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THE STAGE FIFTY YEARS AGO
But what do any of them know of the
wild joys which thrilled our little breasts
when The Enchanted Horse, The Enchanted
Beauty, The Forty Thieves, The
Children of Cyprus, and Aladdin possessed
the fairyland of the stage ? I recall per-
fectly, and can now analyze, the mixed
conditions of my spirit at those entertain-
ments. All was real and true, just because
it was far away and romantic. The " cloud-
cuckoo-land " of the imagination was the
native heath of the healthy child of that
day. And well I remember how tame,
unimportant, and unnatural the characters
appeared to me in The Drunkard, — to
which I was taken for ethical reasons, no
doubt, when it was produced at the Mu-
seum, — in contrast with the glorious, vital,
and convincing figures of AH Baba, Cogia
Houssam, and Morgiana, of Cherry and
Fair Star, so done into English from the
French Cheri and Belle Etoile. It was in
The Children of Cyprus that I first saw
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