Living in History
Italy,—these things may have been theatrical, inasmuch as they were certainly dramatic, but absurd is not a wise word to apply to them. Neither is it possible to believe that the life of Europe went on in spite of these historic incidents, triumphing over them as over so many obstacles to activity.
When the "Nation" contrasts the beneficent companies of strolling players who "represented and interpreted the world of life, the one thing which matters and remains," with the companies of soldiers who merely destroyed life at its roots, we cannot but feel that this editorial point of view has its limitations. The strolling players of Elizabeth's day afforded many a merry hour; but Elizabeth's soldiers and sailors did their part in making possible this mirth. The strolling players who came to the old Southwark Theatre in Philadelphia interpreted "the world of life," as they understood it; but the soldiers who froze
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