miserable_; he is a person. It is
curious to note how persistently this man has perverted his gifts. With
talents that might have corrupted panegyric, he preferred to refine
detraction; fitted to disgrace the _salon_, he has elected to adorn the
cell; the qualities that would have endeared him to a blackguard he has
wasted upon Pascal Grousset.

"As we write, it is reported that this person is in England. It is further
affirmed that it is his intention to proceed to Belgium or Switzerland to
fight certain journalists who have not had the courtesy to suppress the
truth about him, though he never told it of them. We presume, however,
this rumor is false; M. Rochefort must retain enough of the knowledge he
acquired when he was esteemed a gentleman to be aware that a meeting
between him and a journalist is now impossible. This is the more to be
regretted, because M. Paul de Cassagnac would have much pleasure in taking
M. Rochefort's life and we in lamenting his fall.

"M. Rochefort, we believe, is already suffering from an unhealed wound. It
is his mouth."

There was a good deal of such "scurril jesting" in the paper, especially
in a department called "Prattle." There were verses on all manner of
subjects--mostly the nobility and their works and ways, from the viewpoint
of disapproval--and epigrams, generally ill-humorous, like the following,
headed "_Novum Organum_":

"In Bacon see the culminating prime
Of British intellect and British crime.
He died, and Nature, settling his affairs,
Parted his powers among us, his heirs:
To each a pinch of common-sense, for seed,
And, to develop it, a pinch of greed.
Each frugal heir, to make the gift suffice,
Buries the talent to manure the vice."

When the first issue of _The Lantern_ appeared I wrote to Mr. Mortimer,
again urging him to modify his plans and alter the character of the
journal. He replied that it suited him as it was and he would let me know
when to prepare "copy" for the second number. That eventually appeared on
July 15th. I never was instructed to prepare any more copy, and there has
been, I believe, no further issue of that interesting sheet as yet.

Taking a retrospective view of this singular venture in journalism, one
day, the explanation of the whole matter came to my understanding in the
light of a revelation, and was confirmed later by Mr. Mortimer.

In the days when Napoleon III was at the zenith of his glory and power
there w