as though her very beauties were combustible—destructive. And knowing their fears, at length she never spared them. [Pg 54] The Hon. Cesar Candituft sits beside his sister. Could we get behind those scenes that every man carries in his brain—(acting, with his tongue and eyes, just so much of the play as seems fit to him)—it is not improbable that we should behold the gentleman levelling this hedge—widening this road—pulling down that scrubby row of cottages—and making many other improvements, by anticipation, in his property of Marigolds. His property, when he shall marry Bessy Carraways; and her father—finally put aside from the mildew of the city—shall sleep in the village church beneath a substantial covering of very handsome marble. With the hopes, nay the certainty of marrying old Carraways’ heiress, it was not Mr. Candituft’s fault if these very natural thoughts would present themselves. Certainly not. Who can control thought? Who can dismiss it, like an insolent servant? Who, too, can prophesy, what thought the dial finger on the next minute will bring him? We are thus earnest in common-place, that we may attempt to excuse Cesar Candituft; of all men—all men say it of him—the most kind, the most obliging; nay, the most forgiving. Let Candituft have an enemy seeking him with a drawn sword; and Candituft, with no more than a rose in his hand, will strike away the blade; and in a quarter of an hour make the wicked fellow ashamed of himself, that he could feel a moment’s anger against so good, so calm, so generous a creature as Candituft. Good, noble, sagacious Candituft! They who know him best, call him the Man-Tamer. [Pg 55] [Pg 55] That old tall man, with a very big head on a thin stalk of neck, is Colonel Bones. He goes everywhere. He looks vulgar and grubby; yet is he accounted as costly clay among a certain number of very worthy Christians; as precious as is Jerusalem earth to exiled Hebrews. He gives himself out as prodigiously poor; but people, in these times, are not to be gulled. The world—(that is, the kernel of the world—for the world is as a cocoa-nut; there is the vulgar outside fibre, to be made into door-mats and ropes; the hard shell, good for beer-cups; and the white, delicate kernel, the real worth, food for the gods)—the world knows the secret of Colonel Bones. Ingenuous old soul! He believes the world will take him at his word; will receive him as the pauper he declares himself. Sly Colonel! The world knows better. The world, in its winding sagacity, has worked out the truth; and therefore,
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