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Short Stories and Essays From Literature and Life"" by William Dean Howells
Short Stories and Essays From Literature and Life"" by William Dean Howells
This seemed like a challenge of some sort, and I prepared myself to take it up warily. I said I should be very sorry to do good, as people called it; because such a line of action nearly always ended in spiritual pride for the doer and general demoralization for the doee. Still, I said, a law had lately been passed in Ohio giving a man who found himself behind a high hat at the theatre a claim for damages against the manager; and if the passage of this law could be traced ever so faintly and indirectly to my teachings, I should not altogether grieve for the good I had done.
I added that if all the States should pass such a law, and other laws fixing a low price for a certain number of seats at the theatres, or obliging the managers to give one free performance every month, as the law does in Paris, and should then forbid indecent and immoral plays-
"I see what you mean," said my friend, a little impatiently. "You mean sumptuary legislation. But I have not come to talk to you upon that subject, for then you would probably want to do all the talking yourself. I want to ask you if you have visited any of the cheaper amusements of this metropolis, or know anything of the really clever and charming things one may see there for a very little money."
"Ten cents, for instance?"
"Yes."
I answered that I would never own to having come as low down as that; and I expressed a hardy and somewhat inconsistent doubt of the quality of the amusement that could be had for that money. I questioned if anything intellectual could be had for it.
"What do you say to the ten-cent magazines?" my friend retorted. "And do you pretend that the two-dollar drama is intellectual?"
I had to confess that it generally was not, and that this was part of my grief with it.
Then he said: "I don't contend that it is intellectual, but I say that it is often clever and charming at the ten-cent shows, just as it is less often clever and charming in the ten-cent magazines. I think the average of propriety is rather higher than it is at the two-dollar theatres; and it is much more instructive at the ten-cent shows, if you come to that. The other day," said my friend, and in squaring himself comfortably in his chair and finding room for his elbow on the corner of my table he knocked off some books for review, "I went to a dime museum for an hour that I had between two appointments, and I must say that I never passed an hour's time more agreeably. In the curio hall, as one of the lecturers on the curios called it-they had several lecturers in white wigs and scholars' caps and gowns-there was not a great deal to see, I confess; but everything was very high-class. There was the inventor of a perpetual motion, who lectured upon it and explained it from a diagram. There was a fortune-teller in a three-foot tent whom I did not interview; there were five macaws in one cage, and two gloomy apes in another. On a platform at the end of the hall was an Australian family a good deal gloomier than the apes, who sat in the costume of our latitude, staring down the room with varying expressions all verging upon melancholy madness, and who gave me such a pang of compassion as I have seldom got from the tragedy of the two-dollar theatres. They allowed me to come quite close up to them, and to feed my pity upon their wild dejection in exile without stint. I couldn't enter into conversation with them, and express my regret at finding them so far from their native boomerangs and kangaroos and pinetree grubs, but I know they felt my sympathy, it was so evident. I didn't see their performance, and I don't know that they had any. They may simply have been there ethnologically, but this was a good object, and the sight of their spiritual misery was alone worth the price of admission.
"After the inventor of the perpetual motion had brought his harangue to a close, we all went round to the dais where a lady in blue spectacles lectured us upon a fire-escape which she had invented, and operated a small model of it. None of the events were so exciting that we could regret it when the chief lecturer announced that this was the end of the entertainment in the curio hall, and that now the performance in the theatre was about to begin. He invited us to buy tickets at an additional charge of five, ten, or fifteen cents for the gallery, orchestra circle, or orchestra.
"I thought I could afford an orchestra stall, for once. We were three in the orchestra, another man and a young mother, not counting the little boy she had with her; there were two people in the gallery, and a dozen at least in the orchestra circle. An attendant shouted, 'Hats off!' and the other man and I uncovered, and a lady came up from under the stage and began to play the piano in front of it. The curtain rose, and the entertainment began at once. It was a passage apparently from real life, and it involved a dissatisfied boarder and the daughter of the landlady. There was not much coherence in it, but there was a good deal of conscience on the part of the actors, who toiled through it with unflagging energy. The young woman was equipped for the dance she brought into it at one point rather than for the part she had to sustain in the drama. It was a very blameless dance, and she gave it as if she was tired of it, but was not going to falter. She delivered her lines with a hard, Southwestern accent, and I liked fancying her having come up in a simpler-hearted section of the country than ours, encouraged by a strong local belief that she was destined to do Juliet and Lady Macbeth, or Peg Woffington at the least; but very likely she had not.
