My fancy runs no such risk; is not at all
solicitous about its hat, and glides by the side of Aurelia, stately
as she. There! you stumble on the stair, and are vexed at your own
awkwardness, and are sure you saw the ghost of a smile glimmer along
that superb face at your side. My fancy doesn't tumble down stairs,
and what kind of looks it sees upon Aurelia's face, are its own
secret.
Is it any better, now you are seated at table? Your companion eats
little because she wishes little. You eat little because you think it
is elegant to do so. It is a shabby, second-hand elegance, like your
brittle behavior. It is just as foolish for you to play with the
meats, when you ought to satisfy your healthy appetite generously, as
it is for you, in the drawing-room, to affect that cool indifference
when you have real and noble interests.
I grant you that fine manners, if you please, are a fine art. But is
not monotony the destruction of art? Your manners, O happy Ixion,
banqueting with Juno, are Egyptian. They have no perspective, no
variety. They have no color, no shading. They are all on a dead level;
they are flat.
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