Page:Through a Glass Lightly (1897, Greg).djvu/66

 Truly it is a beverage of romance and laughter, this Champagne. In the lush green by Upper Thames, when summer shines on the glancing hair, the corks have broken forth and shot skywardly, singing the song of prodigality and abandonment. To look at life through this clear and golden medium was to cast seriousness to the winds. Clouds would fleet past the midday sun and darken for a brief spell the moon of night: but in these clear depths there was nothing of cloud, nothing of shadow; only, as should be, a heyday of laughter and romance. For, of all the transparencies this world can offer, none is so beautiful; none is so precious as that through which you behold the shining soul of a jest. And where else shall you look for, and more inevitably find it, than in this Dom Pérignon? God rest the