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.