Theatrical performances can only take place by permission of the municipal authorities.

This may serve to show how much communities are like individuals; they surrender themselves unscrupulously to their ruling passions, and afterwards take the greatest care not to yield too much to the vehemence of tastes which they do not possess.
No portion of literature is connected by closer or more numerous ties with the present condition of society than the drama.

The drama of one period can never be suited to the following age, if in the interval an important revolution has changed the manners and the laws of the nation.
The great authors of a preceding age may be read; but pieces written for a different public will not be followed.

The dramatic authors of the past live only in books.

The traditional taste of certain individuals, vanity, fashion, or the genius of an actor may sustain or resuscitate for a time the aristocratic drama amongst a democracy; but it will speedily fall away of itself--not overthrown, but abandoned..