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- He stared at my strange burst, smiled merrily, and left me, offering his
coffee-pot in all directions, and not in vain.
’Tis not always poverty to be poor, mused I; one may fare well without a
penny. A ragged boy may be a prince-like benefactor.
That unpurchased pennyworth of ale revived my drooping spirits
strangely. Stuff was in that barley malt; a most sweet bitterness in
those blessed hops. God bless the glorious boy!
The more I looked about me in this lofty gallery, the more was I
delighted with its occupants. It was not spacious. It was, if anything,
rather contracted, being the very cheapest portion of the house, where
very limited attendance was expected; embracing merely the very crown of
the topmost semicircle; and so commanding, with a sovereign outlook, and
imperial downlook, the whole theatre, with the expanded stage directly
opposite, though some hundred feet below. As at the tower, peeping into
the transatlantic temple, so stood I here, at the very mainmast-head of
all the interior edifice.
Such was the decorum of this special theatre, that nothing objectionable
was admitted within its walls. With an unhurt eye of perfect love, I sat
serenely in the gallery, gazing upon the pleasing scene, around me and
below. Neither did it abate from my satisfaction to remember that Mr.
Macready, the chief actor of the night, was an amiable gentleman,
combining the finest qualities of social and Christian respectability
with the highest excellence in his particular profession; for which last
he had conscientiously done much, in many ways, to refine, elevate, and
chasten.
But now the curtain rises, and the robed Cardinal advances. How
marvellous this personal resemblance! He looks every inch to be the
self-same stately priest I saw irradiated by the glow-worm dyes of the
pictured windows from my high tower-pew. And shining as he does, in the
rosy reflexes of these stained walls and gorgeous galleries, the mimic
priest down there; he, too, seems lit by Gothic blazonings.--Hark! The
same measured, courtly, noble tone. See! the same imposing attitude.
Excellent actor is this Richelieu!
He disappears behind the scenes. He slips, no doubt, into the Green
Room. He reappears somewhat changed in his habiliments. Do I dream, or
is it genuine memory that recalls some similar thing seen through the
woven wires?
The curtain falls. Starting to their feet, the enraptured thousands
sound their responses deafeningly, unmistakably sincere. Right from the
undoubted heart. I have no duplicate in my memory of this. In
earnestness of response, this second temple stands unmatched. And hath
mere mimicry done this? What is it then to act a part?
But now the music surges up again, and borne by that rolling billow, I,
and all the gladdened crowd, are harmoniously attended to the street.
I went home to my lonely lodging and slept not much that night, for
thinking of the First Temple and the Second Temple; and how that, at
home in my own land, I was thrust out from the one, and, a stranger in a
strange land, found sterling charity in the other.
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POOR MAN’S PUDDING AND RICH MAN’S CRUMBS
PICTURE FIRST
POOR MAN’S PUDDING
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