I did not ask "some" or "others." Perhaps I should have thought it best
to keep my poem to myself and the few friends for whom it was written.
All at once, my daimon--that other Me over whom I button my waistcoat
when I button it over my own person--put it into my head to look up the
story of Madame Saqui. She was a famous danseuse, who danced Napoleon in
and out, and several other dynasties besides. Her last appearance was at
the age of seventy-six, which is rather late in life for the tight rope,
one of her specialties. Jules Janin mummified her when she died in 1866,
at the age of eighty. He spiced her up in his eulogy as if she had been
the queen of a modern Pharaoh. His foamy and flowery rhetoric put me
into such a state of good-nature that I said, I will print my poem, and
let the critical Gil Blas handle it as he did the archbishop's sermon, or
would have done, if he had been a writer for the "Salamanca Weekly."

It must be premised that a very beautiful loving cup was presented to me
on my recent birthday, by eleven ladies of my acquaintance. This was the
most costly and notable of all the many tributes I received, and for
which in different forms I expressed my gratitude.

TO THE ELEVEN LADIES

WHO PRESENTED ME WITH A SILVER LOVING CUP ON THE
TWENTY-NINTH OF AUGUST, M DCCC LXXXIX.

"Who gave this cup?" The secret thou wouldst steal
Its brimming flood forbids it to reveal:
No mortal's eye shall read it till he first
Cool the red throat of thirst.

If on the golden floor one draught remain,