"Yes: the gaiety of Paris is really a delusion. How poor its shops--how
paltry its equipages--how listless its crowds--compared with those of
London! If it was only for the pain in walking their accursed stones,
sloping down to a river in the middle of the street--all sense of idle
enjoyment would be spoilt. But in London--'the hum, the stir, the din of
men'--the activity and flush of life everywhere--the brilliant
shops--the various equipages--the signs of luxury, wealth, restlessness,
that meet you on all sides--give a much more healthful and vigorous
bound to the spirits, than the indolent loungers of the Tuileries,
spelling a thrice-read French paper which contains nothing, or sitting
on chairs by the hour together, unwilling to stir because they have paid
a penny for the seat--ever enjoy. O! if London would seem gay after
Paris, how much more so after a visit to the interior of the Earth.
And what is the news, my Asmodeus?"

"The Theatres have re-opened. Apropos of them--I will tell you a fine
instance of the futility of human ambition. Mr. Monck Mason took the
King's Theatre, saith report--(which is the creed of devils)--in order
to bring out an opera of his own, which Mr. Laporte, with a very
uncourteous discretion, had thought fit to refuse. The season
passes--and Mr. Monck Mason has ruined himself without being able to
bring out his opera after all! What a type of speculation. A speculator
is one who puts a needle in a hay-stack, and then burns all his hay
without finding the needle. It is hard to pay too dear for one's
whistle--but still more hard if one never plays a tune on the whistle
one pays for. Still the world has lost a grand pleasure in not seeing
damned an Opera written by the Manager of the Opera-house,--it would
have been such a consolation to all the rejected operatives,--it would
have been the prettiest hardship entailed on a great man ever since the
time of that speaker who was forced himself to put the question whether