These were my opera pleasures; but another pleasure I had which, as it
could be had only on a Saturday night, occasionally struggled with my
love of the Opera; for at that time Tuesday and Saturday were the regular
opera nights. On this subject I am afraid I shall be rather obscure, but
I can assure the reader not at all more so than Marinus in his Life of
Proclus, or many other biographers and autobiographers of fair
reputation. This pleasure, I have said, was to be had only on a Saturday
night. What, then, was Saturday night to me more than any other night? I
had no labours that I rested from, no wages to receive; what needed I to
care for Saturday night, more than as it was a summons to hear Grassini?
True, most logical reader; what you say is unanswerable. And yet so it
was and is, that whereas different men throw their feelings into
different channels, and most are apt to show their interest in the
concerns of the poor chiefly by sympathy, expressed in some shape or
other, with their distresses and sorrows, I at that time was disposed to
express my interest by sympathising with their pleasures. The pains of
poverty I had lately seen too much of, more than I wished to remember;
but the pleasures of the poor, their consolations of spirit, and their
reposes from bodily toil, can never become oppressive to contemplate.
Pages:
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86