Their tones were so shrill,
their manners so presuming, their knowledge so crude, and their general
demeanour so completely unamiable, that it was impossible to hear them
without delight, advantage, and admiration.
The women were not now the only sufferers and the only complainants.
Dinned to death, the men looked gloomy; and even the King, for the first
time in his life, looked grave. Could this Babel, he thought, be that
empire of bliss, that delightful Fantaisie, where to be ruler only
proved that you were the most skilful in making others happy! His brow
ached under his light flowery crown, as if it were bound by the
barbarous circle of a tyrant, heavy with gems and gold. In his despair
he had some thoughts of leaving his kingdom and betaking himself to the
mermaids.
The determination of the most precious portion of his subjects saved his
empire. As the disciples of the new school were daily demanding, 'What
is the use of dancing? what is the use of drinking wine? what is the use
of smelling flowers?' the women, like prescient politicians, began to
entertain a nervous suspicion that in time these sages might even
presume to question the utility of that homage which, in spite of the
Grecian Philosophers and the British Essayists, we have been in the
habit of conceding to them ever since Eden; and they rushed again to the
King like frightened deer.
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