Mathieu Ropars: et cetera Part 13

WOMAN NEVER AT A LOSS.

_An Eastern Apologue--From the French._

----I read her my ma.n.u.script; I had been abusing woman I must confess.

Not a single good word could I say for the s.e.x; and long did my companion and I battle the point. Many truisms, much that was strictly veritable had I brought forward, and she had been obliged to yield to the justice of almost all my remarks, though disclaiming against my slander at the same time. Finally--"You intend to marry, yourself?" she asked.

"Certainly," I replied; "to find a woman bold enough to take me, after having convinced her that I knew all the duplicity of the s.e.x, will henceforward be the dearest of my hopes."

"Is this resignation or fatuity?"

"That is my secret."

"Well, then," she said, "most learned doctor of conjugal arts and sciences, permit me to relate to you a little Eastern apologue, that I read long ago in a small volume that was offered to us every year in the shape of an almanac." I bowed my delighted attention. The pretty creature threw herself back in her _chaise longue_, rested her little feet upon the fender, and fixed her arch dark eyes upon me.

"At the commencement of the Empire," she began, "the ladies brought into fas.h.i.+on a game which consisted in accepting nothing from the person with whom one agreed to play, without saying the word 'Iadeste.' An affair of this kind lasted, as you may suppose, whole weeks, and the height of cleverness was to surprise one another into receiving a trifle without uttering the magic word."

"Even a kiss?"

"Oh! I have twenty times gained 'Iadeste' in that way," said she, laughing. "It was, I believe, about this time, apropos of this game of which the origin is either Arabian or Chinese, that my apologue obtained the honours of print."

"But if I tell it to you," she interrupted, looking doubtfully at me, and pa.s.sing her taper finger slowly across her lips, with a charmingly coquettish gesture, "promise me to insert it at the end of your book!"

"Will you not be bestowing a treasure? I owe you already so many obligations, I do not hesitate to add this; therefore, I accept it at once." She smiled maliciously, and went on in these words.

"A philosopher had compiled a very large collection of all the tricks our s.e.x can play; and so, to guard himself against our wiles, he carried this constantly about him. One day, in travelling, he found himself near an Arabian encampment. A young woman, sitting under the shade of a palm-tree, got up suddenly, on the approach of the stranger, and invited him so obligingly to repose under her tent that he could not resist accepting. The husband of this lady was then absent. The philosopher had scarcely established himself upon the soft carpets, when his graceful hostess presented him with fresh dates and a vessel full of milk; he could not help seeing the rare perfection of the hands which offered the beverage and the fruit. But to recover from the confusion into which the charms of the young Arabian had thrown him, and whose snares he began to dread, the wise man drew out his book and read! The enchanting creature, piqued at this disdain, said to him in the sweetest voice, 'That book must be very interesting, since it seems to be the only thing you consider worthy of notice. Would it be an indiscretion to ask the name of the science of which it treats!' The philosopher replied without raising his eyes, 'The subject of this book is beyond the comprehension of woman.' This refusal excited more and more the curiosity of the young Arabian. She put forward the prettiest little foot that ever left its transient trace upon the fleeting sands of the desert. The sage began to waver; his truant looks would wander toward those dainty feet till his eyes, too powerfully tempted, finally mingled the flame of their admiration with the fire that darted from the ardent and black orbs of the young Asiatic. Again, then, she asked in her soft low tones, 'what is the book?' and the charmed philosopher replied, 'I am the author of this work. It contains a record of all the tricks that woman ever invented!'

"'What! all--absolutely all?' inquired the daughter of the desert.

"'Yes--all! And it is only in studying woman constantly, that I have been able to overcome my fear of them.'

"'Ah!' said the Arabian, dropping the long lashes of her snowy eyelids; and then throwing suddenly upon the pretended sage the full l.u.s.tre of her Eastern eyes she made him forget in one instant his valuable book and its invaluable contents. Behold my philosopher the most impa.s.sioned of men!

"Thinking that he perceived in the manner of his young hostess a slight touch of coquetry, the stranger hazarded an avowal of his adoration. How could he have resisted? The sky was so blue, the sand shone in the distance like a blade of gold; the wind brought love upon its wings, and the wife of the absent Arab seemed to reflect all the brilliancy with which she was surrounded. Her bright eyes, too, became liquid; and she seemed, by a slight movement of her graceful head, to consent to listen to the honeyed words of the quondam philosopher.

