acceptable change to the dull polish and unrevealed egotism of jealous
wits and party politicians. "If these are the flowers of the parterre,
what must be the weeds?" said Maltravers to himself, returning from a
party at which he had met half a score of the most orthodox lions.

He began to feel the aching pain of satiety.

But the winter glided away--the season commenced, and Maltravers was
whirled on with the rest into the bubbling vortex.



CHAPTER III.

"And crowds commencing mere vexation,
Retirement sent its invitation."--SHENSTONE.

THE tench, no doubt, considers the pond in which he lives as the Great
World. There is no place, however stagnant, which is not the great
world to the creatures that move about, in it. People who have lived
all their lives in a village still talk of the world as if they had ever
seen it! An old woman in a hovel does not put her nose out of her door
on a Sunday without thinking she is going amongst the pomps and vanities
of the great world. /Ergo/, the great world is to all of us the little
circle in which we live. But as fine people set the fashion, so the
circle of fine people is called the Great World /par excellence/. Now
this great world is not a bad thing when we thoroughly understand it;
and the London great world is at least as good as any other. But then
we scarcely do understand that or anything else in our /beaux
jours/,--which, if they are sometimes the most exquisite, are also often