Page:In a winter city, by Ouida.djvu/9

2 time had few rivals, perhaps, indeed, no equals, upon earth.

By what strange irony of fate, by what singular cynical caprice of accident, has this fairest of cities, with her time-honoured towers lifted to her radiant skies, become the universal hostelry of cosmopolitan fashion and of fashionable idleness? Sad vicissitudes of fallen fortunes!—to such base uses do the greatest come.

It is Belisarius turned croupier to a gaming-table; it is Cæsar selling cigars and newspapers; it is Apelles drawing for the "Albums pour Rire;" it is Pindar rhyming the couplets for "Fleur de Thé;" it is Praxiteles designing costumes for a Calico-ball; it is Phidias forming the poses of a ballet!

Perhaps the mighty ghosts of mediæval Floralia do walk, sadly and ashamed, by midnight under the shadow of its exquisite piles of marble and of stone. If they do, nobody sees them: the cigarette smoke is too thick.

As for the modern rulers of Floralia, they have risen elastic and elated to the height of the situation, and have done their best and uttermost to