And yet the harsh world scowls upon us: our nerves are broken, and they
wonder we are querulous; our blood curdles, and they ask why we are not
gay; our brain grows dizzy and indistinct (as with me just now), and,
shrugging their shoulders, they whisper their neighbours that we are mad.
I wish I had worked at the plough, and known sleep, and loved
mirth--and--and not been what I am."

"As the Student tittered the last sentence, he bowed down his head, and a
few tears stole silently down his cheek. Walter was greatly affected--it
took him by surprise: nothing in Aram's ordinary demeanour betrayed any
facility to emotion; and he conveyed to all the idea of a man, if not
proud, at least cold."

* * * * *


OLD JESTS.


Persons who gloat over dust and black-letter need scarcely be told that
the best of "modern" jests are almost literally from the antique: in short,
that what we employ to "set the table on a roar" were employed by the wise
men of old to enliven _their_ cups, deep and strong;--that to jest was a
part of the Platonic philosophy, and that the excellent fancies, the
flashes of merriment, of our forefathers, are nightly, nay hourly,
re-echoed for our amusement. Yet such is the whole art of pleasing: what
has pleased will, with certain modifications, continue to please again and
again, until the end of time.

But we may displease; and, as Hamlet says, "We must speak by the card."