‘I make no complaints,’ said I, ‘my prospects are not very bright, it is true, but sometimes I have visions, both waking and sleeping, which, though always strange, are invariably agreeable. Last night, in my chamber near the hayloft, I dreamt that I had passed over an almost interminable wilderness—an enormous wall rose before me, the wall, methought, was the great wall of China:—strange figures appeared to be beckoning to me from the top of the wall; such visions are not exactly to be sneered at. Not that such phantasmagoria,’ said I, raising my voice, ‘are to be compared for a moment with such desirable things as fashion, fine clothes, cheques from uncles, parliamentary interest, the love of splendid females. Ah! woman’s love,’ said I, and sighed.
‘What’s the matter with the fellow?’ said Francis Ardry.
‘There is nothing like it,’ said I.
‘Like what?’
‘Love, divine love,’ said I.
‘Confound love,’ said Francis Ardry, ‘I hate the very name; I have made myself a pretty fool by it, but trust me for ever being caught at such folly again. In an evil hour I abandoned my former pursuits and amusements for it; in one morning spent at Joey’s there was more real pleasure than in—’
‘Surely,’ said I, ‘you are not hankering after dog-fighting again, a sport which none but the gross and unrefined care anything for? No, one’s thoughts should be occupied by something higher and more rational than dog-fighting; and what better than love—divine love? Oh, there’s nothing like it!’
‘Pray, don’t talk nonsense,’ said Francis Ardry.
‘Nonsense,’ said I; ‘why I was repeating, to the best of my recollection, what I heard you say on a former occasion.’
‘If ever I talked such stuff,’ said Francis Ardry, ‘I was a fool; and indeed I cannot deny that I have been one: no, there is no denying that I have been a fool. What do you think? That false Annette [165] has cruelly abandoned me.’