ist is inilluminate parchment, the form of a
white vase or the surface of a wall where frescoes shall be.

Consider the words of Count D'Orsay, spoken on the eve of some duel, 'We
are not fairly matched. If I were to wound him in the face it would not
matter; but if he were to wound me, ce serait vraiment dommage!' There
we have a pure example of a dandy's peculiar vanity--'It would be a real
pity!' They say that D'Orsay killed his man--no matter whom--in this
duel. He never should have gone out. Beau Brummell never risked his
dandyhood in these mean encounters. But D'Orsay was a wayward, excessive
creature, too fond of life and other follies to achieve real greatness.
The power of his predecessor, the Father of Modern Costume, is over us
yet. All that is left of D'Orsay's art is a waistcoat and a handful of
rings--vain relics of no more value for us than the fiddle of Paganini
or the mask of Menischus! I think that in Carolo's painting of him, we
can see the strength, that was the weakness, of le jeune Cupidon. His
fingers are closed upon his cane as upon a sword. There is mockery in
the inconstant eyes. And the lips, so used to close upon the wine-cup,
in laughter so often parted, they do not seem immobile, even now. Sad
that one so prodigally endowed as he was, with the three essentials of
a dandy--physical distinction, a sense of beauty and wealth or, if you
prefer the term, credit--should not have done greater things. Much of
his costume was merely showy or eccentric, without the rotund unity
of the perfect fop's. It had been well had he lacked that dash and
spontaneous gallantry that make him cut, it may be, a more attractive
figure than Beau Brummell. The youth of St. James's gave him a wonderful
welcome. The flight of Mr. Brummell had left them as sheep without a
shepherd. They had even cried out against the inscrutable decrees
of fashion and curtailed the height of their stocks. And (lo!) here,
ambling down the Mall with tasselled cane, laughing in the window at
Whites or in Fop's Alley posturing, here, with the devil in his eyes
and all the graces at his elbow, was D'Orsay, the prince paramount who
should dominate London and should guard life from monotony by the daring
of his whims. He accepted so many engagements that he often dressed very
quickly both in the morning and at nightfall. His brilliant genius would
sometimes enable him to appear faultless, but at other times not even
his fine figure could quite d