Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 2.djvu/898

890 account of the proceedings.—Editors of the "Oceanic Miscellany."]

—The liberal and untiring editors of the "Oceanic Miscellany" commissioned their special reporter to be present at the Great Breakfast given by the personage known as the Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table, furnishing him with one of the caput-mortuum tickets usually distributed on such occasions.

The tables groaned with the delicacies of the season, provided by the distinguished caterers whose names are familiar in our mouths as household words. After the usual contest for places,—a proceeding more honored in the breach than the observance,—the band discoursed sweet music. The creature comforts were then discussed, consisting of the various luxuries that flesh is heir to, together with fish and fowl, too numerous to mention. After the material banquet had cloyed the hungry edge of appetite, began the feast of reason and the flow of soul. As, take him for all in all, the bright particular star of the evening was the distinguished individual who played the part of mine host, we shall make no apology for confining our report to the

on the whole we have had a good time together, since we became acquainted. So many pleasant looks and words as have passed between us must mean something. For one person who speaks well or ill of us we may safely take it for granted that there are ten or a hundred, or an indefinite number, who feel in the same way, but are shy of talking.

Now the first effect of being kindly received is unquestionably a pleasing internal commotion, out of which arises a not less pleasing secondary sensation, which the unthinking vulgar call conceit, but which is in reality an increased consciousness of life, and a most important part of the mechanism by which a man is advertised of his ability to serve his fellows, and stirred up to use it.

In the present instance, the immediate effects of the warm general welcome received were the following demonstrations:—

1. The purchase of a glossy bell-crowned hat, which is worn a little inclined to one side, at the angle of self-reliance,—this being a very slight dip, as compared to the outrageous slant of country dandies and the insolent obliquity indulged in by a few unpleasantly conspicuous city-youth, who prove that "it takes three generations to make a gentleman."

2. A movement towards the acquisition of a pair of pantaloons with a stripe running down the leg; also of a slender canary-colored cane, to be carried as formerly in the time when Mr. Van Buren was President.—[A mild veto from the schoolmistress was interposed.]

3. A manifest increase of that monstraridigitativeness,—if you will permit the term,—which is so remarkable in literary men, that, if public opinion allowed it, some of them would like to wear a smart uniform, with an author's button, so that they might be known and hailed everywhere.

4. An undeniable aggravation of the natural tendency to caress and cosset such products of the writer's literary industry as have met with special favor. This is shown by a willingness to repeat any given stanza, a line of which is referred to, and a readiness to listen to even exaggerated eulogy with a twinkling stillness of feature and inclination of the titillated ear to the operator, such as the Mexican Peccary is said to show when its dorsal surface is gently and continuously irritated with the pointed extremity of a reed or of a magnolia-branch. What other people think well of, we certainly have a right to like, ourselves.

All this self-exaltation, which some folks make so much scandal of, is the most natural thing in the world when one gets an over-dose of fair words. The more I reflect upon it, the more I am