but not to hope? Has she found out the bitter mockery of this weary life, whose craving for happiness is only given that it may end in disappointment? But what is this to me? I must be gay—be witty: the points are not yet thrown into the dialogue in the second act. I wish I could remember some of the things I said last night; but, alas! the epigrams uttered over champagne are like the wreaths the Egyptians flung on the Nile, they float away, the gods alone know whither. Nevertheless, I must be very brilliant this morning—brilliant! with this pain in my head, and this weight at my heart," and he drew a sheet of paper towards him.
At first, he wrote slowly and languidly; but what had been a passion was now a power, and he soon obtained mastery over his subject. The light flashed in his eyes, the crimson deepened in his cheek; and, tearing the first page, he now began to write rapidly and earnestly. Strange the contrast between the writer's actual situation, and that which he creates! I have been writing all my life, and
