I had also dramatised "The Pilgrim's Progress" for a
Christmas Pantomime, and made an important scene of Vanity Fair,
with Mr. Greatheart, Apollyon, Christiana, Mercy, and Hopeful as the
principal characters. The orchestra played music taken from Handel's
best known works, but the time was a good deal altered, and altogether
the tunes were not exactly as Handel left them. Mr. Greatheart was
very stout and he had a red nose; he wore a capacious waistcoat, and a
shirt with a huge frill down the middle of the front. Hopeful was up
to as much mischief as I could give him; he wore the costume of a
young swell of the period, and had a cigar in his mouth which was
continually going out.
Christiana did not wear much of anything: indeed it was said that
the dress which the Stage Manager had originally proposed for her
had been considered inadequate even by the Lord Chamberlain, but
this is not the case. With all these delinquencies upon my mind it was
natural that I should feel convinced of sin while playing chess (which
I hate) with the great Dr. Skinner of Roughborough- the historian of
Athens and editor of Demosthenes. Dr. Skinner, moreover, was one of
those who pride themselves on being able to set people at their case
at once, and I had been sitting on the edge of my chair all the
evening.
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