midnight
the merry mornings at actresses ' houses ; the jovial suppers after the play ; the buoyancy , the brilliancy , the esprit , with which the hours , from midnight to cockcrow , were often pelted with rose-leaves and drowned in Rhenish . By degrees , however , as Godolphin warmed into his attendance at the playhouses , the fine intellectual something that lay yet undestroyed at his heart stirred up emotions which he felt his more vulgar associates were unfitted to share . There is that in theatrical representation which perpetually awakens whatever romance belongs to our character . The magic lights ; the pomp of scene ; the palace , the camp ; the forest ; the midnight wold ; the moonlight reflected on the water ; the melody of the tragic rhythm ; the grace of the comic wit ; the strange art that give such meaning to the poet 's lightest word ; -- the fair , false , exciting life that is detailed before us -- crowding into some three little hours all that our most busy ambition could desire -- love , enterprise , war , glory ! the kindling exaggeration of the sentiments which belong to the stage -- like our own in our boldest moments : all these appeals to our finer senses are not made in vain . Our taste for castle-building and visions deepens upon us ; and we chew a mental opium which stagnates all the other faculties , but wakens that of the ideal . Godolphin was peculiarly fascinated by the stage ; he loved to steal away from his companions , and , alone , and unheeded , to feast his mind on the unreal stream of existence that mirrored images so beautiful .