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 élite 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, the second fish out the insect before he drank, while the
German would gulp liquor and fly, without demur.

The good audience of Freyers' Harmonista swallowed the so-called
Fraulein von Vieradlers, flies and all! Claudius saw no more clearly
than they; not only was the girl an unsurpassable idol, but to its very
feet it was pure gold and immaculate ivory. An insane idea seized him
not only to win her--a hundred around him shared that desire--but to