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magnificent vases--"to dream has been the business of my life. I have
therefore framed for myself, as you see, a bower of dreams. In the heart
of Venice could I have erected a better? You behold around you, it is
true, a medley of architectural embellishments. The chastity of Ionia
is offended by antediluvian devices, and the sphynxes of Egypt are
outstretched upon carpets of gold. Yet the effect is incongruous to
the timid alone. Proprieties of place, and especially of time, are
the bugbears which terrify mankind from the contemplation of the
magnificent. Once I was myself a decorist; but that sublimation of folly
has palled upon my soul. All this is now the fitter for my purpose. Like
these arabesque censers, my spirit is writhing in fire, and the delirium
of this scene is fashioning me for the wilder visions of that land
of real dreams whither I am now rapidly departing." He here paused
abruptly, bent his head to his bosom, and seemed to listen to a sound
which I could not hear. At length, erecting his frame, he looked
upwards, and ejaculated the lines of the Bishop of Chichester:
"Stay for me there! I will not fail
To meet thee in that hollow vale."
In the next instant, confessing the power of the wine, he threw himself
at full-length upon an ottoman.
A quick step was now heard upon the staircase, and a loud knock at
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