"Her performance was followed by an event involving a single character. The actor, naturally, was blackened as to his skin, but as to his dress he was all in white, and at the first glance I could see that he had temperament. I suspect that he thought I had, too, for he began to address his entire drama to me. This was not surprising, for it would not have been the thing for him to single out the young mother; and the other man in the orchestra stalls seemed a vague and inexperienced youth, whom he would hardly have given the preference over me. I felt the compliment, but upon the whole it embarrassed me; it was too intimate, and it gave me a publicity I would willingly have foregone. I did what I could to reject it, by feigning an indifference to his jokes; I even frowned a measure of disapproval; but this merely stimulated his ambition. He was really a merry creature, and when he had got off a number of very good things which were received in perfect silence, and looked over his audience with a woe-begone eye, and said, with an effect of delicate apology, 'I hope I'm not disturbing you any,' I broke down and laughed, and that delivered me into his hand. He immediately said to me that now he would tell me about a friend of his, who had a pretty large family, eight of them living, and one in Philadelphia; and then for no reason he seemed to change his mind, and said he would sing me a song written expressly for him-by an expressman; and he went on from one wild gayety to another, until he had worked his audience up to quite a frenzy of enthusiasm, and almost had a recall when he went off.
"I was rather glad to be rid of him, and I was glad that the next performers, who were a lady and a gentleman contortionist of Spanish- American extraction, behaved more impartially. They were really remarkable artists in their way, and though it's a painful way, I couldn't help admiring their gift in bowknots and other difficult poses. The gentleman got abundant applause, but the lady at first got none. I think perhaps it was because, with the correct feeling that prevailed among us, we could not see a lady contort herself with so much approval as a gentleman, and that there was a wound to our sense of propriety in witnessing her skill. But I could see that the poor girl was hurt in her artist pride by our severity, and at the next thing she did I led off the applause with my umbrella. She instantly lighted up with a joyful smile, and the young mother in the orchestra leaned forward to nod her sympathy to me while she clapped. We were fast becoming a domestic circle, and it was very pleasant, but I thought that upon the whole I had better go."
"And do you think you had a profitable hour at that show?" I asked, with a smile that was meant to be sceptical.
"Profitable?" said my friend. "I said agreeable. I don't know about the profit. But it was very good variety, and it was very cheap. I understand that this is the kind of thing you want the two-dollar theatre to come down to, or up to."
"Not exactly, or not quite," I returned, thoughtfully, "though I must say I think your time was as well spent as it would have been at most of the plays I have seen this winter."
My friend left the point, and said, with a dreamy air: "It was all very pathetic, in a way. Three out of those five people were really clever, and certainly artists. That colored brother was almost a genius, a very common variety of genius, but still a genius, with a gift for his calling that couldn't be disputed. He was a genuine humorist, and I sorrowed over him-after I got safely away from his intimacy-as I should over some author who was struggling along without winning his public. Why not? One is as much in the show business as the other. There is a difference of quality rather than of kind. Perhaps by-and-by my colored humorist will make a strike with his branch of the public, as you are always hoping to do with yours."
"You don't think you're making yourself rather offensive?" I suggested.
"Not intentionally. Aren't the arts one? How can you say that any art is higher than the others? Why is it nobler to contort the mind than to contort the body?"
"I am always saying that it is not at all noble to contort the mind," I returned, "and I feel that to aim at nothing higher than the amusement of your readers is to bring yourself most distinctly to the level of the show business."