"The wise man was in a full tide of eloquence when the distant gallop of a horse was heard rapidly approaching.

"'We are lost!' cried the alarmed Fatima; 'my husband is coming. He is jealous as a tiger, and still more fierce. In the name of the Prophet, and if you love your life, hide yourself in this chest!' The frightened author, seeing nothing else to do, rushed into the chest; his hostess shut it down, locked it, and took the key. She went to meet her spouse, and after several caresses, which put him into the best of humour, 'I must tell you,' said she, 'a very singular adventure.'

"'I listen, my gazelle,' said the Arabian, seating himself upon a cus.h.i.+on and crossing big legs after the Oriental fas.h.i.+on.

"'There came here to-day a kind of philosopher; he pretended to have collected in a book all the treacheries of which my s.e.x is capable; and this false sage--spoke--to--me of love!'

"'Well?'

"'I listened to him!' At these words the Arab bounded like a lion, and drew his kangiar. The philosopher, from the bottom of the chest, heard all, and sent to the devil his book, woman, and all the men of Arabia Petrea.

"'Fatima!' cried the husband, if you wish to live, answer! 'Where is the traitor?'

"Horrified at the storm she had raised, Fatima threw herself at the feet of her lord, and trembling under the menacing steel of the poniard, she pointed out the coffer, with a single look, as prompt as it was timid.

Then rising, ashamed, she drew the key from her girdle and gave it to her jealous lord. But--as he turned furiously from her, the malicious beauty burst into a shout of laughter, and laying her white hand upon his shoulder, 'Iadeste!' she exclaimed; 'at last, I shall have my beautiful gold chain! Give it to me; you have lost. Another time, Fazom, have a little better memory!' The husband stupefied, let fall the key, and presenting the golden chain, on his knees, offered his dear Fatima to bring her all the jewels of all the caravans that pa.s.sed that year, if she would only give up such cruel methods of gaining the 'Iadeste.'

Then, as he was an Arabian and did not like to lose his gold chain, though it was to his wife, he remounted his steed and went off, grumbling at his ease in the desert--for he loved Fatima too much to show her his regrets.

"At last, the young woman released the philosopher more dead than alive from his prison, and said to him, gravely,

"'Mr. Philosopher, don't forgot to insert this trick in your collection.'"

MANDRAGORA--BY THE DOZEN.

And so you cannot coax yourself off to sleep? Why? Were you beguiled by their exquisite flavour into rashly smoking three or four of those potent Regalias, with which your friend, the rich stock-broker, professes to aid the digestion of his guests, after a lengthened sitting at his luxurious table? Or did the rounded arm and taper fingers of his fair wife, presiding over the mysteries of the silver urn, tempt you to indulgence in too frequent cups of Souchong? Perhaps you are endeavouring, in spite of yourself, to solve some knotty problem in politics, or love, or chess, or mathematics. Perhaps you have a considerable bill to take up to-morrow, with a very slim balance at your banker's. Perhaps you have a heart-ache; perhaps a head-ache. At any rate, your nerves and senses are painfully strained; and you feel as though you would give the world and all, for a lullaby that would serve its purpose. My good Sir, compose your mind. If you can't sleep and dream, as you desire--dream and sleep. Reverse, I say, the common order.

And do not sneer at the suggestion, unless you prefer tossing about all night in vain. The process is not only not impossible; it is not half so difficult as you might suppose, presuming--as I have a right to presume, in regard to my reader--that your imagination is not hopelessly inert.

Some persons recommend to the restless and wide-awake the repet.i.tion of sc.r.a.ps from books, in prose or verse, just as though every one had a plenteous store of "elegant extracts" garnered up in his memory, and as though authors specially aimed at being somniferous. There are indeed not a few among them, who unavoidably achieve this distinction; and the advice might not really be bad, if you could con over--once would be sufficient--Mr. A.'s last pamphlet on political economy, or the Rev. Mr.

B.'s last sermon. On the whole however, inasmuch as your favourite pa.s.sages--should you know any of them by heart--may be the very opposite of soothing in their tendencies, this mode of wooing slumber can scarcely be p.r.o.nounced successful.

You must commence, I say, by dreaming, if you would compel yourself gently to sleep; but before I proceed to introduce to you my list of available prescriptions in this line, I note one with which my readers may possibly be familiar, having learned it in their school-boy days.

