h, myself as much captivated as she was; and now the brief
drama was over, the lights were put out, and the theatre closed! How had
I destroyed this golden delusion,--why had I quarrelled with her,
and for what? For a certain Potts, a creature who, in reality, had no
existence; "For who is Potts?" said I. "Potts is no more a substance
than Caleb Williams or Peregrine Pickle; Potts is the lay figure that
the artist dresses in any costume he requires--a Rachero to-day, a
Railway Director to-morrow. What an absurdity in the importance we lend
to mere names! Here, for instance, I take the label off the port, and
I hang it round the neck of the claret decanter: have I changed the
quality of the vintage? have I brought Bordeaux to the meridian of
Oporto? Not a bit of it And yet a man is to be more the victim of an
accident than a bottle of wine, and his intrinsic qualities--strength,
flavor, and richness--are not to be tested, but simply implied from the
label round his neck! How narrow-minded, after all, of her, who ought
to have known better! It is thus, however, we educate our women; this
is part and parcel of the false system by which we fancy we make them
companionable. The North American Indians are far in advance of us in
all this: they assign them their proper places and fitting duties; they
feel that, in this life of ours, order and happiness depend on the due
distribution of burdens, and the Snapping Alligator never feels his
squaw more truly his helpmate than when she is skinning eels for his
dinner."

How I hated that old woman; I don't think I ever detested a human
creature so much as that I have often speculated as to whether venomous
reptiles have any gratification imparted to them when they inflict a
poisonous wound. Is the mosquito the happier for having stung
one's nose? And, in the same spirit, I should like to know, do
the disagreeable people of this world sleep the better from the
consciousness of having offended us? Is there that great ennobling sense
of a mission fulfilled for every cheek they set on fire and every heart
they depress? and do they quench hope and extinguish ambition with the
same zeal that the Sun or the Phoenix put out a fire?

"'If you drink wine, sir, pray order it,'" said I, mimicking her
imperious tone. "Yes, madam, I do drink wine, and I mean to order it,
and liberally. I travel at the expense of that noble old paymaster who
only wags his tail the more, the more he has to pay--the