Alexandria daily gazette, commercial & political. [volume] (Alexandria [Va.]) 1808-1812, 1812-02-25
From the Commercial advertiser
SENTIMENTS
ON DRAMATIC ENTERTAINMENTS AND OTHER
VAIN ADJUSTMENTS.
Extracts from the Prince Of Conf.

-" The call which men have for diver
sion, is not by Ear so great as is thought, and it
consists more in imagination or in custom,
than in real necessity. Those who are en-
ployed in bodily labour, have only need OF
bare cessation from it. Those who are en-
ployed in affairs toilsome to the mind, and but
little laborious to the body, have need to recol-
lect themselves from that disposition which
those sort of employments naturally cause, and
not to disspate themselves yet more, by diver
sions which extremely engage the mind. 1t
is lest to fancy that one has need to pass
three hours in filling the mind With follies at
play. Those who find in themselves this
need, ought to look on it, not as natural
weakness, but as vice of custom, which they
must cure by serious employment"
-" If the soul abandon itself 10 false plea
sures, it loses the relish OF spiritual ones, and
finds nothing but disgust for the Word OF
God When one feeds himself with the vain
pleasures of the world, the spiritual senses
become supplied, and incapable OF relishlng,
or understanding, the things OF God. Now,
among the pleasures OF the world, which ex-
tinguish the love of the Word OF God, 1t may
be said that plays and romances hold the hrst
rank because there is nothing more opposed
to truth; and the Spirit of God, being splr-
it of truth, can have no part with the yaniIies
of the world"
-" PLAYS and romances not only indis-
pose the soul for all acls of religion and plety,
but they give it disgust, in some measure, to
all serious and ordi.ary actions. AS nothing
is represented in them but gallantrles, or ex-
traordinary adventures, and the dlscourses are
far distant fran such as are used in serious
affairs, one insensibly takes from them TO-
mantle disposition Of mind: the head is tlled
with heroes and heroines; and women, seeing
the alterations which, IN them, are given to
their sex, have that sort of life so much i'm
pressed On their minds, that the affairs OF their
family and OF common life, become lnsup-
portable to them; and when they return to
their houses, with minds thus evaporated and
filled with these follies, they find every thing
there disagreeaoie, and especially their nus
bands, who, being taken up with their affairs,
are not always in the humor of paying them
those ridiculous compialsances which are
given to women in plays, liz romances, and IN
the romantic life"
Those deceive themselves extremely
who think that plays make no i'll impression
IN Them, because they do not find them excite
any formed evil desire. There are many de-
nrees before one comes to an entire corrup-
ton of mind and it is always extremely hurt
full to the SOUL to destroy the ranparts which
ecured it from temptation.
One does not begin to fall when the fall
,.o es sensible the falIings of the soul are
800 ,t.> have preparations and progressions;
.d = ofte,, happens, that we are overcome
h i',,I temptations, only by our having weakened
o',rselves in occs, sions which seemed OF no
imnortance it beins certain, that he who des-
pises little things, shall Ia. by little and little
It must not be imagined that the wicked
maxims of which plays are full, are not hurt
full, because people do not go there to form
their sentiments, but to divert themselves
for they do not fail of making impressions, not
withstanding, without being perceived. For
instance, the opinion that the chlmera OF hon.
or is so great good, that 1t must be preserv-
ed, even at the expense OF lite, Is what pro-
duces the brutal rage of the gentlemen OF
France. Ifthose who fight duel were never
spoken of but as fools and madmen-as IN
deed they are If that phantom OF honour
which is their idol, were never represented
Int as chimera and folly; if care were
taken never to form any image of revenge,
bnt az mean and cowardly action; the re-
sentiment which men feel upon an affront
would be infinitely weakened; bat that which
exasperates and renders it the more lively, is
the false impression, that there is cowardice
in bearing an affront Now, it cannot be de-
MED that plays, which are full Of these evil
maxims, do greatly contribute to fortity that
impression !; because the mind being by them
transported, and entirely out Of itself, instead
of correcting those sentiments, abandons It.
self to them without resistance, and delights
to feel the motions they inspire, which dispose
it to produce the like upon occasion
-" God does not impute to us the cold
ness which proceeds from the Withdrawing