- end_line
- 11267
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T03:55:03.883Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 11203
- text
- And--odder yet--sealed walls but windows be!
Death’s open secret.--Well, we are;
And here comes the jolly angel with the jar!’
Wherein, in the ultimate verse, Lugar-Lips did particularise, doubtless,
one of the twain in the _relievo_ of the little medallion on one side of
the vase, of which cunning piece I have in the foregoing made account.
‘And is that all?’ said My Lord, composedly, but scarce cheerfully, when
the renegado had made an end; ‘and is that all? And call you that a
crushing from the grape? the black grape, I wis’; there checking
himself, as a wise man will do, catching himself tripping in an
indiscreet sincerity; which to cover, peradventure, he, suddenly rising,
retired to his chamber, and though commanding his visage somewhat, yet
in pace and figure showing the spirit within sadly distraught; forsooth,
the last Michaelmas, his birthday, he was threescore and three years
old, and in privy fear, as I knew who long was near him, of a certain
sudden malady whereof his father and grandfather before him had died
about that age. But for my part I always esteemed it a mighty weakness
in so great a man to let the ribald wit of a vain ballader, and he a
heathen, make heavy his heart. For me who am but a small one, I was in
secret pleased with the lax pleasantry of this Lugar-Lips, but in such
sort as one is tickled with the profane capering of a mountebank at
Bartholomew’s Fair by Thames. Howbeit, had I been, God knows, of equal
reverend years with my master, and subject by probable inheritance to
the like sudden malady, peradventure I myself in that case might have
waxed sorrowful, doubting whether the grape was not indeed the black
grape, as he phrased it, wherefrom that vain balladry had been
distilled.
But now no more hereof, nor of the amber vase, which like unto some
little man in great place hath been made overmuch of, as the judicious
reader hereof may opine.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE MARQUIS DE GRANDVIN
A countryman of Lafayette and Bartholdi, this gentleman is not unknown
to some Americans, more especially perhaps, to some of us New Yorkers.
He is an honorary member of most of the Fifth Avenue clubs, anything but
unwelcome at their chance gatherings, while at their premeditated
banquets his appearance--and he always happily times it--is commonly
hailed by a plausive clapping of hands simultaneous with the vocal
salutation. But a person of genial temper is not only very likely to be
a popular man’s man, but also, and beyond that, a favourite with the
ladies. For it is something less venial than mere error in the old
philosopher penally branded with a horrible name--misogynist, I
think--and a soggy soul he must have been; it was something less venial
than error in him to say, as he did, that women, however apt to that
grand passion which makes the one divine rapture of life, have
nevertheless a constitutional incapacity for good-fellowship, that is,
in the masculine acceptation of the term. Assuredly, Hymen knows, too
few of them practically demonstrate their capacity for it. Some musky
dew-drops from the Garden expelled Eve unwillingly carried away
quivering in her hair. More than man, she partakes of the paradisiac
spirit. Under favourable conditions evincing a quicker aptitude to
pleasure than man. How alert to twine the garland for the holiday! How
instinctively prompt for that faint semblance of Eden, the picnic in the
greenwood!
- title
- Chunk 10