ull-blown dandyism, and is, at best, but half-blown cynicism; which
participle and noun you can translate, if you happen to remember the
derivation of the last of them, by a single familiar word. There is a
great deal of false sentiment in the world, as there is of bad logic
and erroneous doctrine; but--it is very much less disagreeable to hear a
young poet overdo his emotions, or even deceive himself about them,
than to hear a caustic-epithet flinger repeating such words as
"sentimentality" and "entusymusy,"--one of the least admirable of Lord
Byron's bequests to our language,--for the purpose of ridiculing him
into silence. An overdressed woman is not so pleasing as she might be,
but at any rate she is better than the oil of vitriol squirter, whose
profession it is to teach young ladies to avoid vanity by spoiling their
showy silks and satins.

The Lady was the first of our party who was invited to look through the
equatorial. Perhaps this world had proved so hard to her that she was
pained to think that other worlds existed, to be homes of suffering and
sorrow. Perhaps she was thinking it would be a happy change when she
should leave this dark planet for one of those brighter spheres. She
sighed, at any rate, but thanked the Young Astronomer for the beautiful
sights he had shown her, and gave way to the next comer, who was That
Boy, now in a state of irrepressible enthusiasm to see the Man in the
Moon. He was greatly disappointed at not making out a colossal human
figure moving round among the shining summits and shadowy ravines of the
"spotty globe."

The Landlady came next and wished to see the moon also, in preference to
any other object. She was astonished at the revelations of the powerful
telescope. Was there any live creatures to be seen on the moon? she
asked. The Young Astronomer shook his head, smiling a little at the
question.--Was there any meet'n'-houses? There was no evidence, he said,
that the moon was inhabited. As there did not seem to be either air or
water on its surface, the inhabitants would have a rather hard time of
it, and if they went to meeting the sermons would be apt to be rather
dry. If there were a building on it as big as York minster, as big as
the Boston Coliseum, the great telescopes like Lord Rosse's would make
it out. But it seemed to be a forlorn place; those who had studied it
most agreed in considering it a "cold, crude, silent, and desolate" ruin
of nature, without the possibi