Page:Vivian Grey, Volume 1.djvu/239

 Mr. Grey. Now what character, or what situation in life, would you choose, if you had the power of making your choice?"

"That is really a most metaphysical question. As is the custom of all young men, I have sometimes, in my reveries, imagined what I conceived to be a lot of pure happiness:—and yet Mrs. Million will perhaps be astonished that I was—neither to be nobly born, nor to acquire nobility, that I was not to be a literary man, nor a warrior, nor indeed any profession, nor a merchant, nor even a professional dandy."

"Oh! love in a cottage, I suppose;" interrupted Mrs. Million.

"Neither love in a cottage, nor science in a cell."

"Oh! pray tell me what it is."

"What it is? Oh! Lord Mayor of London, I suppose; that is the only situation which answers to my oracular description."