
and the boys clumped about