Ah, Tom! you know what we used to hear in the "Beggar's Opera," long ago. "'Tis women that seduces all mankind." I suppose it's true. I suppose that if nature has made us physically strong, she has made us morally weak.
I wanted to be resolute; injured and indignant, I did my best to feel outraged, but it wouldn't do. The touch of three taper fingers of an ungloved hand, the silvery sounds of a soft voice, and the tenderly reproachful glance of a pair of dark blue eyes routed all my resolves, and I was half ashamed of myself for needing even such gentle reproof.
From that moment I was her slave; she might have sent me to a plantation, or sold me in a market-place, resistance, on my part, was out of the question; and is n't this a pretty confession for the father of a family, and the husband of Mrs. D.? Not but, if I had time, I could explain the problem, in a non-natural sense, as the fashionable phrase has it, or even go farther, and justify my divided allegiance, like one of our own bishops, showing the difference between submission to constituted authority, and fidelity to matters of faith,--Mrs. D. standing to represent Queen Victoria, and Mrs. Gore Hampton Pope Pius the Ninth!
These thoughts didn't occur to me at once, Tom; they were the fruit of many a long hour of self-examination and reflection as I lay alone in my silent chamber, thinking over all the singular things that have occurred to me in life, the strange situations I have occupied, and of this, I own, the very strangest of all.
It must be a dreadful thing to be really sick in one of these places. There seems to be no such thing as night, at least as a season of repose. The same clatter of plates, knives, and glasses goes on; the same ringing of bells, and scuffling sounds of running feet; waltzes and polkas; wagons and mule-carts; donkeys and hurdy-gurdies; whistling waiters and small puppies, with a weak falsetto, infest the air, and make up a din that would addle the spirit of Pandemonium.
Hour after hour had I to lie listening to these, taking out my wrath in curses upon Strauss and late suppers, and anathematizing the whole family of opera writers, who have unquestionably originated the bleating performances of every late bed-goer. Not a wretch toiled upstairs, at four in the morning, without yelling out "Casta Diva," or "Gib, mir wein." The half-tipsy ones were usually sentimental, and hiccuped the "Tu che al cielo," out of the "Lucia."