You feel a pang of pleasure or pain? It is noted in your
memory, and some day or other makes its appearance in your manuscript.
Why, in your last Roundabout rubbish you mention reading your first
novel on the day when King George IV. was crowned. I remember him in his
cradle at St. James's, a lovely little babe; a gilt Chinese railing
was before him, and I dropped the tear of sensibility as I gazed on the
sleeping cherub."
"A tear--a fiddlestick, MR. STERNE," I growled out, for of course I
knew my friend in the wig and satin breeches to be no other than the
notorious, nay, celebrated Mr. Laurence Sterne.
"Does not the sight of a beautiful infant charm and melt you, mon ami?
If not, I pity you. Yes, he was beautiful. I was in London the year he
was born. I used to breakfast at the 'Mount Coffee-house.' I did not
become the fashion until two years later, when my 'Tristram' made his
appearance, who has held his own for a hundred years. By the way, mon
bon monsieur, how many authors of your present time will last till the
next century? Do you think Brown will?"
I laughed with scorn as I lay in my bed (and so did the ghost give a
ghastly snigger).
"Brown!" I roared. "One of the most over-rated men that ever put pen to
paper!"
"What do you think of Jones?"
I grew indignant with this old cynic.
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