Page:In a winter city, by Ouida.djvu/192

Rh that are obtainable. But then all these are no novelties, they are merely habits. Habit is nothing better than a harness; even when it is one silvered and belled. You have exhausted everything too early; how can it have flavour? You pursue an unvarying routine of amusement: how can it amuse? The life of the great world is, after all, when we once know it well, as tiresome as the life of the peasant—perhaps more so. I know both."

"All that may be right enough," said the Lady Hilda, "but there is no help for it that I see. If the world is not amusing, that is not our fault. In the Beau Siècle, perhaps, or in Augustan Rome—"

"Be very sure it was the same thing. An artificial life must grow tiresome to any one with a mind above that of a parrot or a monkey. If we can be content with it, we deserve nothing better. What you call your discord is nothing but your dissatisfaction—the highest part of you. If it were not treason to say so, treason against this exquisite apparel, I would say that you would be more likely to know happiness