to tell a traveller's tale. It was the place of deferred hopes and the
place of poisoned tongues, and the place in which to suck the last
sweet drop in an enemy's cup of trembling. It was the haunt of laughter
and of fevered wit and of rivalry in all things, and here the heaviest
of heart was not unlike to be the lightest of wit. The spirit of party
never left its walls, and Ambition was its chamberlain. The envied and
the envious walked there, and there hung the sword of Damocles and the
invisible balances. Here, in one corner, might lord it one on whom
Fortune broadly smiled, while around him buzzed the gilded parasites,
and here, ten feet away, his rival felt the knife turn in his heart.
To-morrow--to-morrow's old trick of legerdemain! there the knife, here
the smiling face, and for the cloud of sycophants mere change of venue.
It was a land of air-castles and rainbow gold, a fool's paradise and the
garden where grew most thickly the apples of Sodom. In it were caged all
greed, all extravagance, all jealousies; hopes, fears, passions that may
be born of and destroy the soul of man; and within it also flamed
splendid folly and fealty to some fixed star, and courage past
disputing, and clear love of God and country. Yonder glass of fashion
and mould of form had stood knee-deep in an Irish bog keeping through a
winter's night a pack of savages at bay; this jester at a noble's elbow
knew when to speak in earnest; and this, a suitor with no present in his
hand, so lightly esteemed as scarce to seem an actor in the pageant,
might to-night take his pen and give to after-time a priceless gift.
Soldiers, idle gallants, gentlemen and officers of the court; men of law
and men of affairs; churchmen, poets, foreigners, spendthrifts, gulls,
satellites, and kinsmen of great lords; the wise, the foolish, the noble
and the base--up and down moved the restless, brilliant throng. Some
excitement was toward, for the great room buzzed with talk. The
courtiers drew together in groups, and it seemed that a man's name was
being bandied to and fro, dark shuttlecock to this painted throng.