at another? Is not it right to read it? and can that which is right
ever become wrong? Or would you rather dance? There is a lack of men;
and you need only jump about for a few hours, at the mere risk of
tiring your legs, to lay strong siege to the hearts of as many
grateful beauties as you choose."

"Good night!" cried the other with his hand on the door; "I am going
home."

Roderick called out to him: "Only one word! I shall set off tomorrow
at daybreak with my friend here, to spend a few days in the country,
but will look in upon you to say goodbye before we start. Should you
be asleep, as is most likely, you need not take the trouble of waking;
for, before a week is out, I shall be back again.--The strangest being
upon earth!" he continued, turning to his neighbour; "so moping and
fretful, such a splitter of thoughts, that he turns all his pleasures
sour; or rather there is no such thing as pleasure for him. Instead of
walking about with his fellow creatures in broad daylight and enjoying
himself, he gets down to the bottom of the well of his fancies, in the
hope of now and then catching a glimpse of a star. Everything must be
in the superlative for him: everything must be pure, and majestic, and
etherial, and celestial: his heart must be always throbbing and
heaving, even when he is standing before a puppet show. He never
laughs or cries, but can only smile and weep; and forsooth there is
mighty little difference between his weeping and his smiling. When
anything, be it what it may, falls short of his anticipations and
preconceptions, which are always flying up out of reach and sight, he
puts on a tragical face, and complains that it is a base and soulless
world. At this very moment, I make no doubt, he is requiring that
under the masks of a Pantaloon or a Punch there should be a soul
glowing with unearthly desires and ideal aspirations, and that
Harlequin should outmoralize Hamlet on the nothingness of sublunary
things: and if these expectations are disappointed, as they can never
fail to be, the dew is sure to rise into his eyes, and he will turn
his back on the whole motley scene in desponding contempt."

"He must be atrabilious then?" askt his hearer.

"Not that exactly," answered Roderick: "he has only been spoilt by the
indulgence of his overfond parents and by his own. He has accustomed
himself to let his heart ebb and flow as regularly as the sea; and if
this motion is ever at a stop, he cries out _a