ons who
were rejoicing in the possession of one of these useless and worthless
little commodities; happy himself to see how easily others could purchase
happiness. But the second would weep bitter tears to think what a
rayless and barren life that must be which could extract enjoyment from
the miserable flimsy wand that has such magic attraction for sauntering
youths and simpering maidens. What a dynamometer of happiness are these
paltry toys, and what a rudimentary vertebrate must be the freckled
adolescent whose yearning for the infinite can be stayed even for a
single hour by so trifling a boon from the venal hands of the finite!

Pardon these polysyllabic reflections, Beloved, but I never contemplate
these dear fellow-creatures of ours without a delicious sense of
superiority to them and to all arrested embryos of intelligence, in which
I have no doubt you heartily sympathize with me. It is not merely when I
look at the vacuous countenances of the mastigophori, the whip-holders,
that I enjoy this luxury (though I would not miss that holiday spectacle
for a pretty sum of money, and advise you by all means to make sure of it
next Fourth of July, if you missed it this), but I get the same pleasure
from many similar manifestations.

I delight in Regalia, so called, of the kind not worn by kings, nor
obtaining their diamonds from the mines of Golconda. I have a passion
for those resplendent titles which are not conferred by a sovereign and
would not be the open sesame to the courts of royalty, yet which are as
opulent in impressive adjectives as any Knight of the Garter's list of
dignities. When I have recognized in the every-day name of His Very
Worthy High Eminence of some cabalistic association, the inconspicuous
individual whose trifling indebtedness to me for value received remains
in a quiescent state and is likely long to continue so, I confess to
having experienced a thrill of pleasure. I have smiled to think how
grand his magnificent titular appendages sounded in his own ears and what
a feeble tintinnabulation they made in mine. The crimson sash, the broad
diagonal belt of the mounted marshal of a great procession, so cheap in
themselves, yet so entirely satisfactory to the wearer, tickle my heart's
root.

Perhaps I should have enjoyed all these weaknesses of my infantile
fellow-creatures without an afterthought, except that on a certain
literary anniversary when I tie the narrow blue and pink ribbons i