the remotest intention of sending any of these
letters; but to write them, and after a few days
tear them up, had been a sublime occupation.
Sometimes, I had begun "Honoured Madam. I
think that a lady gifted with those powers of
observation which I know you to possess, and
endowed with those womanly sympathies with the
young and ardent which it were more than
heresy to doubt, can scarcely have failed to
discover that I love your adorable daughter,
deeply, devotedly." In less buoyant states of
mind I had begun, "Bear with me, Dear
Madam, bear with a daring wretch who is
about to make a surprising confession to
you, wholly unanticipated by yourself, and
which he beseeches you to commit to the
flames as soon as you have become aware to
what a towering height his mad ambition soars."
At other times—periods of profound mental
depression, when She had gone out to balls where
I was not—the draft took the affecting form of a
paper to be left on my table after my departure
to the confines of the globe. As thus: "For
Mrs. Onowenever, these lines when the hand
that traces them shall be far away. I could
not bear the daily torture of hopelessly loving
the dear one whom I will not name. Broiling
on the Coast of Africa, or congealing on the
shores of Greenland, I am far far better there
than here." (In this sentiment my cooler judgment
perceives that the family of the beloved
object would have most completely concurred.)
"If I ever emerge from obscurity, and my name
is ever heralded by Fame, it will be for her dear
sake. If I ever amass Gold, it will be to pour
it at her feet. Should I on the other hand
become the prey of Ravens——"  I doubt if I
ever quite made up my mind what was to be
done in that affecting case; I tried, "then it is
better so;" but not feeling convinced that it
would be better so, I vacillated between leaving
all else blank, which looked expressive and bleak,
or winding up with "Farewell!"

This fictitious correspondence of mine is to
blame for the foregoing digression. I was about
to pursue the statement that on my twenty-first
birthday I gave a party, and She was there. It
was a beautiful party. There was not a single
animate or inanimate object connected with it
(except the company and myself) that I had
ever seen before. Everything was hired, and
the mercenaries in attendance were profound
strangers to me. Behind a door, in the crumby
part of the night when wine-glasses were to be
found in unexpected spots, I spoke to Her
—spoke out to Her. What passed, I cannot as a
man of honour reveal. She was all angelical
gentleness, but a word was mentioned—a short
and dreadful word of three letters, beginning
with a B—which, as I remarked at the moment,
"scorched my brain." She went away soon
afterwards, and when the hollow throng (though
to be sure it was no fault of theirs) dispersed, I
issued forth, with a dissipated scorner, and, as I
mentioned expressly to him, "sought oblivion."
It was found, with a dreadful headache in it,
but it didn't last; for, in the shaming light of
next day's noon, I raised my heavy head in bed,
looking back to the birthdays behind me, and
tracking the circle by which I had got round,
after all, to the bitter powder and the wretchedness
again.

This reactionary powder (taken so largely by
the human race that I am inclined to regard it
as the Universal Medicine once sought for in
Laboratories) is capable of being made up in
another form for birthday use. Anybody's
long-lost brother will do ill to turn up on a birthday.
If I had a long-lost brother I should know
beforehand that he would prove a tremendous
fraternal failure if he appointed to rush into my
arms on my birthday. The first Magic Lantern
I ever saw, was secretly and elaborately planned
to be the great effect of a very juvenile birthday;
but it wouldn't act, and its images were
dim. My experience of adult birthday Magic
Lanterns may possibly have been unfortunate,
but has certainly been similar. I have an
illustrative birthday in my eye: a birthday of my
friend Flipfield, whose birthdays had long been
remarkable as social successes. There had been
nothing set or formal about them; Flipfield
having been accustomed merely to say, two or
three days before, "Don't forget to come and
dine, old boy, according to custom;"—I don't
know what he said to the ladies he invited, but
I may safely assume it not to have been "old
girl." Those were delightful gatherings, and
were enjoyed by all participators. In an evil
hour, a long-lost brother of Flipfield's came to
light in foreign parts. Where he had been hidden,
or what he had been doing, I don't know, for
Flipfield vaguely informed me that he had
turned up "on the banks of the Ganges"—speaking
of him as if he had been washed ashore.
The Long-lost was coming home, and Flipfield
made an unfortunate calculation, based on the
well-known regularity of the P. and O. Steamers,
that matters might be so contrived as that
the Long-lost should appear in the nick of
time on his (Flipfield's) birthday. Delicacy
commanded that I should repress the gloomy
anticipations with which my soul became fraught
when I heard of this plan. The fatal day
arrived, and we assembled in force. Mrs.
Flipfield senior formed an interesting feature in the
group, with a blue-veined miniature of the late
Mr. Flipfield round her neck, in an oval,
resembling a tart from the pastrycook's: his hair
powdered, and the bright buttons on his coat,
evidently very like. She was accompanied by
Miss Flipfield, the eldest of her numerous
family, who held her pocket-handkerchief to
her bosom in a majestic manner, and spoke
to all of us (none of us had ever seen her
before), in pious and condoning tones, of all the
quarrels that had taken place in the family, from
her infancy—which must have been a long time
ago—down to that hour. The Long-lost did
not appear. Dinner, half an hour later than
usual, was announced, and still no Long-lost.
We sat down to table. The knife and fork of
the Long-lost made a vacuum in Nature, and
when the champagne came round for the first