J.'s laughing; and so, with a hundred harmless jokes to
enliven, and the ever-changing, ever-charming smiles of nature to cheer
and accompany it, the happy day's journey would come to an end.
So they travelled by the accustomed route to the prettiest town of all
places where Pleasure has set up her tents; and where the gay, the
melancholy, the idle or occupied, grave or haughty, come for amusement,
or business, or relaxation; where London beauties, having danced and
flirted all the season, may dance and flirt a little more; where
well-dressed rogues from all quarters of the world assemble; where I have
seen severe London lawyers, forgetting their wigs and the Temple, trying
their luck against fortune and M. Benazet; where wistful schemers
conspire and prick cards down, and deeply meditate the infallible coup;
and try it, and lose it, and borrow a hundred francs to go home; where
even virtuous British ladies venture their little stakes, and draw up
their winnings with trembling rakes, by the side of ladies who are not
virtuous at all, no, not even by name; where young prodigals break the
bank sometimes, and carry plunder out of a place which Hercules himself
could scarcely compel; where you meet wonderful countesses and
princesses, whose husbands are almost always absent on their vast
estates--in Italy, Spain, Piedmont--who knows where their lordships'
possessions are?--while trains of suitors surround those wandering
Penelopes their noble wives; Russian Boyars, Spanish Grandees of the
Order of the Fleece, Counts of France, and Princes Polish and Italian
innumerable, who perfume the gilded halls with their tobacco-smoke, and
swear in all languages against the black and the red.
Pages:
627
628
629
630
631
632
633
634
635
636
637
638
639
640
641
642
643
644
645
646
647
648
649
650
651