But with what unuttered and unutterable scorn the youthful victims of
the Royal pairing accepted the newspaper-assurances of the devoted
tenderness they entertained for each other! With what wearied
impatience both prince and princess received the 'Wedding Odes' and
'Epithalamiums,' written by first-class and no-class versifiers for the
occasion! What shoals of these were cast aside unread, to occupy the
darkest dingiest corner of one of the Royal 'refuse' libraries! The
writers of such things expected great honours, no doubt, each and every
man-jack of them,--but apart from the fact that the greatest literature
has always lived without any official recognition or endowment from
kings,--being in itself the supremest sovereignty,--poets and
rhymesters alike never seem to realize that no one is, or can be, so
sickened by an 'Ode' as the man or woman to whom it is written!

The brilliant marriage ceremony concluded, the august bride and
bridegroom took their departure, amid frantically cheering crowds, for
a stately castle standing high among the mountains, a truly magnificent
pile, which had been placed at their disposal for the 'honeymoon' by
one of the wealthiest of the King's subjects,--and there, as soon as
equerries, grooms-in-waiting, flunkeys, and every other sort of indoor
and outdoor retainer would consent to leave them alone together, the
Royal wife came to her Royal husband, and asked to be allowed to speak
a few words on the subject of their marriage, 'for the first and last
time,' said she, with a straight glance from the cold moonlight mystery
of her eyes. Beautiful at all times, her beauty was doubly enhanced by
the regal attitude and expression she unconsciously assumed as she made
the request, and the prince, critically studying her form and features,
could not but regard himself as in some respects rather particularly
favoured by the political and social machinery which had succeeded in