In this critical age, filial piety must hide
herself in a closet, if she has a mind to darn her
father's linen.
Shortly after, I was the more fully convinced
that I had been too early an intruder, when a
wench came to fetch away the basket, and recommend
to my courtesies a red and green gentleman
in a cage, who answered all my advances by croaking
out, ``You're a fool---you're a fool, I tell you!''
until, upon my word, I began to think the creature
was in the right. At last my friend arrived, a little
overheated. He had been taking a turn at golf,
to prepare him for ``colloquy sublime.'' And
wherefore not? since the game, with its variety of
odds, lengths, bunkers, teed balls, and so on may
be no inadequate representation of the hazards attending
literary pursuits. In particular, those formidable
buffets, which make one ball spin through
the air like a rifle-shot, and strike another down
into the very earth it is placed upon, by the maladroitness
or the malicious purpose of the player---
what are they but parallels to the favourable or
depreciating notices of the reviewers, who play at
golf with the publications of the season, even as
Altisidora, in her approach to the gates of the
infernal regions, saw the devils playing at racket
with the new books of Cervantes' days.
Pages:
389
390
391
392
393
394
395
396
397
398
399
400
401
402
403
404
405
406
407
408
409
410
411
412
413