still immortal, although no longer ye hover
o'er Olympus. The Crescent glitters on your mountain's base, and Crosses
spring from out its toppling crags. But in vain the Mufti, and the
Patriarch, and the Pope flout at your past traditions. They are married
to man's memory by the sweetest chain that ever Fancy wove for Love. The
poet is a priest, who does not doubt the inspiration of his oracles; and
your shrines are still served by a faithful band, who love the beautiful
and adore the glorious! In vain, in vain they tell us your divinity is
a dream. From the cradle to the grave, our thoughts and feelings take
their colour from you! O! AEgiochus, the birch has often proved thou
art still a thunderer; and, although thy twanging bow murmur no longer
through the avenging air, many an apple twig still vindicates thy
outraged dignity, _pulcher_ Apollo.

O, ye immortal Gods! nothing so difficult as to begin a chapter, and
therefore have we flown to you. In literature, as in life, it is the
first step; you know the rest. After a paragraph or so our blood Is up,
and even our jaded hackneys scud along, and warm up into friskiness.

The Duke awoke: another day of his eventful life is now to run its
course. He found that the Bird of Paradise had not returned from an
excursion to a neighbouring park: he left a note for her, apprising her
of his departure to London, and he despatched an affectionate letter to
Lady Aphrodite, which was the least that he could do, considering that
he perhaps quitted Brighton the day of her arrival. And having done all
this, he ordered his horses, and before noon was on his first stage.

It was his birthday. He had completed his twenty-third year. This was
sufficient, even if he had no other inducement, to make him indulge in
some slight reflection. These annual summings up are awkward things,
even to the prosperous and the happy, but to those who are the reverse,
who are discontented with themselves, and find that youth melting away
which they believe can alone achieve anything, I think a birthday is
about the most gloomy four-and-twenty hours that ever flap their damp
dull wings over melancholy man.

Yet the Duke of St. James was rather thoughtful than melancholy. His
life had been too active of late to allow him to indulge much in that
passive mood. 'I may never know what happiness is,' thought his Grace,
as he leaned back in his whirling britzska, 'but I think I know what
happiness is not. It is n