Catherine. Her cheeks
glowed red-hot under her coy velvet mask, her heart thumped against
the whalebone prison of her stays. What a delicious storm of vanity
was raging in her bosom! What a rush of long-pent recollections
burst forth at the sound of that enchanting voice!
As you wind up a hundred-guinea chronometer with a twopenny
watch-key--as by means of a dirty wooden plug you set all the waters
of Versailles a-raging, and splashing, and storming--in like manner,
and by like humble agents, were Mrs. Catherine's tumultuous passions
set going. The Count, we have said, slipped up to his son, and
merely saying, "How do, Tom?" cut the young gentleman altogether,
and passing round to the lady's side, said, "Madam, 'tis a charming
evening--egad it is!" She almost fainted: it was the old voice.
There he was, after seventeen years, once more at her side!
Now I know what I could have done. I can turn out a quotation from
Sophocles (by looking to the index) as well as another: I can throw
off a bit of fine writing too, with passion, similes, and a moral at
the end. What, pray, is the last sentence but one but the very
finest writing? Suppose, for example, I had made Maximilian, as he
stood by the side of Catherine, look up towards the clouds, and
exclaim, in the words of the voluptuous Cornelius Nepos,
'Aenaoi nephelai
'Arthoomen phanerai
Droseran phusin euageetoi, k.
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