sh partiality for her young cousin, was that any reason
why she should never fall in love with anybody else? Are men to have
the sole privilege of change, and are women to be rebuked for availing
themselves now and again of their little chance of consolation? No
invectives can be more rude, gross, and unphilosophical than, for
instance, Hamlet's to his mother about her second marriage. The truth,
very likely, is, that that tender, parasitic creature wanted a something
to cling to, and, Hamlet senior out of the way, twined herself round
Claudius. Nay, we have known females so bent on attaching themselves,
that they can twine round two gentlemen at once. Why, forsooth, shall
there not be marriage-tables after funeral baked-meats? If you said
grace for your feast yesterday, is that any reason why you shall not be
hungry to-day? Your natural fine appetite and relish for this evening's
feast, shows that to-morrow evening at eight o'clock you will most
probably be in want of your dinner. I, for my part, when Flirtilla or
Jiltissa were partial to me (the kind reader will please to fancy that
I am alluding here to persons of the most ravishing beauty and lofty
rank), always used to bear in mind that a time would come when they
would be fond of somebody else. We are served a la Russe, and gobbled up
a dish at a time, like the folks in Polyphemus's cave. 'Tis hodie mihi,
cras tibi: there are some Anthropophagi who devour dozens of us, the
old, the young, the tender, the tough, the plump, the lean, the ugly,
the beautiful: there's no escape, and one after another, as our fate is,
we disappear down their omnivorous maws. Look at Lady Ogresham! We all
remember, last year, how she served poor Tom Kydd: seized upon him,
devoured him, picked his bones, and flung them away. Now it is Ned
Suckling she has got into her den. He lies under her great eyes,
quivering and fascinated. Look at the poor little trepid creature,
panting and helpless under the great eyes! She trails towards him nearer
and nearer; he draws to her, closer and closer. Presently there will
be one or two feeble squeaks for pity, and--hobblegobble--he will
disappear! Ah me! it is pity, too. I knew, for instance, that Maria
Esmond had lost her heart ever so many times before Harry Warrington
found it; but I like to fancy that he was going to keep it; that,
bewailing mischance and times out of joint, she would yet have preserved
her love, and fondled it in decorous celibacy.