You will not now be told for the first time, that a drowsy sensation may be induced by musing upon--or dreaming of, which is the same thing--a field of tall and ripe barley, swept by fresh autumnal gales. The rise and fall of each bowed head, with its feathery and graceful spikes, combines well with the undulating motion of the whole and the varied play of light and shade. The idea is otherwise expressed by the British Laureate in "The Poet's Song," one of his minor pieces; "and waves of shadow," says he, "went over the wheat." Nevertheless it is clear that he missed the proper application of the thought, for, in place of lulling the beholder to forgetful repose, the sight seems to have made him break out into a song so loud that wild swans paused to listen in their flight, larks fluttered down to earth, swallows gave up hunting bees, snakes slipped under sprays, wild hawks stared over sparrows stricken under their claws, and the very nightingales were set a-thinking. Truly a sad perversion this of a golden opportunity! But your rhymsters were ever a crazy race. When they deal with their fellows generally, we all know how they botch poor human nature. What, then, can be expected, when poets undertake to figure out one of themselves?

Still, let us improve the occasion. Barley-fields or wheat-fields are well enough in their way; only, if you conjure up this image, I would advise you to season it with an abundance of red poppies intermingled with the legitimate crop, and a very careful attempt on your part to number these interlopers one by one, preparatory, if so it please you, to flipping off their heads. With due allowance, therefore, for its lack of novelty, this dream may be admitted into our collection.

And it may be proper to remark at the outset that, though the dreams whereof I propose to treat are sufficiently distinct in their kind, it is desirable, in the practical use of them, to run them one into another--to fuse them unconsciously as it were, without being over-nice as to the point at which one ends and another begins. It is not requisite, however, for this reason, that they should all be packed into one paragraph, like a daily paper's report of one of Mr. Morrill's speeches on the Tariff, or a Secretary of the Treasury's Report. You shall have each dainty conceit served up in its own dish, so that, furthermore by the way, you can take them in such order as suits your own good pleasure. This view of the matter relieves me also from the necessity of formal arrangement. It is altogether unimportant which fancy comes uppermost. The main thing is to shut off all thought concerning the actualities of life, eschewing reference to your loves, your hates, your wrestlings with circ.u.mstance, your mental cares, your bodily ailments. I repeat it: you must dream, if you would sleep.

Counting the breezy barley-field above mentioned as one, I believe I can supply you with a dozen subjects.

Your physical eye is closed, of course--your mind's eye being, on that account, all the more keenly alive to impression, and the better able to compa.s.s an unembarra.s.sed range. Set it, then, upon a spiral stairway endless so far as I can imagine it, though you may perchance by looking earnestly upward discover whereto it leads, or by peering intently downward find out its base. But did I say a stairway? That was not what I meant; and dreamers, of all men, are at liberty to change or modify their views. I should have said an inclined plane. Let it be steep, smooth, slippery, broad enough to admit the pa.s.sage of several figures simultaneously, and guarded by bannisters on either side. When, fatigued with the vain attempt to satisfy your doubts as to the safety of this strange structure, your curiosity craves enlightenment as to its uses, I pray you to observe how I would have it peopled. Sliding tumultuously adown the bal.u.s.trades, lo and behold an innumerable throng of Cherubs in unbroken succession, coming whence and going whither you know not, but each the counterpart of his predecessors, and each flapping his little wings to maintain his balance, rendered precarious as it is by his inability to sit a-straddle. As for the inclined plane itself thus fantastically flanked, you soon perceive that it is the _via sacra_ of many an Ethardo, whom you have known in the flesh or in the spirit--Ethardo, the marvellous gymnast, who mounted and descended steep slopes at the Sydenham Crystal Palace, by trundling inflated b.a.l.l.s beneath his feet. Up and down, down and up, some painfully and some skilfully pediculating, your Ethardi pa.s.s and repa.s.s each other, disorderly yet in order. Name them and salute them as they go by. You have probably more acquaintances among them than I; but I recognise Robinson Crusoe and Count Bismarck, Tarquinius Priscus and Horace Greeley, John Ruskin and Lucrezia Borgia, Mrs. Fry and Edgar Poe, Mr.

Gladstone and Dion Boucicault, John Bright and Mrs. Grundy, Ben. Wade and Victor Hugo, Pio Nono and the Great Mogul. Note, too, the various material moulded into circular form, and blown up by way of ambulant footstool; now it is a crown, now a crozier, now a bag of gold, now a wind-bag, now a woman's heart, now a man's fame done up in a newspaper and properly puffed. Ring the changes upon these Ethardi and the motive power that each applies, O my wakeful friend; and at least you may lose sight of your own individuality. Or, take a slide down the banisters with the young Cherubs, and perchance you may touch bottom--in Lethe.

