Page:Works of Thomas Carlyle - Volume 22 (US).djvu/40

 Devil pours a wash-basin down on me, or I bolt against some fellow coming out, and get myself engaged in endless quarrels till the time is clean gone.

"Ah! well-a-day! whither are ye fled, ye blissful dreams of coming fortune, when I proudly thought that here I might even reach the height of Privy Secretary? And has not my evil star estranged from me my best patrons? I learn, for instance, that the Councillor, to whom I have a letter, cannot suffer cropt hair; with immensity of trouble, the barber fastens me a little cue to my hindhead; but at the first bow, his unblessed knot gives way, and a little shock, running snuffing about me, frisks off to the Privy Councillor with the cue in its mouth. I spring after it in terror; and stumble against the table, where he has been working while at breakfast; and cups, plates, ink-glass, sand-box, rush jingling to the floor, and a flood of chocolate and ink overflows the Relation he has just been writing. 'Is the Devil in the man?' bellows the furious Privy Councillor, and shoves me out of the room.

"What avails it that Conrector Paulmann gave me hopes a writership: will my malignant fate allow it, which everywhere pursues me? Today even! Do but think of it! I was purposing to hold my good old Ascension-day with right cheerfulness of soul: I would stretch a point for once; I might have gone, as well as any other guest, into Linke's Bath, and called out proudly: 'Marqueur! a bottle of double-beer; best sort, if you please!' I might have sat till far in the evening; and, moreover, close by this or that fine party of well-dressed ladies. I know it, I feel it! heart would have come into me, I should have been quite another man; nay, I might have carried it so far, that when one or other of them asked: 'What o'clock may it be?' or 'What is it they are playing?' I should have started up with light grace, and without overturning my glass, or stumbling over the bench, but in a curved posture, moving one step and a half forward, I should have answered: 'Give me leave,