Page:Romance & Reality 3.pdf/108

106 we usually think that very fine which we do not quite understand; secondly, they were rather grateful to a gentleman who exerted himself so much for their entertainment; and thirdly, the king and the custom-house officers, liberty and French brandy duty-free, were, somehow or other, entirely associated in their minds.

It is a singular thing, that it never occurred to Don Henriquez that his misfortunes were very much of his own seeking: if he had not gone to the mountain—(Liberty is a mountain-nymph—is she not?), the mountain would never have come to him. He had been under no necessity of becoming a member of the Cortez, and still less of talking when he got there. Neither did that very obvious truth suggest itself, that if his plans for illuminating and ameliorating the human race were so excellent, he might first have tried a portion of them on his own estate—reformed his own house, before he tried to reform the world. It will readily be supposed that Lorraine took a different view of the case, and, after two or three lingering days, prepared to set forth in search of his intended and injured father-in-law. Farewell—it is a sorrowful word enough