Page:My Life in Two Hemispheres, volume 1.djvu/46

 whatever public spirit they possessed probably evaporated with its collapse.

The dream I had had of journalism as a mission had a rude awakening. But the new life was not wanting in new enjoyments. I had longed for unattainable books, and in the Dublin Library I found all the books I longed for. The most startling revelation which books brought me was the knowledge that sentiments which I had long regarded as peculiar to myself were common characteristics of the class of whom books are the daily bread. Hazlitt's frank confession and Montaigne's self-reproaches sometimes read like my personal experience. And I first discovered from Isaac Disraeli's "Literary Character" that I had the prevailing weaknesses, perhaps some of the gifts, of the man of letters. I had dreamed of seeing Shakespeare's heroes and heroines, no longer as shadows, but in the flesh, and now I had a free admission to two theatres. In one respect the theatre disappointed me, I expected as much enjoyment from the wit of the gallery as from the art of the stage, but the wit was dreary and scanty. I can only recall two laughable incidents in all that theatre-going period. An eccentric attorney named Toby Glascock was a famous amateur actor, and on one occasion the little theatre of Fishamble Street was engaged for one of his performances, and I found myself one of a motley and expectant audience. The curtain did not rise at the usual time, and rumour flew round the house that Toby would not appear. The audience, who had paid their money, became so troublesome that the manager intervened, and endeavoured to quiet them. He talked placeboes and platitudes, but said not a word about the missing amateur. At length a gallery boy muttered in a burlesque imitation of the manager in "Hamlet": "To-by or not To-by, that is the question?" On another occasion a fiery melodrama entitled "God Defend the Right," was being played in Hawkins Street, and in a single combat the hero got a gash on his hand. "That's the left," cried a boy in the gallery, "God defend the right."

For a time I chummed with Henry MacManus, and he brought me to see treasures of art like the Hogarths in Charlemont House, the historic portraits in Trinity College,