A_. I perceive--your argument is unanswerable.

_B_. Stop a moment; it will run better thus:--"The Honourable Augustus
Bouverie no sooner perceived himself alone, than he felt the dark shades
of melancholy ascending and brooding over his mind, and enveloping his
throbbing heart in their--their _adamantine_ chains. Yielding to the
overwhelming force, he thus exclaimed, `Such is life--we require but one
flower, and we are offered noisome thousands--refused that we wish, we
live in loathing of that not worthy to be received--mourners from our
cradle to our grave, we utter the shrill cry at our birth, and we sink
in oblivion with the faint, wail of terror. Why should we, then, ever
commit the folly to be happy?'"

_A_. Hang me, but that's a poser!

_B_. Nonsense! hold your tongue; it is only preparatory to the end.
"Conviction astonishes and torments--destiny prescribes and falsifies--
attraction drives us away--humiliation supports our energies. Thus do
we recede into the present, and shudder at the Elysium of posterity."

_A_. I have written all that down, Barnstaple; but I cannot understand
it, upon my soul!

_B_. If you had understood one particle, that particle I would have
erased. This is your true philosophy of a fashionable novel, the
extreme interest of which consists in its being unintelligible. People
have such an opinion of their own abilities, that if they understood
you, they would despise you; but a dose like this strikes them with
veneration for your talents.

_A_. Your argument is unanswerable; but you said that I must describe
the dressing-room.

_B_. Nothing more easy; as a simile, compare it to the shrine of some
favoured saint in a richly-endowed Catholic church. Three tables at
least, full of materials in methodised confusion--all tending to the
beautification of the human form divine. Tinted perfumes in every
variety of cut crystal receivers, gold and silver. If at a loss, call
at Bayley and Blew's, or Smith's in Bond Street. Take an accurate
survey of all you see, and introduce your whole catalogue. You cannot
be too minute. But, Arthur, you must not expect me to write the whole
book for you.

_A_. Indeed I am not so exorbitant in my demands upon your good-nature;
but observe, I may get up four or five chapters already with the hints
you have given me, but I do not know how to move, such a creation of the
brain--so ethereal, that I fear he will melt away; and so fragile,