The spirit
of Brook Farm being as distinctly joyous, the melancholy drama went
against the grain, and the performance fell dolefully flat. It was the
one failure among the many successful entertainments offered by the
Festal series, and the members of the cast including the author, were
greatly depressed when the curtain went down with the auditorium already
nearly empty. Glover undoubtedly had his bad quarter-of-an-hour that
night, but the next morning he regained his usual equipoise, and cast
off his chagrin with a characteristic gibe, at his own expense. A
sympathetic friend ventured to ask if the fiasco was caused, perhaps, by
too much blood and thunder in the piece.
"Not blood and thunder, but thud and blunder," was Glover's quick
come-back.
We had two or three other plays in the shop, that season, in one of
which my father took a small part. This was "The Rent Day," by Douglas
Jerrold, I think. The play opens with a tableau reproducing Wilkies'
picture of "The Rent Day," and the most important thing my father had to
do was to sit at the head of the table in the character of Master
Crumbs, the steward.
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