September 22. With Ellie to see The Rivals at Wallacks tonight. Rather a satisfactory performance on the whole, in spite of a most un-Hibernian Sir Lucius OTrigger and a very dreary Falkland and Julia. But for that dismal pain the author is mainly responsible. A good comedy well played is entertaining while it lasts, but after all, these productions, from Congreve & Co. down to Mr. Boucicault seem to me as shallow, silly, frivolous, and unreal as any compositions I know of. One can imagine comedy that should be to The Rivals or London Assurance what Pendennis and The Newcomes are to the old novels of fashionable life.
The Diary of George Templeton Strong, Edited by Allan Nevins and Milton Halsey Thomas, Abridged by Thomas J. Pressly
The above should say continued from reply 18, not 28.
Maybe if George had been stoned he might have enjoyed the play.
[Hamilton Fish is a former Governor of New York and U.S. Senator for New York. He is currently between government jobs. Fish and Strong are both on the Board of Trustees of Columbia College. Fish will later be a Lincoln supporter and will serve as Secretary of State in the administration of U.S. Grant, who is currently attempting to eke out a living selling firewood on the streets of St. Louis. HJS]
September 25. Politics engross everybodys thoughts and talk, more and more daily. Hamilton Fish has pronounced at last for Fremont, and favors mankind with an analysis of his motives and reasons that fills two columns of the Courier, and is hard reading. Unimportant, except as shewing what an ambitious commonplace man, with some experience and opportunity of observation, thinks is for his own interest. Its significant like the diligence of spiders before rain, or the movements of various animals in anticipation of an earthquake or a hurricane. . . .
As for our Southern friends, theyre madder every day. Vide the Muscogee (Ga.) Herald on Northern Society as made up of greasy mechanics and so on not fit for a Southern gentlemans body-servant. Also, somebody makes a grand allocution to the young men and braves assembled at a South Carolina militia muster, tells them that if somebody should smite down the miscreant (John C. Fremont) beside the pillars of the Capitol, in case of his election, not a Southern regiment but would spring to the rescue of the hypothetical Ravaillac.
Last night to Wallacks again with Ellie; Old Heads and Young Hearts one of the best comedies Ive seen. Blake as Jessie Rural excellent.
The Diary of George Templeton Strong, Edited by Allan Nevins and Milton Halsey Thomas, Abridged by Thomas J. Pressly