So it is with me. I walk in the avenue, and eat all the delightful
dinners without seeing the spots upon the table-cloth, and behold all
the beautiful Aurelias without swearing at old Carbuncle. I am the
guest who, for the small price of invisibility, drinks only the best
wines, and talks only to the most agreeable people. That is something,
I can tell you, for you might be asked to lead out old Mrs. Peony. My
fancy slips in between you and Aurelia, sit you never so closely
together. It not only hears what she says, but it perceives what she
thinks and feels. It lies like a bee in her flowery thoughts, sucking
all their honey. If there are unhandsome or unfeeling guests at table,
it will not see them. It knows only the good and fair. As I stroll in
the fading light and observe the stately houses, my fancy believes the
host equal to his house, and the courtesy of his wife more agreeable
than her conservatory. It will not believe that the pictures on the
wall and the statues in the corners shame the guests. It will not
allow that they are less than noble. It hears them speak gently of
error, and warmly of worth. It knows that they commend heroism and
devotion, and reprobate insincerity. My fancy is convinced that the
guests are not only feasted upon the choicest fruits of every land and
season, but are refreshed by a consciousness of greater loveliness and
grace in human character. Now you, who actually go to the dinner, may
not entirely agree with the view my fancy takes of that
entertainment. Is it not, therefore, rather your loss? Or, to put it
in another way, ought I to envy you the discovery that the guests
_are_ shamed by the statues and pictures;--yes, and by the spoons
and forks also, if they should chance neither to be so genuine nor so
useful as those instruments? And, worse than this, when your fancy
wishes to enjoy the picture which mine forms of that feast, it cannot
do so, because you have foolishly interpolated the fact between the
dinner and your fancy.