soul in God’s universe who has a spark of admiration for this most puissant and most felicitous monarch crowned by God Emperor and King of the greater part of Europe (and docked of most of his pretensions by the Treaty of Utrecht)?  We only remember the forcible-feeble person by his Pragmatic Sanction, and otherwise his personality has left in history not the remotest trace.  And yet, on the 12th February, 1723, a profoundly erudite, subtle, and picturesque historian grovels before the man and subscribes himself “Of your Holy Caesarean and Catholic Majesty the most humble and most devoted and most obsequious vassal and slave Pietro Gianone.”  What ruthless judgments posterity passes on once enormous reputations!  In Gianone’s admirable introduction we hear of “il celebre Arthur Duck, il quale oltro a’ con confini della sua Inghilterra volle in altri a piu lontani Paesi andav rintracciando l’uso a l’autorita delle romane leggi ne’ nuovi domini de’ Principi cristiani; e di quelle di ciascheduna Nazione volle ancora aver conto:  le ricerco nella vicina Scozia, e nell’ Ibernia; trapasso nella Francia, e nella Spagna; in Germania, in Italia, a nel nostro Regno ancora:  si stese in oltre in Polonia, Boemia, in Ungheria, Danimarca, nella Svezia, ed in piu remote parti.”  A devil of a fellow this celebrated English Arthur Duck, who besides writing a learned treatise De Usu et Auth.  Jur.  Civ.  Rom. in Dominiis Principum Christianorum, was a knight, a member of Parliament, chancellor of the diocese of London, and a master in chancery.  Gianone flattens himself out for a couple of pages before this prodigy whom he lovingly calls Ariuro, as who should say Raffaelo or Giordano; and now, where in the hearts of men lingers Sir Arthur Duck?  For one thing he had a bad name.  Our English sense of humour revolts from making a popular hero of a man called Duck.  Yet we made one of Drake.  But there was something masculine about the latter:  in fact, everything.

I am afraid it was rather late when I got to Judith.

CHAPTER II

May 22d.

I wonder whether I should be happier now if I had lived in a garret “in the brave days when I was twenty-one,” if I had undergone the lessons of misery with the attendant compensations of “une folle maitresse, de francs amis et l’amour des chansons,” and had joyous-heartedly mounted my six flights of stairs.  I lived modestly, it is true; but never for a moment was I doubtful as to my next meal, and I have always enjoyed the creature comforts of the respectable classes; never did Lisette pin her shawl curtain-wise across my window.  Sometimes, nowadays, I almost wish she had.  I never dreamed of glory, love, pleasure, madness, or spent my lifetime in a moment, like the singer of the immortal song.  Often the weary moments seemed a lifetime.

And now that I am forty, “it is too late a week.”  Boon companions, of whom I am thankful to say I have none, would drive me crazy with their intolerable heartiness.  I once spent an evening at the Savage Club.  As for the folle maitresse—­as a concomitant of my existence she transcends imagination.