In Search of Enchantment in the Crowd
It's possible to miss it, even at big events like graduations and coronations
Welcome to Enchanted in America, where we search literature for
scenes of enchantment; and
insights about how enchanted states contribute to united states.
Before the soggy crowds had quite dispersed from the coronation in London yesterday, a cool spring sun made an appearance in my city, to the relief of nearly three thousand graduates and their guests filling our football stadium for a three-hour open-air ceremony.
Despite the fact that our celebrants dodged a soaking, when I asked some people about their experience of graduation afterward, mostly I heard, “It was long!” and (with a groan), “My college was the very last one they called!”
I understand. My son and I went to the junior high theatrical performance earlier in the week. That was another three-hour event: three hours leaning forward to hear talented, delightful fourteen- and fifteen-year-olds sometimes enunciate clearly, sometimes not; sometimes face the audience while delivering lines, sometimes not. While I wriggled in my folding metal chair—an excellent piece of furniture for parent-teacher conferences of ten minutes or less—a cold front swept away the summer-tasting afternoon, nosing into the auditorium through an open door and swirling around bare ankles and sandaled feet.
Showing up for ceremonies does not necessarily guarantee enchantment. Bodily discomfort, and even more than that, awareness of bodily discomfort, can really kill a mood. So can other loud and churning thoughts, such as political ideologies and private resentments.
I mentioned in an early post in this series that the nineteenth-century magazine writer Bret Harte was a key inspiration for this project. In a witty little essay about the opera, he showed how the mood of enchantment is not exclusive of a critical perspective; rather, the pleasure of enchantment can come over us right on the heels of a full-throated kvetch. We don’t have to give up our opinions, allegiances, or questions altogether. Even the most severe critic can simply choose, at any moment, to take a break from fault-finding; sensations can change as suddenly as weather.
This has powerful possibilities. Without invalidating this weekend’s critics of graduations and coronations, I’m thinking about a particular piece of humor writing in which Bret Harte describes the transition from critique to enchantment.
At first, the speaker of Harte’s essay, “A Few Operatic Criticisms” (1865), asks questions that suggest a lack of sympathy with the highly conventional art form that he has chosen to attend. He asks, why are baritones, with a few exceptions, unsuccessful at love? “Is there anything in their quality of voice which precludes a perfect illustration of reciprocal passion?” As for the chorus, why are these bodies
always so unanimous in their expressions of sympathy? Would not some slight diversity of opinion, or a little independence of character on the part of one or two, be an agreeable relief? . . . If I were a composer I should consider it my duty to write an opera that should be all chorus, just to throw these gentlemen back upon themselves and develop their individuality.1
It's not that the operatic chorus strikes this critic as artificial; no, “I have met in this real world one or two distinguished men who seem to have been attended through life by just such sympathizing choruses,” he chatters.
Five long paragraphs deep in doubts and deprecations, the speaker of “A Few Operatic Criticisms” could hardly be expected to take any pleasure from his night at the opera. But paragraph six brings a sudden, unexpected reversal, signaled by the word “But” and loaded with extravagant fun:
But the philosopher who analyses his pleasures loses half his enjoyment, and the gods destroy those who scrutinize their gifts. Wherefore, O reader, let you and I proceed quietly to the temple of enchantment, in which a questioning word or doubt dissolves the charm. . . . The curtain rises. Smile not, scoffer, because the silver moon, which ascends with such alarming rapidity over the Druid groves, is several times larger than the one with which thou art familiarly acquainted. Pretermit the jest which rises to thy lips. . . . Question not the theology of the Priestess. . . . We are such stuff as operas are made of, and our little life is rounded by the fall of the green curtain.
We’ve been set up. In Harte’s cheeky essay, the critical mood is just as extravagant as the enchanted one. Preposterous questions simply pass the time before the curtain rises. Critique is neither the only available mood, nor the most desirable one. As the curtain rises, Harte makes an abrupt pivot, his language becoming as formal as the opera (“Wherefore, O reader”; “thou art”; “Pretermit”). Suddenly he is a committed theater-goer who lives by the words of William Shakespeare (“We are such stuff . . .”). He recognizes that “real life” relies on polite artificialities as much as the theater does. Most important, he has enough experience of the theater to know that enchantment is available to anyone who proceeds quietly into the temple and suspends criticism for the duration: Smile not. Question not. Pretermit the jest which rises to thy lips. Just for now.
If you are one of the people who wishes to be enchanted, like Harte’s speaker, there are times to just get quiet and experience what comes next.
Enchantment, Harte shows by example, is a choice, not a magical emanation from someone else’s fairy dust.
A Texas woman who traveled to the coronation of King Charles III understood this. Questioned by a New York Times reporter, she kept her explanation simple: “It was just so emotional, and such an amazing thing to witness,” she stated, while protestors elsewhere held up signs pronouncing, “Not my King” (New York Times Live coronation coverage, 8:55 a.m. ET, May 6, 2023).
In London on Saturday, some chose to enter the temple of enchantment; others stayed in the critical anteroom. Free countries are like that. Graduations probably rate a little higher on the Sympathiz-o-meter, since most people go to support a loved one. Still, has there ever been a graduation that hasn’t gone “too long”? It’s tough to get everyone in the temple at the same time.
This strikes me as the underrated challenge of a democratic republic, or a modern parliamentary monarchy. Does national cohesion depend on at least a few temples where a supermajority are willing to set down their politics, preoccupations, criticisms, and jests at the same time?
Where do you go to meet people from other political tribes, quiet, enchanted, and disarmed? (If you have a place, feel free to post in the comments below.)
I watched the junior high play with a double consciousness. On the one hand, my legs were cold. I wished I had worn socks. I had trouble hearing some of the scenes. On the other hand, I remembered what it meant to have a speaking part in a play at that age, let alone a large speaking part. Not only did the actors, more than a score of teenagers, know their parts, they had been coached to play their lines up. Voices drawled with exaggerated humor; bodies leaned and leaped. They played at malice, envy, deception, and greed. They played at old age. They played and played, tirelessly.
And when they jogged out by twos for the curtain call, we parents and siblings and friends clapped and hooted and cheered for them.
The drama teacher gave an award to the lead player, a ninth grader who had been onstage all night as the vain sleuth, a role she inhabited with passion and delight.
Although I had no child in the performance, I willingly let myself go with all the rest. I clapped until my hands hurt. The blood surged even to my feet. I forgot that I had ever been sore or cold. As for the late hour, I felt only appreciation for the great scope of the young people’s accomplishment.
Our royals beamed and bowed in the stage lights, accepting approbation as a jeweled crown.
A question for thought or comments: Where do you go to meet people from other political tribes, quiet, enchanted, and disarmed? In these times, there don’t seem to be many places. Or are there?
Bret Harte’s essay, “A Few Operatic Criticisms” (1865) is available in some out-of-print collections that might be found in a library. I’m using Joseph B. Harrison’s Bret Harte: Representative Selections (1941). This remains an excellent edition of Harte’s writings, with a still-valuable introduction. For readers who enjoy Harte, this is a worthy edition to acquire.