(however misplaced) would have been than all this reasoning. The second
act (as in duty bound) rose a little in interest; but still John kept
his forces under,--in policy, as G. would have it,--and the audience
were most complacently attentive. The _protasis_, in fact, was scarcely
unfolded. The interest would warm in the next act, against which a
special incident was provided. M. wiped his cheek, flushed with a
friendly perspiration,--'tis M.'s way of showing his zeal,--'from every
pore of him a perfume falls.' I honor it above Alexander's. He had once
or twice during this act joined his palms in a feeble endeavor to elicit
a sound; they emitted a solitary noise without an echo; there was no
deep to answer to his deep. G. repeatedly begged him to be quiet. The
third act at length brought on the scene which was to warm the piece
progressively to the final flaming forth of the catastrophe. A
philosophic calm settled upon the clear brow of G., as it approached.
The lips of M. quivered. A challenge was held forth upon the stage, and
there was promise of a fight. The pit roused themselves on this
extraordinary occasion, and, as their manner is, seemed disposed to make
a ring,--when suddenly Antonio, who was the challenged, turning the
tables upon the hot challenger, Don Gusman, (who, by the way, should
have had his sister,) balks his humor, and the pit's reasonable
expectation at the same time, with some speeches out of the new
philosophy against duelling. The audience were here fairly
caught,--their courage was up, and on the alert,--a few blows, _ding
dong_, as R----s the dramatist afterwards expressed it to me, might have
done the business,--when their most exquisite moral sense was suddenly
called in to assist in the mortifying negation of their own pleasure.
They could not applaud, for disappointment; they would not condemn, for
morality's sake. The interest stood stone-still; and John's manner was
not at all calculated to unpetrify it. It was Christmas time, and the
atmosphere furnished some pretext for asthmatic affections. One began to