gh
Holborn, I give you MY HONOR. I suppose I was dreaming about it. I
don't know. What is dreaming? What is life? Why shouldn't I sleep on the
ceiling?--and am I sitting on it now, or on the floor? I am puzzled. But
enough. If the fashion for sensation novels goes on, I tell you I
will write one in fifty volumes. For the present, DIXI. But between
ourselves, this Pinto, who fought at the Colosseum, who was nearly being
roasted by the Inquisition, and sang duets at Holyrood, I am rather
sorry to lose him after three little bits of Roundabout Papers. Et vous?

DE FINIBUS.

When Swift was in love with Stella, and despatching her a letter from
London thrice a month by the Irish packet, you may remember how he would
begin letter No. XXIII., we will say, on the very day when XXII. had
been sent away, stealing out of the coffee-house or the assembly so as
to be able to prattle with his dear; "never letting go her kind hand, as
it were," as some commentator or other has said in speaking of the Dean
and his amour. When Mr. Johnson, walking to Dodsley's, and touching the
posts in Pall Mall as he walked, forgot to pat the head of one of them,
he went back and imposed his hands on it,--impelled I know not by what
superstition. I have this I hope not dangerous mania too. As soon as a
piece of work is out of hand, and before going to sleep, I like to
begin another: it may be to write only half a dozen lines: but that is
something towards Number the Next. The printer's boy has not yet reached
Green Arbor Court with the copy. Those people who were alive half an
hour since, Pendennis, Clive Newcome, and (what do you call him? what
was the name of the last hero? I remember now!) Philip Firmin, have
hardly drunk their glass of wine, and the mammas have only this
minute got the children's cloaks on, and have been bowed out of my
premises--and here I come back to the study again: tamen usque recurro.
How lonely it looks now all these people are gone! My dear good friends,
some folks are utterly tired of you, and say, "What a poverty of friends
the man has! He is always asking us to meet those Pendennises, Newcomes,
and so forth. Why does he not introduce us to some new characters? Why
is he not thrilling like Twostars, learned and profound like Threestars,
exquisitely humorous and human like Fourstars? Why, finally, is he not
somebody else?" My good people, it is not only impossible to please you
all, but it is absurd to try. The d