She Was A Trim, Well-Made, Tempting Girl, With A
Rougish, Dimpling Face, And Fine Chestnut Hair Clustering All About It.
The Moment I Got Fairly Smitten, There Was An End To All Playing.
I was
such a creature of fancy and feeling that I could not put on a
pretended, when I was powerfully affected by a real emotion.
I could
not sport with a fiction that came so near to the fact. I became too
natural in my acting to succeed. And then, what a situation for a
lover! I was a mere stripling, and she played with my passion; for
girls soon grow more adroit and knowing in these than your awkward
youngsters. What agonies had I to suffer. Every time that she danced in
front of the booth and made such liberal displays of her charms, I was
in torment. To complete my misery, I had a real rival in Harlequin; an
active, vigorous, knowing varlet of six-and-twenty. What had a raw,
inexperienced youngster like me to hope from such a competition?
I had still, however, some advantages in my favor. In spite of my
change of life, I retained that indescribable something which always
distinguishes the gentleman; that something which dwells in a man's air
and deportment, and not in his clothes; and which it is as difficult
for a gentleman to put off as for a vulgar fellow to put on. The
company generally felt it, and used to call me little gentleman Jack.
The girl felt it too; and in spite of her predilection for my powerful
rival, she liked to flirt with me. This only aggravated my troubles, by
increasing my passion, and awakening the jealousy of her parti-colored
lover.
Alas! think what I suffered, at being obliged to keep up an ineffectual
chase after my Columbine through whole pantomimes; to see her carried
off in the vigorous arms of the happy Harlequin; and to be obliged,
instead of snatching her from him, to tumble sprawling with Pantaloon
and the clown; and bear the infernal and degrading thwacks of my
rival's weapon of lath; which, may heaven confound him! (excuse my
passion) the villain laid on with a malicious good-will; nay, I could
absolutely hear him chuckle and laugh beneath his accursed mask - I beg
pardon for growing a little warm in my narration. I wish to be cool,
but these recollections will sometimes agitate me. I have heard and
read of many desperate and deplorable situations of lovers; but none, I
think, in which true love was ever exposed to so severe and peculiar a
trial.
This could not last long. Flesh and blood, at least such flesh and
blood as mine, could not bear it. I had repeated heartburnings and
quarrels with my rival, in which he treated me with the mortifying
forbearance of a man towards a child. Had he quarrelled outright with
me, I could have stomached it; at least I should have known what part
to take; but to be humored and treated as a child in the presence of my
mistress, when I felt all the bantam spirit of a little man swelling
within me - gods, it was insufferable!
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