Not so? Let us proceed. There's a man at our Club, whose reputation is so solidly built up, though on an ethereal basis, that I never knew any one presume to question it. He is an absolute master of one accomplishment; unrivalled, and--to the best of my belief, though I can't vouch for the fact--unenvied. Admiring spectators gather round him and applaud; but, if he have ambitious imitators, they rehea.r.s.e in secret. So far, he does well--ay, with consummate tact and unfailing certainty--what few men can do at all, unless once in a while at dreary intervals, and then by accident. Not to keep you in suspense, which is antagonistic to repose and slumber, this young paragon contrives to throw off his cigar-smoke from his lips, at will, in an unerring series of the most lovely rings or wreaths, which, as they float and rise in tremulous succession, strangely fascinate the looker-on. It may be that this feat is not much of an achievement, morally or physically or intellectually considered. It may be also that the Club does not do itself much honour, in setting so high a value on this performance. But what will you? In the palmy days of Greece, a man acquired a certain celebrity by his precision and address in throwing peas through a needle's eye--the peas being, I presume, much smaller or the needles much larger, than any with which we sow or make soup in these degenerate days. Still, so highly do I appreciate perseverance in the acquirement of any difficult art, that I purpose doing much more for my proficient in smoke, than was done for his man of peas by Philip of Macedon. That bushel of ammunition was a scurvy reward. I confer immortality, by thus registering a fact and hinting a name. And I do this from a sense of grat.i.tude, wherein I trust that you will partic.i.p.ate, so soon as you perceive the connection that may surely be traced, between the smoke thus artistically and gracefully jetted into air, and the drowsiness by which you would fain be possessed. Do but imagine a score of your acquaintances round a table, each an adept in this way, and each filling the atmosphere with coronet after coronet of vapour thrown up from meerschaum or cheroot. Whose are the most frequent, whose the most perfect, whose retain their form the longest? Watch the little circlets as they wave and tremble; and award the palm of merit fairly. Nay, even if you tell me that you are innocent of the weed and nauseated by its odour, none the less shall this fantasy be available. I saw once a s.h.i.+p-of-war firing a salute; and lo, from one of the guns went up to the pure sky, in magnified proportions, just such a wreath as those I have described, as delicate yet as clearly defined, and touched withal with a suspicion of prismatic colours as it caught the rays of the sun. An enthusiastic painter might have deemed it an invisible Fairy's aureole; a sentimental milliner would have set it down as the flounce of her unseen robe. Whether the gunner of this occasion had taken a lesson from my friend at the Club, I cannot pretend to decide; I only a.s.sure you that I witnessed the phenomenon. You have, therefore, but to multiply as well as magnify. Think of a squadron, a fleet, all the navies of the world, sailing slowly and majestically in unending circuit, as the custom is when they bombard some hapless fort. The saluting is continuous; the movement never ceases; but the big cannon are noiseless now and harmless. s.p.a.ce is joyous with the innumerable wreaths of bluish vapour; but the red slaughter and the accursed tumult of the sea-fight are not heard or seen. Ponder long and lazily, I counsel you, over the evolutions of the s.h.i.+ps and the convolutions of the smoke. Those may lure you, possibly, into the Waters of Oblivion; these may spirit you away to the land of the Lotos-Eaters.

Another dream invites you; but it must be sketched with more reticence, and this for two reasons. In the first place, the subject has become identified with that portion of theatrical entertainments usually found to be the least soporific. In the second place, if your imagination were encouraged to free range hereupon, you might be foolish enough to connect its poetic motion and its charm with certain souvenirs of a certain fair friend of yours, whom it were wiser to forget if you desire to profit by this Mandragorean system. Briefly, then, I commend a Ballet, as not altogether unworthy of trial--but not, be it observed, that thing of gas lamps, and pink tights, and leers, and _poses plastiques_, over which young America goes into raptures. By no means.

