Page:Works of Thomas Carlyle - Volume 22 (US).djvu/199

 Chamber-räthin, Commerce-räthin, Legations-räthin, or Devil and his Dam's räthin: I am here and will buy it, and be it. Tomorrow I send riding posts to Saxony and Hessia, to Prussia and Russia, to Friesland and Katzenellenbogen, and demand patents. Nay, I will carry matters farther than another, and be all things at once, Flachsenfingen Court-rath, Scheerau Excise-rath, Haarhaar Building-rath, Pestitz* Chamber-rath (for we have the cash); and thus, alone and single-handed, represent with one podex and corpus a whole Rath-session of select Raths; and stand, a complete Legion of Honour, on one single pair of legs: the like no man ever did."

"O! now thou art angel-good!" said she, and gladder tears rolled down; "thou shalt counsel me thyself which are the finest Raths, and these we will be."

"No," continued I, in the fire of the moment, "neither shall this serve us: to me it is not enough that to Mrs. Chaplain thou canst announce thyself as Building-räthin, to Mrs. Town-parson as Legations-räthin, to Mrs. Burgermeister as Court-räthin, to Mrs. Road-and-toll-surveyor as Commerce-räthin, or how and where thou pleasest——"

"Ah! my own too good Attelchen!" said she.

"—But," continued I, "I shall likewise become corresponding member of the several Learned Societies in the several best capital cities (among which I have only to choose); and truly no common actual member, but a whole honorary member; then thee, as another honorary member, growing out of my honorary membership, I uplift and exalt."

Pardon me, my Friends, this warm cataplasm, or deception-balsam for a wounded breast, whose blood is so pure and precious, that one may be permitted to endeavour, with all