That a biographer should profess to know everything which passes, even in
a confidential talk in a first-class carriage between two lovers, seems
perfectly absurd; not that grave historians do not pretend to the same
wonderful degree of knowledge--reporting meetings of the most occult of
conspirators; private interviews between monarchs and their ministers,
even the secret thoughts and motives of those personages, which possibly
the persons themselves did not know;--all for which the present writer
will pledge his known character for veracity is, that on a certain day
certain parties had a conversation, of which the upshot was so-and-so. He
guesses, of course, at a great deal of what took place; knowing the
characters, and being informed at some time of their meeting. You do not
suppose that I bribed the femme-de-chambre, or that those two City gents,
who sate in the same carriage with our young friends, and could not hear
a word they said, reported their talk to me? If Clive and Ethel had had a
coupe to themselves, I would yet boldly tell what took place, but the
coupe was taken by other three young City gents who smoked the whole way.
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