ARISTOCRAT. Simply, because I write with more ease: heart and soul in my subject, rather than myself: and surely you must allow that my domino is not so imperviously noir, but that the sharp-sighted fellows I write to, may clearly see through it. They all know who I am: what use then, in publishing to the world an uninteresting truism? Why, the most impenetrable lady never thinks of saying "not at home,”—when she's out. PROTECTION. (laughing.) You talk just as you write. What a strange compound of the grave and gay ARISTOCRAT. ! Yes: always shifting from a smile to a sigh! as when we nod across Pall Mall to an old schoolfellow, whose time and talents we feel have been thrown away. PROTECTION. I hope you intend to continue writing. ARISTOCRAT. If it please you so, I will assuredly. Indeed, I have been for some time thinking of a more serious undertaking: some some-" Whole Duty of Devilsdust" or a "Sentimental Journey through Cheap and Nasty" – - or a "Comedy of Social Errors"-or an "Economical Don Juan "—or, perhaps, a "Political Decameron:" but if you approve of my two former "Letters to the Electors of Westminster," my ambition is fully gratified; and fain would I now receive your commands, as to the plan and style of the third "Letter," I am just commencing. PROTECTION. Dear fellow! (aside.) O, as for your plan, my dear Sir, I willingly leave that to your maturer judgment and as to style-is it not Buffon who tells us "le style, c'est l'homme?" But can you do better than follow the advice in Twelfth Night? "It is no matter how witty, so it be eloquent, and full of invention." And now, pray, tell me(in a tone of raillery)—from what auspicious day may I boast of having inspired so marked a predilection? ARISTOCRAT. (earnestly.) From the first moment that ever I beheld you; and thanks to your sweet influence-ah! how unknown to you!-Fancy still sheds all her enlivening elegance on many a gloomy hour, that Hope dares not irradiate-and Memory (faltering, and looking down). PROTECTION. (Effleurant son bouquet, as she gazes on him.) And yet might not he prove faithless too? (Aside)-a pause.-Are you fond of flowers? Of late years, scarcely ever. In the hey-day of youth I saw much of the world-here and elsewhere-then all allegro, and late as the lark: now, il penseroso personified, I am an early bird; flitting, when the sun is up, through the glades of Kensington, wherever Flirtation leaves an untrodden path; or startling unintentionally some stray nymph from Tyburnia, as she pours forth her orisons by pailfuls at the glassy fountain of the Belgravian Egeria. Often, too, on misty mornings, I meander through the squares; just as Kitchenstuff pops stealthily up the area into the tributary tub; and drowsy damsels, yawning as they scour, sprawl about the porticoes in every classical variety of voluptuous development, from the Anadyomene of Apelles, to the Magdalen of Correggio. I make you smile, dear Lady-I have many regrets, but no remorse; and therefore I love solitude. PROTECTION. Surely you are too young for that! ARISTOCRAT. Just forty-five-ten years older than you tell me you are. And now, fraught with that dim conviction of my own mistakes, and that vivid recollection of my neighbours' scrapes and follies, which we men of middle age are pleased to term " experience,"-young? (laughing) true indeed; for those who have the good taste to prefer the tenderness of la quarantaine, to the passion of fiveand-twenty. PROTECTION, (hurriedly.) And-but-why not have announced yourself at once to me as the author of those "Letters," instead of tampering with my patience for an hour and more with so much unmeaning ARISTOCRAT. ? To confess the truth then, dear Lady-although I scarcely wish to please any one in the world but you-yet I feel-I know not why-so fearful of offending you that H PROTECTION. The old tale still!-as if life were long enough for-(aside)-Ay, it is ever thus with you modest men of merit 66 "Your doubts are traitors That make you lose the good you oft might win, In a word-(drawing off her glove-what a lovely hand!) I much doubt if there be one of you worthy to touch Fortune's fingers:" (sighing, as she leans upon her hand)-while we hapless creatures-who have hearts to give away-as well -(weeping.) as ARISTOCRAT. (Throwing himself at her feet-" tutto tremante.") "Breathe thou the flame divine Into my bosom, and forgive the wrong, If with grave truth light fiction I combine, And sometimes grace my page with other flowers than thine!" |