The popular
afternoon paper of Washington, the little "Evening Star," had
spatter'd all over its third page, divided among the advertisements in
a sensational manner, in a hundred different places, _The President
and his Lady will be at the Theatre this evening_.... (Lincoln was
fond of the theatre. I have myself seen him there several times. I
remember thinking how funny it was that he, in some respects the
leading actor in the stormiest drama known to real history's stage
through centuries, should sit there and be so completely interested
and absorb'd in those human jack-straws, moving about with their silly
little gestures, foreign spirit, and flatulent text.)
On this occasion the theatre was crowded, many ladies in rich and gay
costumes, officers in their uniforms, many well-known citizens, young
folks, the usual clusters of gas-lights, the usual magnetism of
so many people, cheerful, with perfumes, music of violins and
flutes--(and over all, and saturating all, that vast, vague wonder,
_Victory_, the nation's victory, the triumph of the Union, filling the
air, the thought, the sense, with exhilaration more than all music and
perfumes.)
The President came betimes, and, with his wife, witness'd the play
from the large stage-boxes of the second tier, two thrown into one,
and profusely drap'd with the national flag. The acts and scenes of
the piece--one of those singularly written compositions which have
at least the merit of giving entire relief to an audience engaged in
mental action or business excitements and cares during the day, as it
makes not the slightest call on either the moral, emotional, esthetic,
or spiritual nature--a piece, ("Our American Cousin,") in which, among
other characters, so call'd, a Yankee, certainly such a one as was
never seen, or the least like it ever seen, in North America, is
introduced in England, with a varied fol-de-rol of talk, plot,
scenery, and such phantasmagoria as goes to make up a modern popular
drama--had progress'd through perhaps a couple of its acts, when in
the midst of this comedy, or non-such, or whatever it is to be call'd,
and to offset it, or finish it out, as if in Nature's and the great
Muse's mockery of those poor mimes, came interpolated that scene, not
really or exactly to be described at all, (for on the many hundreds
who were there it seems to this hour to have left a passing blur, a
dream, a blotch)--and yet partially to be described as I now proceed
to give it.
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