Mess. Syrinx, I say—is Damasippus here to-night?
Dam. Well, fellow, who sends for Damasippus?
Mess. Truly, one that must send and find. The Emperor.
Dam. The Emperor! Hang ye, pestilent curs, give me my sandals. Quick!—and my cloak. So! am I steady, Syrinx? Thy venomous wine hath somewhat—— Adieu, Cyane; I will visit ye again ere long. A pest upon the Emperor!
MY FIRST FLAME.
Alderman Greenfat lives, from three to seven P.M., in joyous anticipation of the delights that hour will bring upon its wing. He tastes in fancy the never-cloying richness of the turtle, which if Jupiter had reigned now would have made Jupiter a candidate for civic honours; the invigorating flavour of the punch, which at once heightens the zest of the last and prepares the palate for the following dainty; the turbot, the venison, the champagne, the Burgundy—all are present to his imagination. Delicious! But seven o’clock arrives. What is the consummation? The meat is cold, or the wine is hot; the servants are awkward, or the next neighbour is a bore; repletion—indigestion—satiety—gout—the devil!
Lady Bauble waits patiently from March to May for the new Waverley novel, indulging perhaps in an occasional flirtation with Granby or a brief and hurried visit to Brambletye House, but turning eagerly from both to the prospect which the unnamed name of the Great Unknown opens before her imagination. Her visions are full of strange and appalling ideas. Some new Meg Merrilies appears to start into terrible existence; some second Balfour lifts up the sword of the Lord and of Gideon;[Pg 267] Amy Robsart is regenerate, Front de Bœuf blasphemes again. But the three volumes come out, and present her with a commonplace bully or an everyday coquette—a lady who chatters at an evening party, a lord who figures in the Morning Post. “This really is too bad,” says Lady Bauble, yawning; “I must absolutely give up Sir Walter!”
Captain Eustace is ordered to Rangoon. Delightful dreams are his—dreams of success and of reputation, of promotion and of pay, of armies discomfited, of stockades stormed, of midnight glimpses of the King of Ava’s harem, of curry prepared in the King of Ava’s kitchen! A few short weeks, and the fairy vision fades with a vengeance: he finds an empty camp, and a crowded hospital; a weary surgeon, and a burning sun; a rifleman in every bramble-bush, and a rheumatism in every bone.
Ο that our hopes could last for ever! That we and the objects of our desire could run on, like the fore and hind wheels of a chariot, always close but never united. That we could be contented to let our enjoyments go on like the lamp of the Rosicrucians, burning and dazzling eternally; without advancing towards them the profane step which, by the essence and law of their nature, must destroy and crush them in a moment!