What is there transacting, by no modification
is made to affect us in any other manner than the same events or
characters would do in our relationships of life. We carry our fireside
concerns to the theatre with us. We do not go thither like our
ancestors, to escape from the pressure of reality, so much as to confirm
our experience of it; to make assurance double, and take a bond of
fate. We must live our toilsome lives twice over, as it was the mournful
privilege of Ulysses to descend twice to the shades. All that neutral
ground of character, which stood between vice and virtue; or which in
fact was indifferent to neither, where neither properly was called in
question; that happy breathing-place from the burthen of a perpetual
moral questioning--the sanctuary and quiet Alsatia of hunted
casuistry--is broken up and disfranchised, as injurious to the interests
of society. The privileges of the place are taken away by law. We dare
not dally with images, or names, of wrong. We bark like foolish dogs
at shadows. We dread infection from the scenic representation of
disorder, and fear a painted pustule.
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