“It is past, Isabel: henceforth we have
no wealth but in each other. The cause has been
decided—and—and—we
are beggars!”
We expose our life to a quotidian ague of frigid impertinences,
which would make a wise man tremble to think of.—Cowley.
We must suppose a lapse of four years from the date
of those events which concluded the last chapter;
and, to recompence the reader, who I know has a little
penchant for “High Life,” even in the last
century, for having hitherto shown him human beings
in a state of society not wholly artificial, I beg
him to picture to himself a large room, brilliantly
illuminated, and crowded “with the magnates of
the land.” Here, some in saltatory motion,
some in sedentary rest, are dispersed various groups
of young ladies and attendant swains, talking upon
the subject of Lord Rochester’s celebrated poem,—namely,
“Nothing!”—and lounging around
the doors, meditating probably upon the same subject,
stand those unhappy victims of dancing daughters, denominated
“Papas.”
The music has ceased; the dancers have broken up;
and there is a general but gentle sweep towards the
refreshment-room. In the crowd— having
just entered—there glided a young man of
an air more distinguished and somewhat more joyous
than the rest.
“How do you do, Mr. Linden?” said a tall
and (though somewhat passe) very handsome woman, blazing
with diamonds; “are you just come?”
And, here, by the way, I cannot resist pausing to
observe that a friend of mine, meditating a novel,
submitted a part of the manuscript to a friendly publisher.
“Sir,” said the bookseller, “your
book is very clever, but it wants dialogue.”
“Dialogue!” cried my friend: “you
mistake; it is all dialogue.”
“Ay, sir, but not what we call dialogue; we
want a little conversation in fashionable life,—a
little elegant chit-chat or so: and, as you must
have seen so much of the beau monde, you could do it
to the life: we must have something light and
witty and entertaining.”
“Light, witty, and entertaining!” said
our poor friend; “and how the deuce, then, is
it to be like conversation in ‘fashionable life’?
When the very best conversation one can get is so insufferably
dull, how do you think people will be amused by reading
a copy of the very worst?”
“They are amused, sir,” said the publisher;
“and works of this kind sell!”
“I am convinced,” said my friend; for
he was a man of a placid temper: he took the
hint, and his book did sell!
Now this anecdote rushed into my mind after the penning
of the little address of the lady in diamonds,—“How
do you do, Mr. Linden? Are you just come?”—and
it received an additional weight from my utter inability
to put into the mouth of Mr. Linden—notwithstanding
my desire of representing him in the most brilliant
colours—any more happy and eloquent answer
than, “Only this instant!”
