2 Meditations on Mountains. [Juuy, 
Then the reaches and the retchings :—O how catching example is! and 
how the loves leap away across the waves—no, the ripple—as that erst 
lovely creature hangs over the gunwale, wan and sickly, as if she were 
seen through the flame and smoke of sulphur, and lets all on board know 
that—she is no chameleon. When you land, what isit? Do you get the 
pure atmosphere? No such thing; for just as you have ensconced 
yourself in the inmost parlour, and are throwing up the casement to 
catch the odour of a rose that hangs temptingly by, a juvenile Jew— 
gentleman for the day, but, at other times, vender of treasure lrove, in 
the shape of sealskin-caps—snaps your flower from the stem, and 
envelops you in the foul cloud of his filthy cigar and filthier breath. 
This goes to every cranny and crevice of your inner man, and so para- 
lyzes every cavity, and tube, and nerve, that you lose all relish for the 
only thing that you can get—eating and drinking. Then the little man 
with the cadaverous face, the long, hooked nose, with the vulgar point, 
and the abominably prurient septum, worries you to death upon the effect 
that the massacre of all the Christians in Constantinople, or the final 
overthrow of the Ottoman empire, may have upon the price of Chilian 
bonds, or of shares in the Thames Tunnel ; and the waddling mountain 
of purpled grease, as he shovels load after load of white-bait down his 
cesophagus—or, rather, his Bosphorus—wastes all the transient remains 
of his breath in muttered and mingled curse and lamentation at the 
state of total misery and starvation into which this once fat and flourish- 
ing country has unhappily fallen—since the war was at an end, and an 
honest man could not turn a penny for a contract that cost him nothing 
but his vote. Disgusted with a day’s “ pleasuring,” you wend your 
way home, eschewing the water, and preferring the thick and burning 
whirlwind of the dust-enveloped coach ; but, in the whole chaos, there 
is not a point upon which the eye can light with pleasure, or the mind 
dwell with satisfaction. 
Walk you forth into the moral menagerie ; visit you the lions of the 
age, or of the season—and you fare never a bit the better. They, no 
doubt, consume your time and your life—the latter faster, far faster, YN ‘ 
you are haply aware of ; but the only pleasure that they give you isthe ~~ 
your ribs are punched, your shins kicked, your clothes torn, your pocket 
emptied, and your lungs invaded by the most offensive malaria, that 
comes reeking from the “ rotten fens” of ruined reputation and stagnant 
health. Even with the keenest wind that blows, those places are more 
offensive and fell than the Maremma of Tuscany and the Campagna ; 
pleasure of being a little nearer your grave. Go you to the Y 3 
but then, when the dog-star brings the depth of fashionable winter, and — 
the fires of earth combine with the fervour of the air, they are the 
very “ Grotto del Cani:” even a dog could not live in them. And what 
have you in return for ali this? The classic song of Germany—quavers, - 
whipped up into syllabubs—crotchets, pulverized to dust; and you marvel 
at it, as a man of real literature marvels at a German commentary of ten 
volumes, folio, upon ten pages of text. It puts one in mind of foul 
weather : first, a growl or two of the thunder ; and then, patter, patter, 
comes the hail—till, in the midst of your physical broiling, your spirits 
run cold as the ice-brook. Sontag, “ und alle Tag,” let them gash and 
mangle the body of music as much as ever they please; but, O, for 
heaven’s sake !—of which music is the charm—kill not, mangle not, the 
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