Picture to yourself a smooth sward beneath cl.u.s.tered pines, a tender moonlight, and Nymphs--not semi-nude as is the fas.h.i.+on of our day, neither affecting the contortions of the gymnast as in our modern caricature of dancing--but robed in swansdown, with nodding plumes and ta.s.seled fuschias pendent, tripping it, if you will, on "light fantastic toe," yet through stately and solemn measures. You remember Giulio Romano's dance of Apollo and the Muses in the Pitti at Florence? Take that for your model; then place the figures to your liking. Nor forget to add an orchestra of aeolian harps. Let them hang among the pine-branches, and sigh forth Weber's Last Waltz, just to set the groups in motion. Then fail not in your breathings, O soft night-wind; foot it daintily, ye wildwood Nymphs--so may sleep steal gently upon the restless one, while yet his ear and eye are unsated!

Another dream: blue water again, though, this time, with a golden beach.

It is calm; but the surf rolls in languidly, with low murmurous sound, as it will roll, be the sea's surface never so smooth, beyond the involuntary breakers. What graceful bends and curves are marked, for an instant, with frothy pencil, upon the s.h.i.+ning sands! How they sparkle with evanescent light! How soon the tiny bubbles disappear! But you have watched all this, many and many a time; and stale indeed hereon were description and moralizing! Why, then, this present allusion? What is there in it, tending to lull the acuter sensibilities? What offers it of gently-soothing exercise to the overwrought and throbbing brain? This is the reply. Popular belief gives to every ninth or tenth wave, tumbling in upon the sh.o.r.e, supremacy over its fellows. It swells up into fuller volume. It sweeps landward with a more majestic force. This is the story; but I would have you test its correctness. Is it the ninth, or the tenth? So, lie down yonder upon the ma.s.s of dry sea-weed piled against the rocks, and count patiently a dozen, a score, a hundred, a thousand waves as they come in. You shall tell me, to-morrow morning, whether the ninth have it, or the tenth--whether there be any regularity at all.

Again: if we do not, like the Roman Augurs, watch and interpret the flight of birds as of good or evil omen, some of them--I mean some of the birds, not of the Augurs--may help us to become, for a while, independent of fate and fortune. Did you ever, for instance, sit at a window on a summer's evening, and take note how a flight of swallows skims the air? They are not very numerous, perhaps; but as they dart to and fro, and cross and recross before you, their number appears indefinite, and the zigzag peculiarity of their movements can only be verified by the closest possible scrutiny. I have satisfied myself that the motion is regular, and that it describes an elongated figure of 8, traced as I am sure you have often traced it upon ice with the outer edge of your skates. Now, though I tell you this on the faith of my own personal observation, you are not bound to accept my word for it. Dream therefore that, while you are blending two ovals into one figure upon the frozen pond, swallows overhead are keeping time to your gyrations.

The winter sport and the summer bird may be made to harmonize, as it is only in a dream; and close watching will enable you hereafter to support or disavow my theory.

Again: return, if you please, from air to water, for you have by no means exhausted the resources of this latter element, in the way of material for dreams. Are you an angler? Did you never drowse and doze over your rod, when "sitting in a pleasant shade," on a sultry afternoon, not a nibble disturbed the equanimity of your float? The mere thought were suggestive of a nap--suggestive, that is, to the indolently disposed, with whom however you may not be cla.s.sed, seeing that your mind is in a state of unwholesome excitement, the which it is my business to allay. And so, I pray you, look deeper into this matter; pry down into the blue transparent depths, and mark the fish that swarm about your hook. Is it paste thereon, or a wriggling worm? Never mind; the bait is singularly attractive. To say nothing of the float gently bobbing ever and anon, and of the tell-tale ripples rising to the surface, you can see with your own eyes how victims dally with temptation; how they course to and fro, and round and round; how one eyes the bait, and another smells it, and another mumbles it; how one swims away, and presently returns, and with him his mate in size and colour. Are they over-fed or over-cautious, that they thus play round, but will not gorge? Does one egg on his brother to try the suspicious morsel, hoping himself to profit by his brother's experience? Is there so much resemblance to human foibles discernible down there, among these poor little inhabitants of the waters under the Earth? The question is worth studying out--especially by a sleepless man, who, while contemplating the forms, the motions, the manners, and the minds of fish, may unconsciously swallow the bait that is thus dropped before him.

It was my intention to devote a long and distinct paragraph to each of four other subjects, that appear to me no less adapted for the consideration of waking dreamers. These are, respectively, Ghosts, Labyrinths, Regattas, and the Eleven Thousand Virgins of Cologne. But it is well to leave something to the reader's perspicacity and inventive powers. Indeed, why should he not fancy--dream is the more appropriate term--that he himself has undertaken to complete these special paragraphs? Let his imaginary pen glide, swift and effortless, over his imaginary foolscap. Ten to one, he will fill in and elaborate my outlines, far better than I could work them out myself. For instance, I do but mention Ghosts; he might summon to his presence, and bid troop before him, hosts upon hosts of his friends or relatives, or of his chosen heroes and heroines in romance and history. He might clothe them in white or in grey; he might attire them in their ordinary habiliments; in short, he might parade them according to his own taste, without reference to mine, which whould be a clear point in his favour.

