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ositively know of nothing that can be called so, unless you dignify with that title the hopping once a fortnight to the sound of two or three squeaking fiddles, and the clattering of the old tavern windows, or sitting to see the miserable mummers, whom you call actors, murder comedy and make a farce of tragedy. MANLY. Do you never attend the theatre, sir? DIMPLE. I was tortured there once. CHARLOTTE. Pray, Mr. Dimple, was it a tragedy or a comedy? DIMPLE. Faith, madam, I cannot tell; for I sat with my back to the stage all the time, admiring a much better actress than any there--a lady who played the fine woman to perfection; though, by the laugh of the horrid creatures round me, I suppose it was comedy. Yet, on second thoughts, it might be some hero in a tragedy, dying so comically as to set the whole house in an uproar.--Colonel, I presume you have been in Europe? MANLY. Indeed, sir, I was never ten leagues from the continent. DIMPLE. Believe me, Colonel, you have an immense pleasure to come; and when you shall have seen the brilliant exhibitions of Europe, you will learn to despise the amusements of this country as much as I do. MANLY. Therefore I do not wish to see them; for I can never esteem that knowledge valuable which tends to give me a distaste for my native country. DIMPLE. Well, Colonel, though you have not travelled, you have read. MANLY. I have, a little, and by it have discovered that there is a laudable partiality which ignorant, untravelled men entertain for everything that belongs to their native country. I call it laudable; it injures no one; adds to their own happiness; and, when extended, becomes the noble principle of patriotism. Travelled gentlemen rise superior, in their own opinion, to this: but if the contempt which they contract for their country is the most valuable acquisition of their travels, I am far from thinking that their time and money are well spent. MARIA. What noble sentiments! CHARLOTTE. Let my brother set out from where he will in the fields of conversation, he is sure to end his tour in the temple of gravity. MANLY. Forgive me, my sister. I love my country; it has its foibles undoubtedly;--some foreigners will with pleasure remark them--but such remarks fall very ungracefully from the lips of her citizens. DIMPLE. You are perfectly in the right, Colonel--America has her faults. MANLY. Yes, sir; and we, her children, should blush for them in private,
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