I
congratulated him on being a member of such a company, able to call up
such ennobling sentiments in the human soul; perhaps even expressed a
wish that I could become a member of such a company. Then the honest
fellow described the profession of an actor as a brilliant, deceitful
misery, and confessed to me that he had been only forced by necessity to
adopt this profession, and that he was soon about to abandon it. Once
again I learned by this to divide cause from effect, internal from
external things. My visits to the play brought upon me a most unpleasant
experience, for my father, when I spoke to him without concealment of my
playgoing, reproached me very bitterly for it. He looked upon my conduct
as deserving the highest punishment, which was in absolute contradiction
with my own view; for I placed the benefit I had derived from my
attendance at the play side by side with what I had received by my
attendance at church, and expressed something of the kind to my father.
As often happened in later life, so also on this occasion it was my
eldest brother who was the mediator between my father and myself.
On Midsummer Day 1799 my apprenticeship came to an end.
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