Accidentally, I might call up some spirit that had vexed and thwarted him through life, for no man whose experience is worth remembering hath not had his enemies, hidden or revealed, and very few are the men, fewer the women, who have never disposed of a rival. My reader of the moment, invested with my functions, will of course evoke none but his familiars, the well-bred and well-behaved. Let me be grateful accordingly that, by transferring the responsibility to him, I escape the chance of bringing forward, innocently and inopportunely, some social Banquo. And so I pa.s.s on, with one single word of caution to my subst.i.tute in completing this paragraph: let him not convert his pen into a Pre-Raphaelitish paint-brush. Airy beings must be rather hinted than described. The realism of anatomical plates, applied to them, would spoil the reader's dream _in toto_, and wake him up perhaps more hopelessly than ever.--As to Labyrinths, the course is obvious. Take a dozen of these quaint contrivances, and place them side by side, as Paulsen or Paul Morphy may place the sundry chess-boards whereat he is to play, simultaneously and blindfolded, an equivalent number of games. Pop, over the hedges and into the very core of each one, any personage against whom you have a grudge, or any one of the Ghosts just convened that may have been troublesome; and then challenge the incarcerated individuals to find their way out of limbo, by the gravelled pathways. Should one of the whole number emerge, through extraordinary good luck, quietly tip him back again over the hedge, or defy him to retrace his steps and regain the centre. You may enlarge this suggestion, I think, into a paragraph reasonably long.--The same with Regattas. I am almost sorry that I gave up to you so felicitous a topic; for all ages and all waters may be laid under contribution. From Noah's Ark shall float the commodore's broad pendant. The ocean shall be covered, so far as eye can range, with countless craft of every build and rig. And all shall glide about in quiet, inasmuch as oars shall be m.u.f.fled, and steamers, having learned to consume their own smoke, shall be taught equally to swallow their hideous noises. The marshalling of the compet.i.tors and the order of the racing are left to your discretion; but there need be no lack of interest. Caiques from Stamboul and gondolas from Venice shall be frequent; and pirogues from the Malayan peninsula shall over-haul the three trim yacht-schooners that raced across the Atlantic from New-York.

Here Cleopatra's barge shall be matched against an Esquimaux kayak; there a catamaran from Coringa shall b.u.mp the Yale College eight. If you cannot make something out of all this picturesque confusion, and if you cannot contrive to lose therein both yourself and the reader of your paragraph, the fault will be yours, not mine.--There remain the Eleven Thousand Virgins of Cologne. What are you to do with them? Simply this.

Endow each one of them with personal attributes; let each have form and features, distinct from the others of her sisterhood. Is the task difficult? So much the better. After a cool thousand or so of these individual portraitures, you may begin to fumble in vain for separate ident.i.ties. In fact, who knows whether you may not be compelled to take refuge hopelessly in sleep, the very mark at which both of us are aiming?

And now, the foregoing long and subdivided paragraph being brought at last to an end, it were disingenuous to s.h.i.+rk an admission, that the "who's who" is not so plainly discernible therein as it might be. You and I, and the reader and the writer, and the giver and recipient of advice, will be accused by the critic of being somewhat queerly mixed up. What, then? Are not vagueness and uncertainty of style specially appropriate to the circ.u.mstances? Who would thank us for precision? No, no; carry clearness, if you like, into your mathematical definitions; but leave us our mistiness when we treat of the mysterious. Nor, on the whole, am I otherwise than content with my suggested a.s.sumption of temporary and imaginary authors.h.i.+p, as one of the methods for quieting a fevered brain. How pleasant to dream that rival Publishers are contending for your ma.n.u.script poems; that rival Managers are waylaying you for a sight of your unwritten comedy! Besides, by adding authors.h.i.+p to the list that closed with the damsels of Cologne, the number is brought up to eleven, so that, when I wind up with my trump card, the promised dozen of dreams will be complete, and I shall be enabled to dispense with the "waves of shadow" on the wheat-field, which I acknowledged were not my original conception.