After Becky's appearance at my Lord Steyne's private and select

parties, the claims of that estimable woman as regards fashion were

settled, and some of the very greatest and tallest doors in the

metropolis were speedily opened to her--doors so great and tall that

the beloved reader and writer hereof may hope in vain to enter at them.

Dear brethren, let us tremble before those august portals. I fancy

them guarded by grooms of the chamber with flaming silver forks with

which they prong all those who have not the right of the entree. They

say the honest newspaper-fellow who sits in the hall and takes down the

names of the great ones who are admitted to the feasts dies after a

little time.

He can't survive the glare of fashion long. It scorches

him up, as the presence of Jupiter in full dress wasted that poor

imprudent Semele--a giddy moth of a creature who ruined herself by

venturing out of her natural atmosphere. Her myth ought to be taken to

heart amongst the Tyburnians, the Belgravians--her story, and perhaps

Becky's too. Ah, ladies!--ask the Reverend Mr. Thurifer if Belgravia is

not a sounding brass and Tyburnia a tinkling cymbal. These are

vanities. Even these will pass away. And some day or other (but it

will be after our time, thank goodness) Hyde Park Gardens will be no

better known than the celebrated horticultural outskirts of Babylon,

and Belgrave Square will be as desolate as Baker Street, or Tadmor in

the wilderness.

Ladies, are you aware that the great Pitt lived in Baker Street? What

would not your grandmothers have given to be asked to Lady Hester's

parties in that now decayed mansion? I have dined in it--moi qui vous

parle, I peopled the chamber with ghosts of the mighty dead. As we sat

soberly drinking claret there with men of to-day, the spirits of the

departed came in and took their places round the darksome board. The

pilot who weathered the storm tossed off great bumpers of spiritual

port; the shade of Dundas did not leave the ghost of a heeltap.

Addington sat bowing and smirking in a ghastly manner, and would not be

behindhand when the noiseless bottle went round; Scott, from under

bushy eyebrows, winked at the apparition of a beeswing; Wilberforce's

eyes went up to the ceiling, so that he did not seem to know how his

glass went up full to his mouth and came down empty; up to the ceiling

which was above us only yesterday, and which the great of the past days

have all looked at. They let the house as a furnished lodging now.

Yes, Lady Hester once lived in Baker Street, and lies asleep in the

wilderness. Eothen saw her there--not in Baker Street, but in the other

solitude.




readonlinefreebook.com Copyright 2016 - 2024