orable demon of stage-fright exacted from
her, with the swing and confident step of one sure that--while man may
be unjust, cruel and oppressive to her sex off the stage--here she would
reign and finally triumph. She bowed her head, but it was to acknowledge
her gracious acceptance of the tribute of applause; she moistened her
fiery-coal lips with a serpent's active tongue; she surveyed her
dominion with eyes that assumed a passing emerald tint. There was a
depth to those apparently superficial glances. It seemed to Claudius
that one had singled him out, and he fancied, as his eyes became
fastened on this vision of concentrated worldly bliss, that it was for
him that she stretched her plump neck, waved her arms in long gloves,
undulated her waist and murmured--though to others she was but repeating
her song during the orchestral prelude:

"You talk of plunging into the strife; you are ready to endure
privations, you would study and toil till you vanquish. Nonsense; you
had far better repose, recruit after the humdrum, exhaustive life of
college; enjoy life a little. Hear a love-song, not a professor's
lecture--see a dance of the ballet, not the procession of the deans and
proctors; come to me for I am immediate sensation--the pleasure for all
times--eternal intoxication--certain oblivion--the ideal bliss of the
Hindoo! I am the grandest proof of Life--I am Love embodied!"

What did she sing to the strains of the voluptuous-waltz made vocal? The
words mattered not; in Esquimaux they would have been as intelligible
from the intonation with which she imbued every note, and the restricted
but perfectly comprehensible gestures with which she emphasized the
phrases of double meaning--one for the literary censors who had "passed"
this corruption, the other for even the more obtuse of the common herd.

The rival whom, without having seen her, she had dethroned, was
obliterated. It was not a transfer of allegiance--it was Semiramis;
trampling an overthrown empress among the charred ruins of her palace,
acclaimed without one dissentient shout, in her stead, and as the
initial of a new line of sovereigns. She enchanted, interested and
amused, while Rebecca had awed, ravished and strove apparently in vain
to lift to a level where the elite alone soar without dread of a fall.

A witty cardinal has said that if a fly were seen in the drinking-cup by
an Italian, a Frenchman and a German, respectively, the first would send
it away,