"
LIGHT-HAIRED YOUNG MAN.--"But, my dear, it seems to me that your best
society must consist chiefly of Jews--judging from the names you
mention."
YOUNG LADY.--"Well, what if it does? They are rich, are they not? What
more could you want?"
LIGHT-HAIRED YOUNG MAN.--"What, indeed! But the music is just as good as
it would be if the fashionable Israelites were here,--isn't it?"
SHE.--"The music as good! Why, Charles, everybody knows that the Italian
opera music is perfectly lovely. This is only English, you know."
HE.--"It is precisely the same. Here the _Somnmabula_ is sung with
English instead of Italian words. That doesn't alter a single note."
SHE.--"You are too ridiculous! The idea of attempting to make me believe
that this is just like the Italian Opera! Don't you suppose I knows
anything about music?"
OLD GENTLEMAN.--"I heard CAROLINE RICHINGS sing in 1808,--I think it was.
I tell you she sings better now tan she did then, but the stupid public
never appreciated her. I recollect saying to KEAN--not CHARLES, you
know, but _the_ KEAN--that I knew a young lady that would be a splendid
singer some of these days--meaning CAROLINE, of course. 'Well, sir,'
says KEAN, 'what of it; you can't drink her, can you?' Gad! he was the
best man for repartee I ever knew. To give you an instance; one night
KEAN and I, and old SMITH,--you don't remember old SMITH, I presume; he
played old men at the Boston Theatre sixty years ago; I never met a
jollier fellow,--I remember his saying one night when JUNICS BOOTH was
playing--let me see, what was the play; it wasn't the _Apostate_, I
hardly think, for--"
Here the orchestra mercifully strikes up, and the big drum drums the
garrulous monologue of the veteran theatrical observer.
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