e, will
you favour us with an account of the public entertainments?

DIMPLE

Why, really, Miss Manly, you could not have asked me a question more
mal-apropos. For my part, I must confess that, to a man who has
travelled, there is nothing that is worthy the name of amusement to be
found in this city.

CHARLOTTE

Except visiting the ladies.

DIMPLE

Pardon me, Madam; that is the avocation of a man of taste. But for
amusement, I positively 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!

CHA