Fashion (Anna Cora Mowatt)/Prologue

PROLOGUE
(Enter a Gentleman, reading a Newspaper.)

"'Fashion, a Comedy.' I'll go; but stay&mdash;

Now I read farther, 'tis a native play!

Bah! homemade calicoes are well enough,

But homemade dramas must be stupid stuff.

Had it the London stamp, 'twould do&mdash;but then,

For plays, we lack the manners and the men!"

Thus speaks one critic. Here's another's creed:&mdash;

"'Fashion!' What's here? (Reads.) It never can succeed!

What! from a woman's pen? It takes a man

To write a comedy&mdash;no woman can."

Well, sir, and what say you, and why that frown?

His eyes uprolled, he lays the paper down:&mdash;

"Here! take," he says, "the unclean thing away!

'This tainted with the notice of a play!"

But, sir!&mdash;but, gentlemen!&mdash;you, sir, who think

No comedy can flow from native ink,&mdash

Are we such perfect monsters, or such dull,

That Wit no traits for ridicule can cull?

Have we no follies here to be redressed?

No vices gibbeted? no crimes confessed?

"But then a female hand can't lay the lash on!"

How know you that, sir, when the theme is Fashion?

And now, come forth, thou man of sanctity!

How shall I venture a reply to thee?

The Stage&mdash;what is it, though beneath thy ban,

But a daguerreotype of life and man?

Arraign poor human nature, if you will,

But let the Drama have her mission still;

Let her, with honest purpose, still reflect

The faults which keeneyed Satire may detect.

For there be men who fear not an hereafter,

Yet tremble at the hell of public laughter!

Friends, from these scoffers we appeal to you!

Condemn the false, but O, applaud the true.

Grant that some wit may grow on native soil

And art's fair fabric rise from woman's toil.

While we exhibit but to reprehend

The social voices, 'tis for you to mend!