"Yes, I know that is your pose," said my friend. "And I dare say you really think that you make a distinction in facts when you make a distinction in terms. If you don't amuse your readers, you don't keep them; practically, you cease to exist. You may call it interesting them, if you like; but, really, what is the difference? You do your little act, and because the stage is large and the house is fine, you fancy you are not of that sad brotherhood which aims to please in humbler places, with perhaps cruder means-"
"I don't know whether I like your saws less than your instances, or your instances less than your saws," I broke in. "Have you been at the circus yet?"
Their Silver Wedding Journey, Part I. by William Dean Howells
After three loveless years, Neil's betrayal deeply wounded Katelyn. She wasted no time in getting rid of that scoundrel! After the divorce, she devoted herself to career pursuits. Rising to prominence as a top designer, skilled doctor, and brilliant hacker, she became a revered icon. Neil, realizing his grave mistake, tried in vain to win her back, only to witness her magnificent wedding to another. As their vows were broadcast on the world's largest billboard, Vincent slid a ring onto Katelyn's finger and declared, "Katelyn is now my wife, a priceless treasure. Let all who covet her beware!"
Audrey Wilson must marry an old, ugly man because of her father's unpaid debts. She thought her boyfriend would be her savior, but on the same day, she discovers that he has betrayed her along with her best friend. So, desperate, she has to go to a bar to look for an opportunity, and luckily, she does find it... *** Audrey feel, a strange sensation was emanating from every part of her body. She tried to clench her legs, but was prevented from doing so. Lucien spread her legs and took his c*ck and aimed it at her v*ginal entrance. Smiling, he prompted her, "I'm coming in." With that he thrust hard. "Ah-" Audrey cried out, unlike the moan she had just given. It was a scream from pain, and she felt a ripping pain coming from her bottom. Lucien sensed something was wrong and looked down to check, he saw blood. What was going on here? She really was a virgin!
Her sister is marrying her ex. So she brings her best friend as her fake fiancé. What could possibly go wrong? Savannah Hart thought she was over Dean Archer-until her sister, Chloe announces she's marrying him. The same man Savannah never stopped loving. The man who left her heartbroken... and now belongs to her sister. A weeklong wedding in New Hope. One mansion full of guests. And a very bitter maid of honor. To survive it, Savannah brings a date-her charming, clean-cut best friend, Roman Blackwood. The one man who's always had her back. He owes her a favor, and pretending to be her fiancé? Easy. Until fake kisses start to feel real. Now Savannah's torn between keeping up the act... or risking everything for the one man she was never supposed to fall for.
The day my husband, a Mafia Underboss, told me I was genetically unfit to carry his heir, he brought home my replacement—a surrogate with my eyes and a working womb. He called her a "vessel" but paraded her as his mistress, abandoning me while I bled on the floor at a party to protect her and planning their secret future in the villa he once promised me. But in our world, wives don't just walk away—they disappear, and I decided to orchestrate my own vanishing act, leaving him to the ruin he so carefully built for himself.
"You want a divorce?" His voice was ice, sending a chill down her spine. "You'll never get it." For three years, Bellatrix devoted herself to Cillian Laurent-Miami's ruthless tycoon and her indifferent husband-hoping to earn his love. But when she's diagnosed with a life-threatening illness, she realizes the bitter truth: she was never his choice. Just a placeholder for the woman who abandoned him. and has now returned. Determined to reclaim her life, Bellatrix demands a divorce. But the man who once ignored her now refuses to let her go. As buried secrets unravel, she discovers their twisted marriage was never what it seemed. Can she break free from a love that was never hers? Or will his obsession destroy them both?
Once, Sabrina trusted the wrong man and paid for it with her life, dragging down the only person who ever tried to help her. Fate offered her a rare reset, and this time, she pledged herself to Theo-the savior she had overlooked before. A partnership for convenience blossomed into something fierce, with Theo showing her tenderness she never expected. Revenge became her mission while he quietly shielded her. When their pact neared its end, Theo blocked her exit, whispering, "You're leaving me?" She faltered. "Maybe one more year." Yet soon, a baby was on the way. What the hell? That wasn't the deal!
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