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welcome--"I see you are astonished at my apartment--at my statues--my
pictures--my originality of conception in architecture and upholstery!
absolutely drunk, eh, with my magnificence? But pardon me, my dear
sir, (here his tone of voice dropped to the very spirit of cordiality,)
pardon me for my uncharitable laughter. You appeared so utterly
astonished. Besides, some things are so completely ludicrous, that a man
must laugh or die. To die laughing, must be the most glorious of
all glorious deaths! Sir Thomas More--a very fine man was Sir Thomas
More--Sir Thomas More died laughing, you remember. Also in the
Absurdities of Ravisius Textor, there is a long list of characters who
came to the same magnificent end. Do you know, however," continued he
musingly, "that at Sparta (which is now Palæ; ochori,) at Sparta, I say,
to the west of the citadel, among a chaos of scarcely visible ruins, is
a kind of socle, upon which are still legible the letters 7!=9. They
are undoubtedly part of '+7!=9!. Now, at Sparta were a thousand temples
and shrines to a thousand different divinities. How exceedingly strange
that the altar of Laughter should have survived all the others! But in
the present instance," he resumed, with a singular alteration of voice
and manner, "I have no right to be merry at your expense. You might well
have been amazed. Europe cannot produce anything so fine as this, my
little regal cabinet. My other apartments are by no means of the same
order--mere ultras of fashionable insipidity. This is better than
fashion--is it not? Yet this has but to be seen to become the rage--that
is, with those who could afford it at the cost of their entire
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