Well,
we have got on, some of us, since then, as Mr. Bumpus used to say;
and I notice, when on visits, that some of us have contrived so that
we do sit on Chippendale chairs, at Sheraton dining-tables, and are
warmed from Adam's fireplaces; but, ah me, where are the dreams, the
hopes, the enthusiasms that clung like the scent of a March morning
about those gim-crack second floors? In the dustbin, I fear, with
the cretonne-covered egg-boxes and the penny fans. Fate is so
terribly even-handed. As she gives she ever takes away. She flung
us a few shillings and hope, where now she doles us out pounds and
fears. Why did not we know how happy we were, sitting crowned with
sweet conceit upon our egg-box thrones?
Yes, Dick, you have climbed well. You edit a great newspaper. You
spread abroad the message--well, the message that Sir Joseph
Goldbug, your proprietor, instructs you to spread abroad. You teach
mankind the lessons that Sir Joseph Goldbug wishes them to learn.
They say he is to have a peerage next year. I am sure he has earned
it; and perhaps there may be a knighthood for you, Dick.
Tom, you are getting on now. You have abandoned those unsaleable
allegories. What rich art patron cares to be told continually by
his own walls that Midas had ass's ears; that Lazarus sits ever at
the gate? You paint portraits now, and everybody tells me you are
the coming man.
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