The Complete Works of Artemus Ward — Part 1: Essays, Sketches, and LettersWard, Artemus
General
The Complete Works of Artemus Ward — Part 1: Essays, Sketches, and Letters
Ward, Artemus
American wit and humor
The wedding takes place. The scene that follows is rather
incomprehensible. A young mariner has a clandestine interview with
the obedient slave, and receives 10 dollars to make a large box. An
elderly mariner, not that mariner, but another mariner--rushes madly
in and fires a horse-pistol into the air. He wheels and is about
going off, when a black Octoroon rushes madly in and fires another
horse-pistol at the retreating mariner, who falls. He says he is
going to make a die of it. Says he should have acted differently if
he had only done otherwise, which was right, or else it wouldn't be
so. He forgets his part and don't say anything more, but he wraps
himself up in the American flag and expires like a son of a
gentleman. More warblings on the bass drum. The rest of the
orchestra endeavor to accompany the drum, but are so deeply affected
that they can't. There is a death-like stillness in the house. All
was so still that had a cannon been fired off it could have been
distinctly seen.
The next scene discloses a large square box. Several colored
persons are seen standing round the square box. The mariner who was
killed in the last scene commences knocking off the cover of the
box. He pulls the cover off, and up jumps the obedient slave and
his wife! The obedient slave and his dear Julia fall out of the
box. Great applause. They rush to the footlights and kneel. Quick
music by the orchestra, in which the bass drum don't warble so much
as she did. "I'm free! I'M FREE! I'M FREE!!" shrieks the obedient
slave, "O I'm free!" The stage is suddenly lighted up in a gorgeous
manner. The obedient slave and his dear Julia continue kneeling.
The dead mariner blesses them. The Goddess of Liberty appears
again--this time in a beaver overcoat--and pours some more incense
on the obedient slave. An allegorical picture of Virtue appears in
a red vest and military boots, on the left proscenium, John Brown
the barber appears as Lady Macbeth, and says there is a blue tinge
into his nails, and consequently he is an Octoroon. Another actor
wants to define his position on the Euclid Street improvement, but
is hissed down. Curtain descends amidst the admiring shouts of the
audience, red fire, music, and the violent assertion of the obedient
slave that he is free.
The play will not be repeated this evening, as was announced. The
notice will be given of its next performance. It is the greatest
effort of the kind that we ever witnessed.
1.62. A MAYORALTY ELECTION.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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