As we drove back to Fredericksburg and to the train which was to take us to Charlottesville, my companion made remarks of a general character about people who were trivial minded, and who didn’t take a proper interest in the scenes of great historical occurrences.  When he had continued for some time in this vein, I remarked feebly that I loved to read about battles; but that, far from mitigating his severity, only caused him to change his theme.  He said that physical laziness was a terrible thing because it not only made the body soft but by degrees softened the brain, as well.  He said that when people didn’t want to see battlefields, preferring to lie in bed and read about them, that was a sign of the beginning of the end.

On various occasions throughout the week he brought this subject up again, and I was glad indeed when, as the time for our party with the beautiful young actress, in Washington, drew near, he began to forget about my shortcomings and think of more agreeable things.

CHAPTER XIV

CHARLOTTESVILLE AND MONTICELLO

When Virginians speak of “the university,” they do not mean Harvard, Princeton, Yale, or even Washington and Lee, but always the University of Virginia, which is at Charlottesville.

The city of Charlottesville, in its downtown parts, is no more and no less dingy and dismal than many another town of six or seven thousand inhabitants, be it North or South.  It has a long main street, lined with little shops and moving-picture shows, and the theatrical posters which thrill one at first sight with hopes of evening entertainment, prove, on inspection, to have survived long after the “show” they advertise has come and gone, or else to presage the “show” that is coming for one night, week after next.

Nor is this scarcity of theatrical entertainment confined alone to small towns of the South.  Not all important stars and important theatrical productions visit even the largest cities, for the South is not regarded by theatrical managers as particularly profitable territory.  It would be interesting to know whether anaemia of the theater in the South, as well as the falling off generally of theatergoing in lesser American cities—­usually attributed to the popularity and cheapness of the “movies”—­is not due in large measure to the folly of managers themselves in sending out inferior companies.  Any one who has seen a theatrical entertainment in New York and seen it later “on the road” is likely to be struck by the fact that even the larger American cities do not always get the full New York cast, while smaller cities seldom if ever get any part of it.  The South suffers particularly in this respect.  The little “river shows,” which arrive now and then in river towns, and which are more or less characteristic of the South, have the excuse of real picturesqueness, however bad the entertainment given, for the players live and have their theater on flatboats, which tie up at the wharf.  But the plain fact about the ordinary little southern “road show” is that it does not deserve to make money.